User:Mcjorda/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
William Rowan (biologist)

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 this article because William Rowan seems to be an interesting scientist. Not only was he the first to discover that the shortening of daylight is what affected bird migratory patterns, but he was also a talented artist and musician. I like that he is so well rounded, and his personality based on the sources was something else.

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.)

The lead of the article is virtually non-existent with the exception of a one sentence overview. The lead describes what field he is in, but misses his significance entirely. The rest of the content is in need of improvement as well. There is not a significant amount of information available about this person in public record (many sources contain similar information) but there is definitely more than is listed here. Particularly, I think it is important to highlight Rowan's love of the arts. Although his accomplishments in this field pale in comparison to his scientific work, Rowan was actually a well respected photographer and sketch artist. I think adding a section that outlines Rowan's accomplishments would be useful. Additionally, some of the content that is present is not corroborated by a source or is linked to sources that no longer exist. This is connected to the greater problem that very few of the source links actually work. The sources need to be updated as well as gaining some additional sources. The biography of William Rowan is listed as a source, but is not referenced in the body, so this work needs to either be referenced or moved into the body of the article (potentially both).

Overall the tone of the paper is fine and does not lead to many biases. The writing quality, on the other hand, is not great. There are several sloppily worded sentences that could be copy edited for clarity. The article could also stand to be divided into sections to give it a better structure. The article seems to move chronologically but also includes a long section describing his scientific work in the middle of the paper. Adding section dividers would allow the updated Lead to be read more easily and would also help people who are using this as a reference to obtain the either biographical or scientific information they seek with more ease. I think it would be helpful to add a picture of William Rowan but it may be difficult to find one that meets Wikipedia's guidelines.

To conclude, I think the article needs a lot of work. It would be most useful to reorganize the article and then proceed to add more information and citations. Finally, summarizing the significance of William Rowan's life in the Lead to provide more clarity on why he deserves a Wikipedia page is essential.