User:ScienceGoose/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Color guard (flag spinning)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate this article because I was in Color Guard throughout my high school career. It is something that is very near to my heart and I would love to compare my experiences in the activity, to what it is defined by on Wikipedia. It will also be nice to learn a little bit more hopefully, about my favorite activity.

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.)

The lead paragraph of this article introduces the topic on a very basic level that anyone can understand in the first sentence. Throughout the first paragraph, a little more detail defines what color guard is, where you can find it, and its purpose. The leading section however, does not address the major sections of the article. The leading section is a wonderful tool for someone who may want to understand what color guard is on a very basic level, without going into detail of the history, or deep explanations of the different types.

The content of this article is extremely relevant to the topic. It discusses the origination and history of color guard as well as how it has adapted over time. The content is up to date as it is just general information about the topic. I did feel like there are some topics that were touched on that might not have been needed, or that could have been addressed as a subtopic. For example, the groups in the WGI section could have been included in other sections or as its own. There was no mention of the grouping for marching bands, even though it is an important detail.

The article is very neutral, not persuading anything but just giving a description of the topic. Most of the information was touched on in a good way, but there could have been more representation throughout by having more, or better sections.

The sources of this article are not the best, it is even mentioned when you open the page that it needs to be worked on. A lot of the sources are no longer linked, or aren't even attainable. For example, there is a letter discussed in the History section, that has no proof or way to read. As of Sep 2022, the URLs were called, "uninformative and vulnerable to link rot." Most of the sources are current, being within the last 5 years. There are many sources that are historic, used in the History section. However, I do feel as though the references were added that didn't actually contribute to any of the information in the article.

The article is written very clear. It is easy to understand even if you have no background on the topic. I did not see any grammatical errors on the page. I feel like there are a lot of details in the article about things but it could've been broken down better instead of by different types of guard. There could have been different sections that broke down the activity more. For example, I would have discussed the grouping of the bands in its subsection. I also would have put the equipment in its own section, pointing out that all different forms of color guard use the same equipment rather than bringing up few pieces here and there. I'm not too sure how to break it down better, but I think the article is broken into three or four big sections that could be broken down into more detailed sections that address more information, better.

There are very few images in this article but hey all seem to follow the copyright guidelines. The images aren't necessary but they do add a little bit of clearance as to what the activity looks like. There could be more images added to enhance the article. For example, when describing the different types of equipment, you could add an image of the equipment for clarification.

On the talk page, there is discussion about changing the name of the article which doesn't make sense to me as the title of the activity is Color Guard and it is not to be confused with the Military's Color Guard. There is a part brought up about if you have no idea what color guard is, that after reading this article they learned nothing. I feel like the article touched on a lot of details but explained them. Its is also discussed that the article does need some better image representation as well as some more general information of the activity.

Overall, this article could definitely use some work from the community. I believe that it did a great job of explaining what color guard is, and where it comes from. However I do believe that there are sone problems with the references as well as the lack of information. The article is well developed, with descriptive wording pertaining to the topic. Although it is well developed, it could be better. As mentioned before, there could be more information about the topic in more descriptive sectioning that go into more detail.