User:Lyola-ann/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Mende people

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I recently learned about the Mende people. There is so much information about this society including the Sande and Poro society. I wondered if any of the information in this article would be biased or have more information on one society than the other.

Evaluate the article
I did a quick scan of the Mende Society article and immediately noticed the lack of photos placed in spots where photos should be. For example, the Mende mask section. Multiple symbols that are incorporated into the masks are written about here and a photograph to show these masks would be appropriate. This section also discusses that many masks are made from a kpole (cotton) tree for girls being initiated into the Sande society. A picture of this tree could be placed beside this information. Photos of their unique hairstyles, jewelry, and carvings should be shown as well since all three of these are important to them. Some sections, including dancing, white clay, and hair have no sources attached to the notes section to back up the facts presented.

In the lead section of the article, it does a nice job of explaining where the Mende people are located. However, it does not mention the Poro or Sande societies which are vastly important to the Mende people. The lead section should give a small amount of information on these two societies since they are heavily discussed in the article. The article does successfully break down the important points related to the Mende people; It's developed well. The article begins with broader information like history, language, clans, and common jobs. Compared to the amount of information on the Sande society, the information on the poro is not as extensive. Then it dives into information on specific topics like secret clans, dances, hair, and neck rings. I found no misspellings and all the facts presented seem to not be biased or opinionated. Everything presented seems to be neutral but the lack of information on the Poro might infer to readers that the Sande society or the female culture is more important. This throws off the balance of the article. Implicating a larger section for the Poro trainings and service that must be completed would benefit this article.

As for the reference section, there appears to be only four references, and only one has an IBSN. But the notes section is full of references. They have been placed in the wrong section. I also found 12 places where it says "citation needed" throughout the article. There are also various spots that say "who?" and "by whom" placed after sentences. The sources used do not seem reliable. about 80% of the references include website articles instead of books, scholarly articles and peer reviewed articles. Most come from the same website, just different articles. There is a lack of range of the sources used. many sources don't have links to press on and are under-developed. The talk page shows someone asking people to read the "cite your sources", "verifiability", and "weasel word" tips Wikipedia provides before re-adding statements. they give direct links to those pages that can give someone information and i think that is extremely helpful. People also seem to be writing questions about the article for others to think on and help provide more research. This talk page is within the scope of WikiProject Africa. Its supported by WikiProject Liberia and WikiProject Sierra Leone.

Overall, this wiki page does a good job at going from the broad information to the more specific information. But the lack of information on male culture and the Poro society is dissapointing. I would say its underdeveloped but could easily get better if more scolarly articles and books were referenced.