User:Shamsajeeli/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Vertebrate

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 because I have always found evolution to be very interesting. This article reminded me of the saying: "we were once fish." As time progressed these fish started adapting to new environments and eventually diversified into a bigger group of animals. My preliminary impression is that I thought that there could have been more information added to some of the sub categories, it was informative and straight to the point but still felt vague.

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 of this article includes a concise introductory sentence but it does not provide the reader with a clear main point that the rest of the article should be based on, as the information is very dispersed, arbitrary and with no correlation to one another. For example, it discusses the sizes of the vertebrates, the population of them, the specific groups the vertebrates comprise and then goes into specific and detailed information regarding vertebrates. This lead includes a brief description of only some of the article's major topics. However, when discussing  these topics it goes into specific detail about them and does not provide the reader with a general overview or main point. For example, it mentions the size of vertebrates and then talks about how hagfish are part of the vertebrate subphylum with overly detailed pieces of evidence. Furthermore, the article itself  includes information that was not introduced in the lead; such as Anatomy, Morphology and Phylogenetic classifications.

In comparison to the lead, the content of the article does relate back to the topic of vertebrates. It lists the important parts of the Anatomy: the Vertebral Column, Gills, and the Central Nervous System; which were discussed in the lead, somewhat, depth as well as the reproductive systems and the different types of mating and reproducing. Also, the evolution of how vertebrates started and evolved through the many years they have existed, starting from the first vertebrates to what they are today. The article flowed into talking through the phylogenetic tree which relates accordingly to the evolution of vertebrates in the way it shows the descendants of each group of vertebrates. The content of this article was updated September 12, 2021 which is up-to-date. Almost all of the basic information that is needed to learn about Vertebrates is in this article but the subtopics could be further expanded for someone that is doing research of some kind on a specific subtopic. This article does not deal with Wikipedia's equity gaps as it is about animals and not women, minorities, or historically underrepresented populations.

The tone and balance are  from a neutral viewpoint; it is a scientific research article so it is based  on facts- Specifically facts on the origin of vertebrates and their evolution, therefore, there wouldn't be any biased opinions or viewpoints.

All of the sources and references in this article come from scientific abstract journals of which many of them were published 10 years ago or older by numerous different authors in every reference including professors and biologists. The content in the journals reflects on the information given in the article since it is facts based. The sources given are  good references because almost all of them are peer reviewed scientific articles, although they could have been more up to date as many of them are from over a decade or two ago. Additionally, clicking on the links given, a lot of them seem to work.

Besides the fact that the lead is a little messy, the article seems to be well-written and organized into different subsections of the topic. It clearly shows the topics in the contents section and they  are divided in a way where the information flows into one another. For example, the sections go from evolution to classification to number of extant species that are grouped together to show what they are classified as. Although it is faulty in the way it went from discussing the classifications to talking about the reproductive system. The reproductive system could have been included in the Anatomy and Physiology section as they relate to each other more or at least discussed right after that in a section entirely of its own. The grammar and spelling of the article is correct and has no errors. It uses periods and commas in the correct manner and all the words are spelled correctly.

The article includes images that helps visualize the information given and enhances the understanding of the topic by having the title of the image to be very forward and relatable. All of the images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations as the users have used their own photos which are shown once the photo has been clicked on. The majority of the images were laid out in a typical way on the right side of the sections. The "Phylogenetic relationships" section could have been organized better because right now the images are all under each other on the right hand side of the section. If the images were stacked next to each other in multiple rows, it would look cleaner and more coordinated.

In the talk page discussions, the majority of people were curious about specific animals that were mentioned in the article because they did not understand the way that the list of classes was organized. Most people were giving constructive criticism on the way the article was organized and not much was said about the information directly. They mainly had an issue with the classifications section. The discussion name is "Classification Chaos" and it was the longest conversation on the talk page. People kept going back and forth, saying that the section looks clear and well-made and others saying it was completely wrong. This article was rated as B-class / Top-importance and is part of two WikiProjects: WikiProject Animals and WikiProject Tree of life.

Overall, the article is well written, made and developed. It is not an outstanding article as it has its strengths and weaknesses. The article does a good job at capturing the most important topics related to vertebrates and provides many headings and subheadings that make it easy for the reader to follow and understand the information being presented. It goes into detail about the topics and does not provide vague pieces of information and evidence. The content used is also very reliable as it comes from peer reviewed scientific sources written by professors and biologists. Furthermore, the article gives the reader a second way of trying to comprehend the information by providing images and graphs in a clear and concise way. Although the article does have strengths it also has room for improvement. For instance, the lead for this article could have been written clearer and have provided the reader with a main topic. Which could have been supported with specific examples. The article could have then talked about these examples in vast detail in the content section which it already does instead of discussing these subpoints in the lead in an overly detailed way. Secondly, apart from the lead the article could have better coordinated the images that were used and made  the two graphs bigger as some of the  information on them is hard to read and encompass. In addition, images should have been added to the last section (Reproductive systems) as there are no images to support the content. This section is also a significant and meaningful part of the vertebrate topic and adding  images of Inbreeding, outcrossing and parthenogenesis would have made the article slightly better than it already is. In conclusion, the article is well-developed with some flaws which can easily be improved.