User:Maryks/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Chinese musicology

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it is part of a WikiProject that aims to improve Wikipedia information on articles about or relating to China. I think this effort is important to increase representation of diversity on Wikipedia. I also chose this article because I found the topic interesting, and found it to be too brief for the article topic.

Evaluate the article
The Lead section initially defined the article topic concisely, but continued with background information that might better suit a "history" section. The Lead did not describe the sections of the article.

The Content sections were lacking, as it only covered the musical scales and tonality associated with the topic. The article would be more comprehensive with a "History" section, or a section discussing major Chinese musicologists. The article blurs the line between the topics "Chinese musicology" and "Traditional Chinese Music", which is demonstrated by the selective content covered. Additionally, the most recent source cited is from 2002, so this information could need to be updated.

The article is written free of heavily biased tone, and maintains a neutral point of view. However, none of the claims are directly referenced from reputable sources. Only one source is cited for the entire article, which undermines the validity of the claims. Having a single source also strips the article of diversity of opinion and point of view. Even if the tone is unbiased, the article cannot be neutral if only referencing a single author. There are definitely an array of sources that could be utilized, from peer-reviewed published journals of ethnomusicologists for example.

The writing itself is clear and easy to read. I didn't notice any grammatical errors. However, the organization of content sections doesn't make sense. "musical scales" and "scales and tonality" should be one category, since tonality is an elaboration of scales. The images used along with their descriptions do greatly enhance the discussion of scales, however it's unclear where the image is from as it's not properly cited.

The talk page addresses many of the issues I've discussed in this detailed evaluation, in addition to correction of false information. It is rated Stub-Class and is part of two WikiProjects; China and Philosophy. Wikipedians on the talk page discuss the topic with emphasis on referenced sources as proof. However, it seems that there is not a lot of clear or certain information circulating on this page. The article provided a good overview of traditional Chinese scales and tonality, and also enhanced this information using an image. However, this article is definitely under-developed and could be improved in fundamental ways. Most notably the introduction of multiple reputable sources and a focus on content that better encompasses the entire topic.