User:Mclegend17/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Outline of academic disciplines

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I've chosen this article as I feel it is one that best encapsulates what interdisciplinary studies is. As interdisciplinary studies is the study of multiple subjects, I decided upon an article that can connect to a large majority of the topics. The article breaks down studies into over arching topics, the way we would think of individual colleges within a university. It gives a quick overview into what an academic discipline is before offering an expansive list of linked articles to dive into each further.

Evaluate the article
This article opens with a strong leading sentence that immediately gives the reader a solid definition of the topic as well as sets forth what they can expect to fin din the remainder of the article. It is a concise lead without any unnecessary information, and all information in it can be found later within the article. All of the information within the article is up to date and relevant. The list of disciplines includes ones such as Computer Science which would suggest it has been written with modern majors considered. There are disciplines that dive further into under represented populations. While this article does not delve into these topics, as is not the purpose of the article, it does include gender and race studies. The content of the article is strictly factual with no opinion or bias. Due to the direct, list like format, there is little to no room for author opinion to sneak into the writing. There is no notable attempts of persuasion in the article. Though the disciplines have been subcategorized into specific groups, these groupings are generally consistent and agreed upon within the academic community. The article includes a large variety of well respected sources including universities and government organizations. However, the sources are dated, including sources from 1979, 2000, and 2001. The scope of sources is small focusing mainly on universities. This does seem however like a reasonable source pool when considering the limited scope of the article. Upon investigating all of the sources I found all links to be functional and to hold the information they claimed to.The article is written in a clear, concise and easy to follow structure. Each sub header directly flows into links where one would logically expect to find them. In my reading of the article I found no spelling or grammatical errors. The article includes very few images, which may have helped aid in the flow of reading as well as breaking up large quantities of information. The few images it does offer are well captioned, though it is not clear where they come from, nor are sources to the original images provided.

The talk page of the article provides interesting discourse around it. The primary suggestion revolved around the wording and placement of disciplines. Suggestions include that there are more updated titles for specific disciplines and that they may now be better understood under different classifications than they once were. For example, one editor suggested that computer science may best fit under the umbrella of mathematics. Additionally much discussion existed around the groupings of disciplines. One editor suggested that applied and fine arts needed to be delineated, such as drawing vs. graphic design. Finally much was discussed about the removal of certain disciplines. Some felt a topic not robust enough to warrant its own discipline, while others argued it was too niche to not separate out.

Overall this article is a concise and well organized portrayal of academic disciplines. It shows clearly both how the topic is defined as well as how it is practically applied. It is well developed and covers the scope of the topic. There is still room for development as we better understand and define these disciplines, as seen in the talk page discourse. As a whole, this is a great sample article for what we look to analyze in these writings.