User:RileySchill4/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Spirit screen

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article as a trial run for evaluating wikipedia articles, and because it is in the field of architecture. The article educates about the purpose of a specific architectural feature in ancient China, as well as inform on the practical and cultural elements behind this. My preliminary impression was that the article was very brief and could have included a more specific deep dive into examples and variations of this feature.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

The leading sentence gives a concise account of the subject, but it does not really include a description of the articles sections. The lead itself seems to be treated as a body paragraph; it gives information that is not recounted in the other sections of the article. The lead is fairly concise.

Content

The articles content is wholly relevant to the topic. It is unclear if there have been any recent revelations on the subject matter. All of the content seems to serve a purpose.

Tone and Balance

The article is not biased towards any specific opinion on the subject. Viewpoints seem accurately represented and there does not seem to be any persuasion.

Sources and ReferencesAll of the information from the article is backed up from various sources pertaining to the subject. The sources come from a variety of places, however most of the sources are over ten years old. This article contains sources from a diverse spectrum of authors including sources from professors holding different degrees relating to the subject. Although there may be a wider pool of academic sources to pull from I believe the sources that they used are credible. Six of the seven sources contain links that work, one of the sources has no link.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is well written and concise. There does not seem to be any spelling or grammar errors. The article is organized into different sections relevant to the subject, but these sections are not titled nor are they addressed in the lead section.

Images and Media

This article contains three images. All images are well captioned and follow copyright regulations for Wikipedia. However, the chosen images and where they are placed could be better linked to the topics that are discussed.

Talk Page Discussion

There do not seem to be any conversations going on behind the scenes of this article, but it is considered a part of two separate WikiProjects. The article qualifies for the architecture WikiProject and the China WikiProject. Wikipedia discusses this topic in a similar way to how we discussed it in class. They do, however, go into more detail specific to the region. Similar to class Wikipedia mentions the practical purpose of this feature beyond it's believed use. The article is ranked as a starter class.

Overall Impressions

The article is very concisely written and is good for a brief understanding of the subject. Its weaknesses come with the leading section, the organization, the image placement, and the age of its sources. The leading section could be reworked to be a more general overview of the following article instead of not touching on the following sections. Furthermore, the article would benefit from subheadings that explain the nature of each section. The placement and choice of images also felt relatively unspecific. This could be improved by naming/ showing historical examples and further elaborating on their features. While the sources chosen are credible, more recent sources could add further to the readers knowledge. The article is concise but not fully complete; it is slightly underdeveloped.