User:Petromac/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Cape Breton fiddling

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to do my evaluation on this article because I did a reading on the Cape Breton fiddling style and am interested in learning to play the fiddle in this style. I hoped to learn something and to be able to add some accurate information to the article.

Lead Section
The lead section states an array of facts rather than providing an introduction that provides a concise overview, clearly identifying the topic. There are no descriptions of the article’s major sections and it is filled with information that is not present in the article.

Content
The article contains very little information, and the most recently produced reference is from 2017, so it’s not very relevant. Some of the history of Cape Breton fiddling is discussed, along with a brief mention of different dance styles associated with the tradition, and it mentions some technical characteristics associated with the Cape Breton fiddling style. The article is missing a lot of specific ornaments used by Cape Breton fiddlers and contains uncitied, misinformation about the ornaments being adapted from the ornaments used on the pipes.

Tone and Balance
The article is relatively neutral, though it contains a lot of uncited information. The thesis of the article would be that Cape Breton fiddling is a unique violin style, that falls under the Celtic music umbrella. There is not much content in this article and the thesis is not well supported.

Sources and References
As previously mentioned, the most recently produced reference is from 2017, so the information in this article is not up to date. There is a strong lack of sourcing in this article so the sources aren’t written from a diverse spectrum of authors. The majority of people mentioned in this article are from Cape Breton, though it mentions some Irish people. The links within the article leading to other Wikipedia pages work but the ones for the resources do not. Some better sources could be used for this article, such as “The Cape Breton Fiddle: Making and Maintaining Tradition” by Glenn Graham, “Traditional Celtic Violin Music of Cape Breton” by Kate Dunlay and David Greenberg, and “The Cape Breton Fiddle Companion” By Liz Doherty.

Organization and writing quality
The article is organized and lacks any grammatical or spelling errors. It is also easy to read, but it lacks information.

Images and Media
The article contains one image that adheres to Wikipedia’s copyright regulations and is well-captioned. The article would be more visually appealing if it contained more pictures, perhaps of a fiddle, and/or famous Cape Breton fiddler who had a strong impact on the tradition.

Talk page discussion
On the talk page, there is some discussion about a modified external link. There is also a discussion about removing a link and a mention of a removed section from the article page that contained a lot of biased information and poor use of grammar and spelling. The talk page says that “This article is within the scope of "WikiProject Canada". It is rated as “start-class” on Wikipedia’s content assessment scale, and rated as “low importance on the project’s importance scale. This article certainly does not discuss the Cape Breton fiddling style as in-depth as our class did.

Overall impressions
This is a very underdeveloped article. It could be improved by including more sources and improving the links. There could also be a lot of information added about the specific techniques used by Cape Breton fiddlers, along with the history of the development of the Cape Breton fiddling style.