User:Ryanzhu21/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Hippocratic Oath

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate because the Hippocratic Oath is one of the earliest concepts of medical ethics and modern physicians must take the oath before practicing, indicating its value in guiding physicians as they begin their career and practice medicine.

Evaluate the article
Lead section


 * The lead includes a concise introductory sentence that clearly describes the topic of the article, and adequately provides a brief description of the article's major sections without including information not present in the article. The lead section efficiently introduces the article without being overly detailed.

Content


 * The content is relevant and explores multiple aspects of the Hippocratic Oath, such as its origins, interpretations, implementation, and consequences for violation. While the content is up to date given how old the oath itself is, there seems to be a slight content gap in the section "Modern versions and relevance" in regards to the oath's use today, as the majority of the information about how the oath is administered is from before 2000. However, given the timeline of the history of the oath, most of the information about its interpretation, context, and text of the oath is up to date as there are not that many updates that would impact those in modern times. The content present doesn't have noticeable gaps in information or problems with equity gaps, but could be updated to reflect even more recent information in its implementation in the medical field today.

Tone and Balance


 * The article is written in a very neutral tone and does not display clear biases towards specific arguments. Furthermore, it considers a variety of viewpoints in its discussion of the uncertainty surrounding its historical origins and interpretations, and provides counterpoints to many of the points made to allow for the presentation of a variety of viewpoints. There are not viewpoints that appear to be overrepresented or underrepresented, as the article gives sufficient explanation and reference to each perspective discussed and does not attempt to persuade or argue in favor of a given viewpoint. Claims that are made that could be interpreted as an opinion are backed by sources as well. The article also does notify the reader if a viewpoint is a fringe or minority viewpoint in relation to the more agreed-upon viewpoint, and notifies the viewer if a certain viewpoint is not widely accepted.

Sources and References


 * The article's facts are supported by reliable sources and consist of a variety of sources to represent the literature base available. While many of the sources are not as recent, there are multiple recent sources as well that are utilized to substantiate claims that are made. The overall timeline of sources used is very broad, although this could be expected in an article examining the history of an ancient text. There are also a diverse spectrum of authors for the sources, and all sources come from reputable journals. A brief search indicates that there are several more recent publications that could be utilized within the article to provide more modern information regarding the prevalence of the oath today, however they may not impact the claims or information already present in the article to a significant degree. The links are functional as well, and there are a multitude of sources present in the article despite the article not being too long in the first place. Several sections have multiple sources as well to help verify the information stated.

Organization and writing quality


 * The article is well-written and is clearly organized and not overly complicated to follow. The information is also presented in a logical order based on the timeline of the oath, and the sections are broken down to cover the relevant topics related to the oath. While the article utilizes a variety of viewpoints for some concepts that are introduced, the relationships between the points made within a given topic remain clear to understand. There are no noticeable spelling or grammar errors, and overall is written in a professional manner.

Images and Media


 * The images present help enhance understanding of the topic by providing historical images of Hippocrates and the text of the oath itself. However, those are the only two types of images present, but given the nature of the article, there may not be many more different images that would serve a useful purpose. They are laid out in a visually appealing way and are well-captioned without violating copyright regulations. They do not present problems of interfering with the article itself based on how they are present on the page.

Talk page discussion


 * The talk page for this article primarily is discussing varying interpretations of the oath, as well as any revisions that have been made by different translators. There are some conversations about making the wording more clear, but most of the conversation is about resolving issues with Greek and Latin lexicon as modern understandings are changed over time. It is part of WikiProjects Greece, Medicine, History of Science, Philosophy/Ethics/Ancient, Classical Greece and Rome. The article is mainly rated as C-class within relevant WikiProjects. Compared to how we have discussed the Hippocratic Oath in class, the article also presents the oath based on its historical significance and how it has been interpreted, but doesn't include as much discussion of other Hippocratic writings within the Hippocratic Corpus, insteading focusing on the oath's translations and its use throughout history.

Overall impressions


 * The article's overall status is C-class, indicating that while substantial, more cleanup is necessary before the article can be rated more highly. The article's strengths lie in the variety of balanced viewpoints presented in its interpretation, as the article covers many different interpretations and provides many different indications of how the oath has been implemented. The main weakness of the article surrounds the uncertainty of various historical events related to the oath's creation and interpretation, which leaves many points ambiguous. In addition, as our understanding of ancient history improves, translations would need to be updated as we gain a better understanding of the historical events surrounding the oath. The article is well-developed for the information already present, but to have a more complete discussion, more questions that may not currently be answered are needed to have a complete presentation of the oath's history, implementation, translations, and interpretations. Nonetheless, the article presents a useful picture and could have a more complete picture once more information is available due to the complications surrounding studying ancient history.