User:Phantom's Apprentice/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Laminitis - Wikipedia

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate, because of my keen interest in Equine injuries and what can be done to prevent them. This matters because Laminitis is a well-known disease in the Equine world and to have an up-to-date Wikipedia page would be beneficial for any first-time horse owner, or rider. My preliminary impression of this article was that this article was on the thinner side and didn't contain everything that it should.

Evaluate the article
Article Evaluation:

Lead Section: The first sentence of the article explains right away what Laminitis is and what specific animal family is typically prone to. While the lead section works to help identify what laminites is in basic terms, and does include a table of contents, the specific lead does not contain any description of what the article will include. The lead section does not contain any information that would otherwise be invaluable and/or useless for the purpose of the topic. The lead is not overly concise, however there are certain words that I believe should be identified and have links added to them to help the audience who is not a vet or medical professional understand. Towards the end of the lead section, there are words such as perforation of the coffin bone through the sole of the hoof. This sentence could have a few links to showcase where the coffin bone is and what it is in relation to the hoof, and even the sole of the hood could have a link as well. Lastly, perforation is a word that is not in everyone’s vocabulary, and could be abstract, instead it could be changed to something a little more general audience friendly.

Content: The content and how it is provided does seem to relate right back to the main topic at hand which in this case is laminitis. As far as the information being up to date, I would say that information could be reviewed to see if that is true. As I have done a small search it seems that there are more and more theories developing every day for laminitis and could potentially be added to the article. As far as content that doesn’t belong, I find that theories upon how laminitis develops may be a little more on a biased side of things, however that is just a thought. The article does not align with Wikipedia’s Equity Gaps as the topic at hand does not represent historically underrepresented populations or topics.

Tone and Balance: The article retains a neutral standpoint throughout the information listed and given. My only cause for concern would be the very last paragraph of the article “Informal use of the word ‘founder’” this to me seems a little on a biased opinion side with not a lot of links or references to back up this claim. Viewpoints on the theories behind laminitis may be overrepresented. Topics addressed overall have equal viewpoints and seems to make up for the overrepresentation of theories. Due to the nature of this topic, I would say that minority and fringe viewpoints are applicable for this topic and therefore this article. There is no persuasion in the writing and the facts are stated throughout the entire article.

Sources and References: Not all facts are backed up by a secondary source, the very last paragraph “Informal use of the word ‘founder’” does not have a link back to the secondary article which is cause for concern. However, all other facts have support from reliable secondary sources most of which are peer reviewed scholarly journals. The sources are also thorough and reflect on the available literature about the topic. The sources even though reliable are not nearly as current, the most current source dates back to 2017 and the oldest dating back to 1963. I believe that there could be room for improvement for more up to date sources. The sources come from various different authors and contain various viewpoints from various cultures. All sources look to be from scholarly articles which leads me to believe that if there are other sources that could better outweigh these, then that would be more current sources. Quite a few of these sources are books which are not available for online reading, there are also multiple articles that have been taken down or moved which make it hard to verify these sources. This needs some attention.

Organization and writing quality: The writing is clear and concise and is easy to follow and read, apart from some terms be abstract, the article is well written. Any spelling errors are minimal, and the article needs some cleaning up in this area. The organization is well done, and easy to follow when reading the article.

Images and Media: The article includes one image which is that of an x-ray of a hoof which is a good starting point to pinpoint what the topic will be about, however there are no other images within the article unless directly related to linked terms and topics. The single image that does show, adheres to Wikipedia’s copyright regulations. The image is the first thing that a reader will see and is visually appealing.

Talk page discussion: The conversations going on in the talk page are aligning to the treatment and therapies used to help with laminitis, with most people arguing the treatments described in the article are current and work well in the case from a vet to a horse owner point of view. There is also talk of adding additional photos to showcase a before and after image of a healthy hood versus a laminitic hoof. The article overall is rated as a work in progress article and is connected to the following wikiprojects: Veterinary Medicine, Equine, Molecular Biology/Molecular and Cell Biology. The way Wikipedia discusses the topic is to help provide improvements based on sources used and essentially the accurate description of theories and treatment of laminitis, this differs as most comments made for our case studies were directly related to how to improve our writing on a topic and not so much our sources that we used.

Overall Impressions: Overall status is published, strengths are that there is a lot of great information regarding the history, theories, treatments, preventative tasks, and phases of the topic of laminitis. This will help to give a full background on the topic for anyone who is interested. What could be improved would be updating sources to more current information, and the use of less abstract words so that the article is more reader friendly. The articles completeness would be assessed as well-developed it just needs some cleaning up.