User:Nsnoel/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Sam Harris

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
As an intended sociology major, I am highly interested in social philosophies and philosophers. While exploring through Wikipedia, I noticed a name I have not heard before and decided to read the page. Initially, the page appeared to be organized in a thoughtful manner that allows the reader to absorb the information without being too heavily distracted by images or other items. I also found it fascinating that Sam Harris, the sociologist and philosopher at hand, is very young: something unusual in many sciences.

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 section of the article is concise, clear and detailed enough to give the reader a strong idea of the content of the article without explaining too much. The overall content of the article is up-to-date as of 2020, including references to his podcast which allows the reader to access real time updates about his work as he uploads more podcasts. In the "Views" section of the article, some of the sections have sufficient information while others like "Free Will" are short and do not give the reader enough information about his views. All content within the article is relevant to the topic and no information is misleading or distracting. The article does not deal with an underrepresented population and therefore would not be covered beneath the umbrella of Wikipedia's equity gaps. As for the tone of the article, the authors have deliberately and carefully explained responses to Harris' views by presenting many sides and portraying them without bias. Some of Harris' ideas border fringe philosophies and they are labeled as such. There are possibly too many left-leaning viewpoints discussed in opposed to more right-leaning philosophies. On the topic of sources and citing, the authors accurately cited their work with useful, working links and a variety of sources in regards to content and viewpoint. There is a warning noting that too many of the sources are directly from one point of view for the "Views" section, so that needs to be updated with more encompassing citations that more accurately address the topic. I did not notice any spelling or grammatical errors within the article and the writing is generally good with professional language and accurate punctuation and organization. The only images included on the page are of Sam Harris and his signature. Other relevant images of his books, or his podcast could elevate the page's quality. The images are captioned well and do not infringe on Wikipedia's copyright rules. Much of the talk page refers to Harris' status as a neuroscientist or not. There are conflicting theories on whether or not his studies qualify as neuroscience or if he just has a degree in neuroscience but is not actively using it, references were linked to competing sources. Overall, the article is informative, uses relevant information and displays both sides to the complicated topic of views on religion and other sociological and philosophical beliefs. To improve, more images, information about his specific views and better sources should be added to enhance the effectiveness of the article.

This looks like a good article to serve as a model. You may want to do an entry on a Latinx sociologist and/or political theorist.