User:Peeparoni/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Myth of the flat Earth

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I believe that the flat earth myth is relevant through all times, even still today, yet the article itself seems to have minimal information and sources regarding its prevalence. I also want to do more research on this topic to understand the science behind each theory, and would like to see if there are any definite reliable sources that support the myth. I think this pertains to our class well and is an interesting topic to explore while we dive into "The Planet" portion of our course.

Lead Section

 * The first sentence of the article does get across the point of the whole well, but could use more sources pertaining to that fact that are not from the same author. Something about the first sentence feels weird, and possibly biased. The sources are also from over 20 years ago and could use updating as well as rephrasing.
 * There is no brief descriptions for later section, and seems to jump right into the business in the second and third paragraph. I would like to see more prepping before getting into information that could be placed later on. I do appreciate the first paragraph with the history but I feel as if this entire section could be used elsewhere in the article and doesn't belong in the beginning.
 * The articles introduction includes a lot of good points that I don't see elsewhere in the article, which is odd. I feel like all of the paragraphs would good introduction into individual sections, but instead the introductions are included in the lead section, which causes for confusion later and mismatched ideas in the beginning.
 * The lead seems overly detailed and that information, at least to that degree, isn't necessary for the introduction and lead. Like I previously stated, I feel like those paragraphs would work better in later sections as an introduction to those.

Content

 * The content is relevant, but is misplaced and jumps around often. Sometimes I feel as if the phrasing seems biased and unnecessary.
 * Judging that this is a history article, I don't think the information could be out-of-date, however the newest information is from a CNN news article, and only consists of a sentence or two. I think it could benefit from better and newer content.
 * I feel like there could be a lot added, but nothing seems out of place. The information that is there pertains to the topic.
 * Not really, but the debate doesn't seem to be a civil and repressed matter.

Tone and Balance

 * The article wants to maintain a neutral tone, but this article being that in the title they literally call it a myth, seems off-base and biased. I'm not sure what the exact procedure for an article of this type is, but it uses a lot of adjectives I don't deem necessary for the discussion.
 * The entire article is wrote to almost agree with the side of debunking the myth, but I think it should be more from a historical-telling of events rather than adding in weird descriptors for the pro-flat earth side.
 * The pro-flat earth side seems completely misrepresented and almost from a ignorant point of view from the writing, while the sources and content disagreeing with this is pretty neutral, which causes for a lot of misbalances.

Organization

 * Like I said previously, the introduction is off and could benefit from moving those paragraphs elsewhere. The article is in chronological order so that is good.
 * The article is fine to read, but I feel as if it is unbalanced and takes on a different type of writing through each section.
 * I don't note any obvious misspellings or grammar errors.

Images and Media

 * There are 2 images in this articles. Both are good, but definitely could use more, perhaps at least one for each time period.
 * Each are captioned well and are of public domain.
 * They are laid out fine.

Talk Page and Discussion

 * There are very little conversations going on in the talk page. One regarding the size of Columbus's ship and it's inaccuracy, one regarding tone in facts, one adding another philosopher into the article, and one removing a "Flat Earth society" point and instead making it an article since it is a deep topic in itself.
 * It is a C-class article and in the WikiProjects for History of Science, Mythology, and Middle Ages.
 * This article dives much deeper into the concept and each individual philosopher's opinion, while we haven't talked too deeply about it and only mentioned it in passing.

Overall Impression

 * The status of the article is definitely mediocre and neglected over this year, having the last recent edit be made last June.
 * I think this article's strengths consist of a deep knowledge of many philosophers' opinions of this Flat Earth Myth, and offers a lot of information from each one of them.
 * I think this article's weaknesses are lack of proper tone, configuration, and recent information.
 * It is underdeveloped overall, but overdeveloped and poorly-developed in odd places.