User:MatBelio44/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: Songhai Empire
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. This article was assigned to me.

Lead
Guiding questions:


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? Yes.
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? No.
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?No.
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? To me, it seems overly detailed.

Content
Guiding questions:


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic? Yes, the article describes the Songhai Empire, which is relevant in the context of Muslim society's in Africa as it was the biggest society in Africa at it's peak.
 * Is the content up-to-date? Yes. Through looking at the history of the article, it is updated recently atleast once a month.
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? To my knowledge, no. It talks about the start of Songhai, to it's peak, and then to it's decline. The article also gives context with pre-Songhai and post-Songhai Empire.

Tone and Balance
Guiding questions:


 * Is the article neutral? Yes, the article appears to be neutral.
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? Not from what I can see. Everything that is said in this article appears to be neutral and just informative of the Songhai Empire.
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? I suppose the decline is underrepresented in this article, although this is from 500 years ago, so there may have just not been a lot of information on that.
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? No.

Sources and References
Guiding questions:


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Most of them are, although there are a few where it says citation needed.
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? Yes, the sources used are thorough.
 * Are the sources current? The sources are not as current as they would probably like it to be, with the latest source being from 2007 and the earliest being from 1979.
 * Check a few links. Do they work? Some of the links work and take you to the book or database where the information was taken from, but some of them also do not work.

Organization
Guiding questions:


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read? Yes, it follows a concrete path of rise of the Songhai Empire to the fall of the Songhai Empire. It's easy to follow and it doesn't jump around.
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? No.
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? Yes, as I said before, it follows the path of the rise, and then fall of the Songhai Empire. After that discussing the culture of the Songhai Empire.

Images and Media
Guiding questions:


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? Yes, although fewer than what I would have liked to understand the topic more.
 * Are images well-captioned? Yes, as well-captioned as the images provided can be.
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? To my knowledge, yes, as I've seen the Timbuktu Manuscripts before numerous times on the internet, the Tomb of Askia in Gao is a photo of a tomb, and the other two images are maps.
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? Yes, they go along with what is being talked about and the image helps to paint a better picture.

Checking the talk page
Guiding questions:


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? The Talk page consists of the authors discussing their information on the topic.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? The article is part of 3 WikiProjects, and is rated Start-Class in two of those, and C-Class in the third WikiProject.
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions
Guiding questions:


 * What is the article's overall status? The article provides thorough information on the Songhai Empire and even though it lacks in it's information on the decline of it, it provides well enough information on the other aspects of the Songhai Empire.
 * What are the article's strengths? Using it's sources appropriately.
 * How can the article be improved? I'm not sure that it can be improved by much. This topic is 500+ years old, the people who wrote this seem to know a lot about the topic, so maybe they've found all the research there is on the Songhai Empire and used it.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed? The article seems to be complete. It doens't seem to be missing any information.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback with four tildes ~


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