User:Mmorourke/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Diphthong

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it was the first topic pertaining to linguistics that came to mind, and it is one that is (relatively) basic enough and that I have enough familiarity with in order to reasonably be able to evaluate its quality.

Evaluate the article
The lead section seems quite good. The lengthy etymology/pronunciation guid in the parenthetical within the opening sentence is pretty long and makes skimming a bit difficult, but I don't see any way it could be improved. Removing the parenthetical would simply remove the information completely which is not obviously not desirable, and the information it contains is already as concise as it can be. Otherwise, the only failing by the given criteria that this lead section has is that it does not describe each of the article's major sections. It might benefit from a quick explanation of the different types of diphthongs. That being said, it does not feel incomplete when reading it, and serves as a perfectly passable primer on the concept on its own.

The content within the article is likewise of good quality. Nothing seems out of place or incomplete, and the sections are thorough without getting too in the weeds and covers an impressively broad range of examples. I did not catch any instances of bias or inequitable treatment, and everything seemed to be well sourced and current (as far as I can tell, being a total layman). It certainly has frequent edits and updates on the page history, which continues up to the past week as of this writing. My only negative note on content is that like the etymology in the lead section, the use of various technical notational markings and IPA symbols throughout harm the general readability of the article. Though again, this is a criticism for which I have no suggestions, as these are as far as I can tell irreplaceable in regards to the content they provide and in how they are used to that end. I doubt that this page could be written to any acceptable level of detail without these portions.

The article seems balanced. There does not appear to be any controversy or flame wars that have taken place in the talk page, and I didn't pick up on any persuasive language or non-neutral tone anywhere in the article. From what I can tell, it is well-written, well edited, and well moderated.

The sources seem to be well in order. They are many, and present throughout the article, suggesting that the content within is well supported. They all seem to be quality sources as well, and come from a broad range of places (published works, academic journals, and dictionaries make up the most common sources). I did not find any dead links in the ten or so that I opened. The article has an additional citations needed banner, but as far as I can see they pertain only to the Length subsection of the Types section, and have since been partially remedied. Further citation for this section would of course be best. Other than that, the largest issue with sources to my eye is that of the 48 present at time of writing, only two come from within the last decade, and those two are small footnotes at that. Now I don't suppose that diphthongs are where the cutting edge of linguistics research is taking place, so I do not see this as a large issue, but it is something worth noting and potentially revising.

The article is well written and well organized. It is concise, and its clarity and readability I have discussed above. There is not anything about the writing itself or of the organization of the article that warrants fixing in my view.

Media is understandably scant in this article. The audio file in the lead is relevant to the corresponding passage, if not particularly useful. The few images in the body are easy to understand (at least to me, although to be fair I have prior experience with vowel charts and so may not be a good judge of that), and are helpful to the understanding of their accompanying sections. They are made and shared with the appropriate licensing for Wikipedia use as well. I think the article would be improved by the inclusion of more of these charts accompanying the examples that do not already have them.

As aforementioned, the talk page is not particularly exciting. The bulk of it is taken up with requests for, suggests of, or corrections to the many examples given. The article is C-Class rated and is part of the Linguistics WikiProject.

The article overall is good in my opinion. It does a good job explaining in detail the various features and varieties of diphthongs, and the examples given are illuminating. I think that the biggest area for improvement is in the citations overall. Filling in the portion that still needs further citation is necessary, and perhaps updating some of the older citations to more current ones, or at least supplementing with some newer material might lend further credence to the article as well.