User:Reesedog15/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
2014 Democratic Republic of the Congo Ebola virus outbreak

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
This article matters because it describes an outbreak that caused 66 cases and 49 deaths, yet received next to no coverage compared to the larger contemporary Ebola outbreak in Western Africa. It is important that Wikipedia offer correct and easily accessible information about this outbreak. My preliminary impression of the article was that it is relatively brief, but seems to do a pretty good job of providing the most important information.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section

The lead section for this topic successfully defines the topic and provides a concise overview. The introductory sentence clearly defines the article's topic. The lead does not include any information that is not present and it is not overly detailed. However, the lead lacks a brief description of the article's major sections.

Content

The article's content is relevant to the topic of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in the DRC. The article is brief, but it does not seem to be missing any critical content. This page addresses an event in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is often neglected in media coverage.

Tone and Balance

The tone of this article is neutral. It is not biased toward a particular position.

Sources and References

All facts in the article are backed up by a reliable secondary source of information. These sources include publications from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, various news outlets, and the Journal of Infectious Diseases. Sources overwhelmingly stem from sources external to the DRC. Ideally, the sources should be more inclusive of the country in which the outbreak occurred. Also, very few of this article's sources are academic and peer-reviewed. That being said, there are plenty of sources provided for this brief article, and each link functions as it should.

Organization and Writing Quality

The writing in this article is both clear and professional. It is informative and easy to read. It does not have any spelling or grammatical errors. The flow of the writing is logically broken down into well-labeled sections.

Images and Media

This article does include images that enhance understanding of the topic. Images are well-captioned and adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. Also, images are laid out in a way that is visually appealing.

Talk Page Discussion

Presently, there is no discourse on the talk page for this article.

Overall Impressions

Overall, this article is pretty strong. Its weaknesses include a need for more organization in the lead section and more diverse and peer-reviewed sources. Its strengths are the quality of writing and its consistent neutral tone. The article is easy to read and does not use too much jargon, which is important for the sake of sharing information with as many readers as possible. This article is well-developed, but could use a bit more refinement in the areas I've identified above.