User:LeolaCaster/Evaluate an Article

Forensic Science
I have chosen Forensic Science for my article evaluation   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_science

From my interest in studying criminal justice, I have learned that Forensic science plays a huge role in solving cases and processing evidence. Forensic science is something that is used across the world and is constantly evolving. Due to this constant evolving it is important to have up to date information on processes used and background information leading to these processes.

The article begins by explaining the etymology of the word forensic. The only problem that I was able to find would be that it gave a citation to the Shorter Oxford English dictionary but when you click on the link it leads to a wikipedia article on that specific dictionary. It would be better if it were possible to find a citation that had a link that you could click on and it would lead directly to the definition of Etymology. With not being able to see forensic etymology from that citation makes the information questionable.

The next paragraph goes into the background history of forensics. It gives  information about how criminal investigations relied heavily on forced confession. It references different cultures such as China and India. It described how the burning of the tongue was a way to determine whether someone was lying or not. Whenever I went to click on the link for the information it was invalid. Although, I was able to find information stating the burning of the tongue was a way to determine whether someone was telling the truth or not. There were more videos on the topic and I was able to find one article which was from a foreign website and which could be used as a reliable source. The information that was provided was factual from videos, but needed  a written citation.

The following articles go into depth about the development of forensic science such as different methods that are used to identify people, substances, cause of death, and technological advances. The citation for these following information were accurate sources. The only concern I have would be the accessibility to the sources because some of them were ebooks that one would have to purchase. Finding a few articles that had online links may be helpful for someone who would not have access to the buying an Ebook. Also, the chronological order of the paragraphs could be switched around because it tends to go from one subject to another subject and then back to the first subject.

The article has a subdivision section which is beneficial, but some of the articles have little to no information. These would be good articles to either add to or take out of the subdivision section of this article. It also goes into detail about the social aspect of Forensics which was a good addition to the article because it gave relevance to today’s society.

The lack of citations and little to no information in some paragraphs would be a major thing that would need to change about the article.Most of the links were accurate and lead to the information in the paragraph. The subdivision section is a very helpful in the fact that it allows for you to find out about different categories in forensics. The talk page mostly added links to information and added topics that should possibly be discussed in the article.

The article’s talk page discusses the citations added within the article and it talks about different forensic studies that should be added to the article. The problem with finding things to add to the article is there aren’t many resources for certain forensic studies. Forensic science is just now developing and all information is not available.