User:Pfeifkat000/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Snowy Owl

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose the Wikipedia article on the snowy owl because it's been one of my favorite animals for many years. Additionally, it is listed by the IUCN as a vulnerable species, making it pertinent to my Conservation Biology class.

Evaluate the article
This article has a very strong, descriptive lead section. The first sentence is engaging, and most of the subsections seen later are briefly described; furthermore, most people who would perform a preliminary search on snowy owls would extract valuable information from a quick read. In this manner, it is just concise enough.

Looking through the extensive citation list showed that the editors for this article have updated it with information relevant to the past ten years. There were multiple sections relating to diet, and while it is interesting information, some of it could have been pared down to improve readability.

The article was written in a very objective manner; few would find any sense of bias or sway from the style of writing or information presented. As mentioned previously, diet could have played a less prominent role overall.

Browsing through the sources (nearly 300 citations), it was clear that editors have been updating the article with relevant information, especially as it pertains to climate change and recent research. The links are active and functional, and sources appear to be varied and diverse. In the future, editors could possibly improve the article by including more sources from marginalized groups, such as indigenous groups living in tundra environments with snowy owls.

The article is very professional-looking, well-organized, and written with few (if any) grammatical or spelling errors. It is a long article, so it isn't necessarily "easy to read" for many.

The images utilized are concisely-captioned and easy to understand (most are photos). However, some of the images used to support blocks of text don't relate at all to the text sections. For instance, pictures of snowy owls are used where maps or spatial displays would be most relevant/useful.

From the Talk page, it can be seen that this article is part of WikiProject Birds, Canada/Territories, and Arctic; furthermore, it is rated C-Class. It looks like it's been inactive for a few years, but the suggestions posed seem relevant and interesting (such as adding more information about nocturnality). The politeness and respect between editors should be noted, and appreciated.

This article is well-developed, with an abundance of well-sourced information and editing time. Strengths include depth of information and overall professionalism, while one notable weakness is the lack of representative/helpful images for some sections.