User:Sunnyyp/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Linguistics

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 it seemed to be an interesting and relevant topic to myself. I am interested in studying languages and wanted to gain a deeper understanding as to what linguistics is beyond just the definition. I think this article is significant for those who are exploring linguistic studies. It is a helpful article for those looking to understand the background and origin of linguistics as well as the different components within the study. My preliminary impression of this article was that it summarized a lot of general information very well considering the broad scope of the topic. I did feel this article was lengthy but it is understandable considering the topic. Additionally, the language was easy to read which is a good sign for those who would use the article to get a general idea of linguistics.

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.)

This article was informative and provided substantial content on linguistics. Here are a few suggestions I would consider:

Lead section - This section creates a good roadmap for what the rest of the Wikipedia article will talk about. The overall language of this section is not overly detailed, it just provides a brief summary. All the appropriate words are hyperlinked to other Wikipedia pages and includes a small portion of history which does not overpower the section entirely

Content - I would suggest you place the section on relativity in a separate section. Perhaps with the historical origins of linguistics. While it seems to be part of language varieties much of the content within has to do with people who are relativist which seems to deviate from the information in the section. Content is up to date as many of the sources date from 2022-2023 and is relevant to the topic presented. I would like to suggest a section on future studies or ongoing studies in regards to linguistics. For example, are there any researchers discovering new patterns/methods of linguistics? In this section, the author could address underrepresented groups of people in the field like woman who were not mentioned anywhere in the article.

Tone - I think overall the articles tone is very neutral. It simply retells information in a nonbiased way. As mentioned earlier most of the sections draw on past research done by males during the 18th century to 20th century. However, the article is not only centered around Indo-European languages but also provides discussion on Native American Language families and other underrepresented groups.

Sources & References - The links within this article work and the source supports the claims in the article. Sources come from credible websites organizations that specialize and are affiliated with linguistics in some way. There are a variety of authors which checks with the large amount of information under this topic. The author included many informational books but I would suggest less use of encyclopedias. Additionally, the authors of the sources seem to be from varying nationalities which is a positive considering the topic being discussed. Only suggestion would be to include more female authors to get a diverse gender perspective.

Organization and Writing Quality - The article is well-written and has no grammatical or spelling errors. The author uses higher level word choice but this does not disrupt the overall tone or make the article impossible to understand. As mentioned in the content section there are a few changes that could be made.

Images and Media - This article could include more pictures to help supplement the immense amount of words, However, the two pictures that are included have descriptive captions and adhere to Wikipedia's copyright rules.

Talk Page Discussion - There are a few conversations going on behind the scenes. Most of them are in regards to small editing changes or advice on a couple sources to cite. One discussion is surrounding the opening sentence which may come off as hard to understand for some readers. All sections of this article are rated C-class and is listed as a level 3- vital article in society. The article is related to the following WikiProjects: Linguistics, writing, and languages.

Overall Impressions - I believe certain sections of the article could be reordered and the opening sentence could be less repetitive. Overall, the article did a good job summarizing certain pieces of information and giving a succinct guide through the history of the broad topic that is linguistics think the article is well-developed but could include some more current research/breakthroughs in linguistics.