User:Lhernandez152/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Maya architecture

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article because Mayan Architecture is interesting, with all of the designs carved into the rock, and the shape of the buildings themselves. It matters because the Mayans have a particular style that really stands out in the world of art.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section


 * "Maya architecture spans several thousands of years, several eras of political change, and architectural innovation before the Spanish colonization of the Americas." is the first sentence. This sentence does not really tell you what it is, or describe it. Instead it just states that it existed before the Spanish colonized America - which is quite obvious since the Mayans were there first. So no, this sentence does not clearly describe the topic.
 * Yes, the first paragraph does tell us about their unique designs, such as the stepped pyramids, and it briefly mentions the intricate carvings on the stone, among other details.
 * No, everything is covered in the article.
 * The article is not overly detailed.

Content


 * Yes, everything is related to their architecture.
 * Yes, the content seems to be quite up to date. The last edits were in 2019, and that was a student that replaced dead links.
 * The section on the Ballcourts seems to feel out of place, because it talks about the game they used to play there and how it worked - which is not relevant to the architecture. Although they do talk about the layout and architecture of the court, most is about the game.

Tone and Balance


 * Yes, the article is from a neutral point of view.
 * No, claims do not seem biased.
 * No, the article does not attempt to persuade, just educate.

Sources and References

Organization and Writing Quality
 * No, not all the facts are backed up by a source. There are whole sections with no source, such as Urban Design. Then there are others with the [citation needed] text.
 * Yes, sources are current, or at the very least have been checked/updated in the last 3 to 4 years.
 * I checked a few of the links, and they do work. I saw in the Talk page that a prior student went in and replaced a dead link.
 * I checked a few of the sources and they are from reliable sources such as books or academic articles. One was from what looked like a "random website" but they also cited a book on the topic.


 * There are no grammatical errors, and the article is well written.

Images and Media


 * Some of the images are vaguely related, but do not enhance the paragraph. The one in Urban Design just shows a faraway shot of the site, which does not show much anyway. It does not show the Urban Design that the paragraph is talking about.
 * The captions on a lot of the images do not have helpful information. Most just state which archeological site is pictured, but we have to go back and read the paragraph to understand what we are looking at.
 * The final section on caves is a little short and has no image of said cave. It would be interesting to show the cave they are talking about. For example, here it would be interesting to see the artificial cave they are referring to.

Talk Page


 * There is some talk about the page possibly being copyrighted/copy pasted here from another website. And a student editor that went in to change a link and edit some information/syntax. Other than that, the talk page is essentially void of any possible discussion/changes.

Overall Impressions


 * The article is overall nicely presented. However, some of the images could be better chosen to show what the paragraph is referring to, and one paragraph towards the end feels like it does not belong.