User:Justme26/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Portal:Viruses.)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate because it correlates to a topic that we talk about often in class; viruses.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

The lead section is detailed enough to give the reader a gist as to what viruses are. It's not very long but it contains the main information written in a concise way. The lead of the article gave an insight to the topics that were going to be talked about throughout the article.

Content

The contents presented in this article are relevant to the topic of viruses. The whole article itself is not up to date as of today because it has not been updated since March 6, 2023. It's been less of a year but updating the article with new information would be helpful. There was a section dedicated to "selected outbreak" that happened in 1978. In my opinion I would have updated with the most recent outbreak the world has gone through and that is the COVID-19 pandemic that started in December 2019. Overall the article has a good flow and all the content such as biography of virologist, selected images, and news, etc, made sense.

Tone and balance

The article presents a neutral tone. It is a very informational and does not present any bias content. The article is written in a tone that is educational. There is no sign of persuasion and does a good job in describing the most important topics about viruses in small portions.

Sources and references

The facts stated throughout the article are properly cited. All the sources are related to the topic. Some of the links are not available anymore, so they should be updated. It is very helpful that there was a section dedicated to "recommended articles"; this section is relatable because people can go look for other articles that also talk about viruses. The sources that were credited are well known sites that can be reliable such as WHO.

Organization and writing quality

The way the article was written is very well, because it is broken down to short sections with the most important information. It was also formatted to where it flows well for the reader, first starting with an introduction about viruses, then the reader learns more about how viruses are formed, it then moves on to explain how viruses can affect, and ending with information to backup the points stated previously.

Images and media

All the images and media presented in the article are well cited, especially for wikipedias standards. They are also demonstrated in a well manner, clear, and correlating with the information that was given.

Talk page discussion

The talk discussion page only has three comments. It seems that the "talk page" consists of things that people think should be changed in the article. A specific talk that I was interested in was that someone was asking for permission to update the timeline, where they want to add the COVID -19 outbreak that happened in 2019-2020. I agree with this because the timeline should be up to date to be reliable. The way the article was written is not the same that is taught in a lecture class but it includes the key points of viruses. In class the topic is discusses with much more detail. I would rate this article "good".

Overall impression

The overall status of this article is "good" and that is because it is very educational with appropriate sources linked to well known information about viruses. The strengths of this article is that its not very long and it gets straight to the point with the information presented. The article can be improved by updating some of the information to more current incidents, as well as correcting links that have expired. Overall, the whole article is complete and has a lot of good information for someone who is just looking for a gist as to what viruses are.