User:Markbpaine/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Moundville Archaeological Site

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose the Moundville Archaeological Site because we recently examined it for a case study in this class. I wanted to see how well the Wikipedia page lines up with the articles we looked at for the case study.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

Yes, the introductory sentence does concisely describe the topic, and it touches on the major sections. The lead is overall concise enough, and it does not include extra information.

Content

The article's content is all relevant, and it does appear to be relatively up-to-date. While there may be missing content, there is none that does not belong. Interestingly, the article does not address equity gaps, even though it probably could based on the other articles we have read about the controversy around the site.

Tone and Balance

The article is very well balanced, mostly dealing with factual information about the archaeological site. It does not push any one viewpoint, and no viewpoints of note are mentioned, much less emphasized.

Sources and References

The source links do work. It seems as if most of the claims in the article are well-supported, although I do not know the sources well enough to know if they promote diverse viewpoints. Although some of the sources are recent (2021), many appear to be published in 2010 or earlier, so the information in the article may be a little out of date. It seems like many of the sources are news articles, so there may be better, peer-reviewed sources available, although news articles may be sufficient for on article of this nature.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is very well-written and well organized: the sections are easy to follow, and the writing is very understandable for a general audience. I did not notice any grammatical or spelling errors.

Images and Media

The images included are clear, high-quality, and relevant to the topic at hand. The captions could be improved: those that discuss Mounds A, B, and J cannot stand on their own without reading the article. The images do enhance understanding of the topic, and they are visually appealing. It appears as if they adhere to copyright regulations.

Talk

The talk page addresses new additions, restored information, different sources used, and external links. It is part of the following WikiProjects: Alabama, Indigenous peoples of North America, National Register of Historic Places, and Archaeology.

Wikipedia addresses this topic in a much more factual way than we have talked about it in class. While we have discussed social implications and controversy surrounding the site, wikipedia provides more factual, background information about it.

Overall Impressions

The article appears to, overall, be pretty well-presented. It does a great job providing general information about the site, although it could benefit from addressing some of the controversy around the ownership of the artifacts found there. I feel like, overall, the article is well-developed.