User:Sam ERTH/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?

Earthquake

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate because it is a topic I am familiar with, having a major in Physical Geography and a minor in Earth Sciences at Carleton University. It is a subject I enjoy learning about and have prior knowledge too so I thought it would to be a good pick for evaluation. It also mentioned at the top of the article that it has multiple issues, and had a big orange exclamation mark, so I thought evaluating it would not be too difficult.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

The introductory sentence of the lead section is short and to the point - it simply describes what an earthquake is and other common words it is called by. It uses the proper terminology without being too scientific or confusing. The lead section is a little short, and after skimming through the entire article, I noticed it does not include all of the articles major sections. The article is relatively long, with a lot of short sections, and it was not summarized in the best way in the lead. There is a few words in the lead section that are not brought up again in detail in the rest of the article - they are just mentioned again without any real description or detail. (For example, Fracking). Overall, the lead section is not as detailed as it should be if someone wants a quick overview of the entire article. It does not include all the information highlighted in the article, and the organization of the sentences are random and not very clear either. Random facts are kind of just clumped together without any adequate follow-ups.

Content

Although the organization of the article could use some work, (putting some sections before others and vice versa for a more concise and productive read), it has a good amount of content. It also links other articles that goes deeper into a certain subtopic for further readings and understanding. This article is Earthquakes overall, as a general topic, and there are other more detailed articles that focus on one aspect of an earthquake, like focus points and specific types of earthquakes. They mentioned a few aspects of earthquakes, but did not give any information on them, for example, tidal forces. This section only has a link to another article, and only a short sentence that has no information in this article. Some sections, like frequency, has a lot more information than others. After a quick skim through the reference section, I noticed that a lot of the references were from a long time ago, some over 30 years old. There are some relevant ones though, from about 5-10 years ago, but not many. In terms of general information, the article includes most of the main details there is to know about earthquakes. As mentioned before, there are some sections that have more information than others, but nothing really important is missing, as far as I noticed. There are some sections that I do not think is really relevant to the topic, for example, the section on earthquakes in popular culture, or religion. Although it is interesting to read about, it is extra information that is not really necessary for this particular article.

Tone and Balance

The article is not exactly biased, since the topic is not controversial. There are some sections that the author seems to have more knowledge on compared to others that do not have much detail. The tone is not really balanced, as it does switch from scientific to encyclopedic, as the section at the top of the article states (where the orange exclamation mark is). There is a section on mythology and religion, and it does not include many viewpoints, only Norse, Greek, and Japanese. Overall, it has a neutral point of view for the most part, even if the writing sometimes gets choppy and a bit confusing.

Sources and References

This article has quite a few issues with sources. The references are pretty spread apart, and in some longer paragraphs, there would only be one reference in the middle of the paragraph, or at the end. There is a lot of links to other wikipedia articles though, that would help readers for further clarification on a topic if they need it. The article has a lot of sources, and although some are from reputable journals, some are from encyclopaedias and other websites. Some are relatively current, but quite a few are from over 30 years ago. There is not a lot of references from the last few years. Clicking on a few links, I noticed most of them opened and are still available online, but a few are not longer available, the source was probably detailed from the site. A lot of the references did not state authors, but judging from the ones that did (from their names) it was not a huge diverse spectrum, but there definitely were some diverse authors included. I would say about half of the references were from universities/journals/government sites, but the other half (websites) probably had information that could also be found on peer-reviewed and more reputable sites. The information was probably just easier to find on the websites. Since of the paragraphs are so long, a citation should be added in between more instead of just at the start or the end.

Organization and writing quality

The writing of the article is not the best thing I've read - but it is not terrible either. It has a few complex words that are not further clarified, and might make understanding a sentence more difficult. The organization of the paragraphs is bit random, and some paragraphs have way more information than others. There is not a specific outline followed - and there are a few paragraphs on topics that are not that relevant. (ex. earthquakes in mythology). It is sectioned off okay, there are not any huge blocks of text and everything seems to have its own section/sub section/ paragraph. There are not any glaringly obvious spelling and grammar mistakes.

Images and media

The article has a few images, not too many, but each major section has at least one. There are a few photographs, diagrams, and some maps. Out of the 17 images, only three had references. They all had captions, (some more descriptive than others), but many were not properly cited. There were a few images with very minimal detail in the captions. The images are added a little randomly throughout the article and do not look very visually appealing. Many of them are only on the right side of the page - all but one.

Talk page discussion

The article is a level-3 vital article and is rated B-class on Wikipedias content assessment scale. I found it through a wikiproject as well. The talk page is minimal. There are a few sections of people brainstorming how they can improve certain parts of the article, and doubts they might have about their own skills at editing. There are quite a few edit requests that have not been done yet. We've only briefly talked about this topic in class, maybe only a few slides, so this article has a lot more information than we learned. But I have learned about earthquakes in many other classes and it is roughly the same information, though some sections are lacking detail. The talk page should discuss the images - and their lack of references.

Overall impressions

Overall this is an okay article, it is long, has a lot of good information on the topic of earthquakes, has a few images, and is sectioned off nicely. The writing style could be better, with focus on tone, and some irrelevant information could be removed. A few sections are lacking further detail, and are really short, so these paragraphs can be improved. The images should be referenced properly, and adding more wouldn't hurt. I would say it is between well-developed and slightly under-developed. It is not bad, but it can use improvement.