User:Steven Hidayat/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
The article my pair and I will be evaluating is entitled "American Bushtit."

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I selected this particular article topic to evaluate because, upon searching for species that inhabit California, I found this animal's appearance to be adorable. Therefore, it makes me excited to do research on it. Its Wikipedia page appears to be short, and unfinished, and has a C-class rating on a content-assessment scale. This suggests that not many people have been aware of this bird, and it matters to raise awareness of one of the smallest Californian birds among the general public. As a result, this provides me with lots of factors on how to improve this Wikipedia page to a high-quality one. For instance, I could add information regarding their behavior on cold days since they do not migrate.

Evaluate the article
It's a short and clear article on one of the most adorable birds I’ve seen, but I feel it is lacking in some sections.

The article’s lead section defines the topic instantly and is concise; however, I feel it does not give a nice overview or enough context to what will be presented in the upcoming sections. However, mentioning its taxonomy is a good starting point.

The contents of this article are all relevant since it is on the subject of American Bushtits. There are no contents that are out of topic or do not belong. Moreover, none of the contents deal with one of Wikipedia’s equity gaps and does not address topics related to historically underrepresented populations. Despite that, the article remains too short and incomplete; more information and elaboration regarding the bird can be added, such as its behavior during the different seasons.

The article is written in an unbiased and professional manner. There are no strong opinions here because it contains purely facts. Therefore, there are no claims of bias towards a particular position, overrepresented or underrepresented viewpoints, or fringe perspectives. It does not attempt to persuade the reader in any way.

A reliable secondary source of information backs up this article, reflecting the available literature on American Bushtit. The sources are current, and it’s interesting to see that the authors of those references have different ethnicities and social backgrounds, implying that we are getting diverse and well-rounded information and perspectives. The only negative aspect of the article is that not all presented facts have a cited reference, for instance, regarding the Bushtit’s diet and size. I found one scholarly article that can be used to add new information and further support the claims of this article: https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v099n03/p0424-p0430.pdf

This article is well-written to a certain extent; it’s concise, clear, and easy to read because of familiar words and simple structured sentences. However, it has a couple of grammatical errors, which require much cleaning up. My favorite part about this article is how they divide up information. It makes it super easy for readers to find specific information without the need to read the entire article.

I liked the choice of images in this article because it’s visually appealing and gives the reader a better understanding of the bird with clear and well-explained captions. Moreover, the writer gives credit to where they got the pictures from and cited the links, so there are no copyright issues.

There’s only one conversation on this article's talk page, which talks about the name of the species. Someone states that “American Bushtit” is not the current official name of Psaltriparus minimus, according to the most recent AOU checklist. Other than that, it presents that this article has been rated as C-class on Wikipedia’s content assessment scale and a low-importance category on the project’s important scale. In addition, it presents that I’m the only one who uses it for WikiProjects. One of the main differences between how this Wikipedia page and our class discuss species is that this page talks more about research results, such as taxonomy. However, we also focus on its appearance, behavior, and characteristics in class.

Overall, the article’s status is pretty good and has a strong starting point. It has good images, language, and organization. However, minor grammatical errors and lack of information are presented throughout the page. Therefore, I would say that this article is underdeveloped in its assessment.