User:Swyndyl/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Polish language
 * The instructions told me to choose something related to the course, so I chose a language. I chose this particular language because I can speak it, even if only a little.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation

 * Yes, the very first sentence of the article is a simple summary of the language itself. This follows what the article should be about.
 * More or less. It doesn't mention them by name, but does summarize sections like the history of the language and the geographic locations of the language.
 * I think it's more that the lead doesn't fully summarize the article. for example there is a section on dialects that is mostly absent from the lead.
 * Overall, the lead is quite concise, though I think it may need some more detail.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Content evaluation

 * Yes, the article has most everything one would need to know about Polish as a language. Anything from the vast amounts of loanwords to the pronunciation of it's unique characters is in the article.
 * For the most part yes, though rescently there has been much debate over how somethings should be gendered in Polish. For example, the word for businessman is "biznesmen." This is obviously a borrowed word and one would expect the word for businesswoman to be something like "bizneswomen" or even "bizneskobieta." This is not the case as the actual word is most often "biznesmenka", which has the diminutive "ka" ending. There is an ever growing idea that words such as this should follow a more uniform pattern or at the very least not make women seem more diminutive, like the word may imply.
 * Other than what was mentioned above, not particularly.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are over-represented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation

 * Yes, a neutral tone is maintained throughout the article.
 * No, but in all fairness, I'm not sure that there could be much bias in an article such as this.
 * No, the only thing that might lead to over/under-representation would be the dialects of Polish, but they are represented in a very evenhanded way.
 * No, it does not.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation

 * Yes, nothing that I saw had been marked with a [citation needed] and all major claims lead to a relevant source listed at the bottom of the article.
 * Yes, the sources listed cover a wide breadth of the information that is available. Anything from history to phonetics is cited.
 * For the most part yes, but one source that was listed is from 1844, though this seems to be an article about loanwords and where those words came from (my Polish is a bit rusty though).
 * Yes, even the link from 1844 lead to a digital copy of the article, which from what I was able to understand, was kind of a neat read.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation

 * Yes it is very easy to read and clearly very well researched.
 * None that I noticed, but seeing as both English and Polish can be difficult languages in terms of spelling, I'm sure there are some that I missed.
 * Yes, it is organized very logically. It starts big with the history of Polish and works its way down to the grammar and pronunciations of certain special characters.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation

 * Yes. Each section within the article has at least one picture that helps to show what the article is talking about. For example, the section on dialects has a map of where each dialect is most prevalent.
 * Yes. Each image in the article has a caption that mentions what the image is and why it is relevant to the article. For example, in the section on loanwords, there is an image of a handbag. The caption explains that the word for handbag, "torba" is borrowed from Turkish.
 * Yes, though I have to be honest, Wikipedia itself is not exactly the prettiest thing to look at (though this is not a critique on this particular article).

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

Talk page evaluation

 * There seems to be a lot of debate over the origins of many loanwords as well as the influences of other languages. There is also some debate on the classifications of sounds that Polish makes.
 * This article is rated as C-class and is a part of WikiProject Poland.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Overall evaluation

 * The article is listed as a level-4 vital article in Society.
 * The history of the language and how it relates to other Slavic languages is very strong in this article.
 * It seems that many people in the talk page think the IPA table for the language is incomplete and I tend to agree.
 * Overall, the article's status is fairly complete. There are a few, aforementioned things that ought to be added, but all in all, this is a good article.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

with four tildes — ~


 * Link to feedback: