User:SophisticatedStick/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Prehistoric music

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose it because I am interested in both history and music, and I figured prehistoric music fits both of those things. Prehistory is as far back as human history goes, so prehistorical music is where music really started, that's why it matters. My impression is that it is a lengthy article encompassing many different instruments and regions, but there were several uncited sections.

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.)

Lead section


 * Good first sentence.
 * Yes, a brief description is in there.
 * The information in the lead is all present in the article's major sections.
 * Lead is pretty concise

Content


 * All the content has info on prehistoric instruments, where they came from, and what they meant.
 * Seems up to date as far as I know.
 * There is a part in the Greece which sounds like personal speculation, "The meaning of these and many other figures is not known; perhaps they were used to ward off evil spirits, had religious significance, served as toys, or depicted figures from mythology". Possibly able to be fixed with citations.
 * In the Americas section, there is only a subsection for Canada. Is there really no prehistoric musical instruments from any of the other regions? The same goes for Africa and maybe Asia.

Tone and Balance


 * The article is pretty neutral.
 * No. Claims seem unbiased.
 * Doesn't seem like there are overrepresented or underrepresented view points.
 * Yes, it is made clear when something is uncertain.
 * No. When something is uncertain, there are multiple ideas that were thrown.

Sources and References


 * No, plenty of sections need citations.
 * Yes, sources are thorough.
 * The latest source is from 2014 and the earliest source is from 1964.
 * There are a variety of authors such as Indian, Women, articles from University of Montreal, Spanish, Germans, etc.
 * Source 25 seems like a news site or blog post that links to a secondary source, just use the secondary source. Source 30 seems a little strange to me, but I think it's a primary source with secondary source citations. Source 31 is a BBC article, the article itself cites a journal, use the journal.
 * The links work. There are even archived links.

Organization and Writing Quality


 * The article is well written.
 * No, I didn't see any grammar or spelling errors.
 * Yes, the article is well-organized.

Images and Media


 * There are 4 images that show the artifacts and some show people playing instruments, personally I think there is room for more images.
 * Yes. Interestingly, the uncited Greece sections contains a self-photographed photo that seems valid.
 * All images adhere to copyright regulations. They're all from Wikimedia commons.
 * They are laid out in an appealing way.

Talk Page discussion


 * There is discussion about changes that may or may not need to be made. Someone didn't like the use of the word "prehistory" and preferred "primitive". Questions about certain sections and why they are there. Some are about citations. Some were about replacing the term "motherese" as it is apparently antiquated. Someone worked on the article as part of their technical writing course. The last post before mine was a year ago.
 * It is a level 5 vital article. Start-class. It is part of WikiProject Archaeology, and Music genres task force of the Music project.

Overall Impressions


 * Has some well written sections. With other sections having little to no sources. I also think there is potential for more sections if I can find any sources.
 * When there are sources, they seem like good sources for the most part with a wide diversity of authors. There was a section about an instrument called a bullroarer which included videos.
 * The gum leaf section looks really short and silly when compared to the bullroarer section right below it. I feel that the Americas and Africa sections are underrepresented from a lack of content. Several sections need citations, some citations seem like they could be replaced with better ones.
 * It is a start-class article, I think it is half well-developed and half underdeveloped.