User:Lcwest/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Stoicism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate Stoicism because I am interested in this branch of Philosophy and have a basic understanding of the teachings.

Lead Section
Concise, clear, and summarized articles key sections.

Well done.

Made me want to keep reading.

Article met lead section requirements.

Content
Relevant.

Covered important aspects of the topic.

Somewhat Opinionated (see example under Sources and Reliability Section)

Tone and Balance
Seems like a balance of textbook information and personal interpretations

Would benefit from a fresh pair of eyes.

Sources and References
Are the facts in the article backed up by a reliable source of information? Not all.

After checking the first reference source of what struck me as an iffy statement, I was bummed to find out the source was not credible. This made me question the legitimacy of the entire article. Not a fair jump, on my part, to judge the article off one source's reliability.. but... that was my initial reaction. Then i started digging!

1. Under the Modern Usage:

"The word "stoic" commonly refers to someone who is indifferent to pain, pleasure, grief, or joy." (Citation 8. )

The source for this sentence is the website's author, Chris Matakas, who is a self proclaimed Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Instructor. Not that Jiu Jitsu Instructors cannot also be peer-reviewed, experts on Stoicism, but no where on this cited website indicates that he is. Urban Dictionary seems like a more reliable source for interpreting a term's Modern Usage. Not a reliable source.

2. Under the Social Philosophy section:

"They held that external differences, such as rank and wealth, are of no importance in social relationships. Instead, they advocated the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all human beings. Stoicism became the most influential school of the Greco-Roman world, and produced a number of remarkable writers and personalities, such as Cato the Younger and Epictetus." Needs a Citation.

3. Under section Origins:

"However, this name was soon dropped, likely because the Stoics did not consider their founders to be perfectly wise, and to avoid the risk of the philosophy becoming a cult of personality." seems based on assumption not facts. Needs Citation

Images and Media
Discussion in the Talk Pages confirmed they were in compliance with copyright guidelines. I didn't not double check.

Images match topic being discussed

Laid out in a visually appealing way

Good use of visual timeline as chronological reference! :)

Organization and Writing Quality
My preliminary impression of the article is that it needs some minor sentence restructuring throughout to give better continuity between fragmented ideas.

The paragraphs are organized by section.

Sections: Modern Usage and Origin need to more cited content.

Overall Impressions of Content
Content is relevant

There are vague/underdeveloped ideas (see examples below) that made me question some of the informations reliability.

While the information stated as fact seems in line with philosophy textbook teachings, many sentences still need to add citations for the information.

Talk Page and Discussions
The bulk of the Talk Page discussions were from 2010-2013. The page was listed as a Good Article nominee in 2011.

GA-Class Rating