User:Kshrikent/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
India national cricket team

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
This wikipedia article is broadly related to my research topic, which explores Indian cricket and evaluates its evolution over the last forty or so years. The article serves as an effective introduction to cricket in India, from its roots and early history to where it stands today. It stood out to me as I was familiar with a fair amount of its content; I thus felt I was in an ideal position to critique and analyse, although the argument could also be made that an objective lens benefits an article evaluation.

The articles provides heaps of useful information. Cricket is an irreplaceable aspect of modern Indian culture and studying its growth over the centuries in my opinion enables one to by extension learn more about the country as a whole.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of the article is mostly good. It opens with an introductory sentence that essentially highlights the fundamental aspects of the Indian cricket team as it is described in the remainder of the article; though this introductory sentence doesn't quite fully encompass the article's topic per se, it introduces it fairly well and ties in with the major sections to follow. In regards to concision, I will say that some of the essence of this leading section is lost due to various specific details and statistics. Furthermore, there is a sentence at the end of this section that isn't reiterated again in the article and consequently feels out of place.

Content presented in the article is seemingly current and invariably in keeping with the article's topic point that is the Indian cricket team. Additionally, the tone throughout is neutral and objective, with no real signs of bias or an intention to sway the reader in favor of a certain point of view. However, the sources and references used to generate information for this Wikipedia article are very poor. Although these sources are current when required and information is consistently and effectively cited (both in text and in the references section), there are several cases where sources chosen aren't remotely reliable. I noted a number of unreliable press materials used as sources, for example. As we have learned, academic papers and literature reviews make for far more credible sources of information.

Regarding its organization and writing quality, the article is well-structured throughout; its sections are effectively arranged and highlight several important aspects pertaining to the topic of the article. However, I would say that the article is neither particularly well written nor is it well-focused. It is often too detail-oriented and this can detract at times from the readability of the content. Additionally, it must be said that the grammar is substandard, with considerable punctuation and sentence structure errors and a number of cases of incorrect word choice.

There are various cases where images and media are employed in this article. These are used to mostly good effect and sometimes even enhance certain sections of the article. They are effectively captioned too and adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations.

All in all, I would rank this article slightly above par. It has an unbiased tone and sound, relevant and well-structured, albeit occasionally unfocused, content. However, the writing quality is relatively low in quality and, more importantly, it has used primarily non-credible sources to generate its information.