User:SoupyCube/Evaluate an Article

A meme (coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976) is a cultural phenomenon that spreads from person to person. Any cultural statement or idea can be considered a meme, such as various art styles, clothing, architecture, etc.

LEAD SECTION

The Lead section does have a strong introductory sentence. I do however think that the section could benefit from some examples of memes. The major sections are well represented in the Lead section but could use some additional references to how the study of memes intermingles with religion. The lead does not include any information that isn't present throughout the rest of the wikipedia article. It is ultimately clear and concise without too much detail, I would not change much.

CONTENT

The content for the most part is up to date but I would also add quite a bit based on my (limited, admittedly) knowledge on the subject

The Wikipedia article makes little to no mention of "Temes" a term coined in Susan Blackmore's 2008 book, the Meme Machine. A Teme (short for Technological meme) is commonly described as a technological meme, an invention is built that advances human civilization in a number of ways (I.E., the internet, the wheel, the printing press, etc.) Technological memes are an important part of memetic evolution and non-genetic human evolution as a whole.

The content of the article is somewhat up to date, the two most recent source used from the article were from 2017 and there was one more from 2013. The rest of the sources were scattered throughout the early-late 2000's with some from the 20th century as well. I think this article could seriously benefit from more updated and modern sources.

TONE AND BALANCE

Otherwise, this article seems relatively fair and concise, but I think more information and additional sources could be of use to it. I also think that the criticism section could be expanded upon. It has various critiques from people in opposition to memetic theory but doesn't go as deep as it could into why they were so opposed to it and I believe their points could be greatly expanded upon. The article is not biased or leaning in support of anything in ways that it shouldn't be, it is a fair summary of the ideas behind the study of memes.

While not particularly biased, the criticism section is lackluster at best and could use much more additional insight into what critics of the Meme idea and memetic are saying.

SOURCES

This article lists almost 60 sources, however I feel that it could use more especially regarding some of the content gaps present within the article. The sources are somewhat current, but there could absolutely be more modern sources in regards to the article (2016+). The authors of the sources seem to be somewhat diversified but the vast majority of authors used seem to be men. There can always be more room for diversity in any topic around cultural studies or any topic in general.

I checked about six of the links and they all seem to be in working order. I'll check back more and make edits if I find any aren't working or need to be updated.

ORGANIZATION AND WRITING QUALITY

The article is well written and very understandable. I didn't notice any grammatical or spelling mistakes, but I will correct any if I see them. The article is also fairly well organized but as I've said previously, is lacking content in a few different areas.

IMAGES AND MEDIA

There are only two images used throughout the entire article, both are relevant to the topic at hand. One is a picture of Richard Dawkins, the author of "The Selfish Gene" giving a talk about another book of his titled "The God Delusion" the licensing for the image is listed below if you click on it, it states that it is licensed under Creative Commons and is free to use. The other image is of a popular World War II era graffiti tag known as "Kilroy was here". the wikipedian apparently drew the depiction used in the article themselves. Kilroy was here is a strong example of a widespread meme in an era before the internet.

The images are laid out well and captioned well, however I think the article could benefit from a few more of them.

TALK PAGE

There are only three listed comments on the talk page, all of which are from late 2020 into early 2021. The article was given a C rating and it is a part of WikiProjects.

OVERALL

I would say that this article is a bit underdeveloped in some ways, It gives strong descriptions of what a Meme is and is well cited, however there could be a bit more diversity in sources as well as some additional content added.

I would ultimately rate it as under-developed but not severely by any means.

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)

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.)

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.)