User:Pavarotticarotte/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Liberal arts education

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
We want to ensure that people who check out this article glean accurate and valuable information about the subject, especially because so many schools provide a liberal arts education for students. We have personal experience with a liberal arts education and can base our evaluation on this.

Evaluate the article
While the article mentions most of its major sections in the lead section, it does so very briefly. Hence, a potential improvement could be to expand certain descriptions in the lead section to provide a more thorough overview of the article’s content.

The article provides an accurate and concise description of the subject and thoroughly explains its history. It also discusses the prevalence of liberal arts education systems in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia. There are descriptions of relatively recent events in sections like "in Europe," which shows that the information in this article is being updated. The article's history section is quite extensive and should be shortened because much of the information is irrelevant. Although the history is important, the usage of liberal arts in the modern world should have equal, if not more, weight in this article, as most readers will probably want to know more about the latter. The section "secondary school" should be expanded, as it is short and does not provide adequate information about the relationship between liberal arts educations and secondary school.

The article appears to be written from a neutral point of view. In the article, facts that are unknown or unclear are specified instead of being concealed, thus giving it an even more neutral tone. The article presents varying perspectives on liberal arts education, in particular from a number of philosopher in favour of such system, as well as those criticising it. However, criticisms towards liberal arts education are less in depth and slightly less represented compared to those in favour of the system. In addition, certain comparisons between liberal arts universities and research universities in the United States appear slightly biased, and lack of citation (potentially representing an author’s personal opinion rather than objective facts). The claims on the historical success of the liberal arts education system all appear to be supported with substantial evidence, and are therefore not evidence of biased opinions.

There are multiple sections without proper citations, so we are wary of the reliability of the information. For example, the initial description of what a liberal arts education is, the list of academic areas associated with liberal arts, and the statements within the section "secondary school" do not include citations. There are many more [citation needed] markers throughout the article, so it is imperative that the information is reviewed and sources are cited. Many of the sources that are cited are reliable, neutral, and current. There is also a good variety of sources, from books about the history of the subject to online articles about the subject in the modern world. However, some of the sources are random websites, so there is a need for more peer-reviewed articles to be referenced.

The language employed throughout the article is grammatically correct, professional, and clear. In terms of the article’s organization, certain sections have a large amount of information and could therefore be subdivided for more clarity. For instance, the “History” section could be divided into sub-categories by making the historical timeline easier to follow and grasp quicker. Sub-categories could also be introduced in the section about Liberal Arts Education “In Europe”, for instance, by dividing the section into descriptions of European institutions that currently implement a Liberal Arts curriculum, and another section for the potential future expansion of the education system in other European institutions (or of institutions that have introduced the education system very recently). Certain sections, such as that on Liberal arts education in “Secondary School” could be expanded, or merged in with another, larger section, as it is currently very brief and therefore feels incomplete.

Liberal arts education is an abstract concept, so the article does not necessarily need to have any images. However, there are existing images in most of the sections that correspond to the topic of each section. They don't enrich the article, but they provide examples of what is being discussed in each section. The images in the sections "in Europe" and "in Asia" are not current and, considering the content of these sections, should be updated. All images are accurately captioned and adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations.

The article is rated as C-class, meaning that it is considered incomplete and / or unsatisfactory but still substantial. The Talk page discussion brought up a well founded questions (“Taught in monasteries? Or where?”) about the article’s “History” section which I had personally overlooked due to my lack of knowledge on the subject. The article in question belongs to Wikiprojects, several of them (5) in fact, all belonging to a number of different categories and regarding different subjects. All of the Wikiprojects that this article is of interest to are rated C-class, and 4 out of 5 of them are labelled of either high-importance or of high-priority.

Overall, the article provides useful explanations of the history and meaning of a liberal arts education, though there is not enough information about the recent developments of the subject. The article should be better organized using different subcategories, and certain sections should be explained more in depth. We would assess the article as being slightly underdeveloped in content and unbalanced in its structure.