User:Tdl120300/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Animal language

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose the article "Animal Language" to evaluate as animal language is a key component to better understanding animal behaviour as a whole. Understanding the way animals communicate with each other and contrasting it with the way humans communicate with one another can allow us to see the similarities and differences that us as humans have with other species and it can allow people to further their knowledge and research of animal behaviour. At first glance this article looked rather well developed and appeared to have lots of important information within.

Evaluate the article
The lead section of the article animal language is strong. It begins with simple a definition of animal language while also containing hyperlinks for anyone who would like a more in-depth definition of some of the concepts that will be discussed while talking about animal language. The remainder of the first paragraph describes animal language in a bit more depth, briefly discussing about different ways animals communicate. The first paragraph is short and informative. It defines animal language and explains with enough detail for anyone who is looking to understand the most important concepts of animal language without having to ready the entirety of the article.

The remainder of the lead section highlights more concepts that will be talked about in the article. It introduces arguments made by linguists that are studying animal language. The lead section is strong, it gives a brief introduction to what will be talked about in the article, introduces arguments, and introduces important people who are doing research in this field. The lead section does not go into too much depth about animal language, rather it highlights the key components of animal language.

The article goes on to highlight the aspects of human language. The article lists properties of human language as well as defining these properties. The article states how these properties are argued to differentiate human language and animal language. The article then goes on to discuss research done in primates (apes and chimpanzees) that shows some animals exhibit the properties of human language. This section remains neutral presenting both sides of the argument, however in some parts of the section it does present more research that supports that there is a connection between human language and animal language. Another note is that in the fifth paragraph of this section it starts by saying "Human language may not be completely 'arbitrary'". The use of the words "may not" are vague and could imply an opinion. Although it is followed up with research supporting why human language is not always arbitrary, the use of the words "may not" can be open for different interpretations. A potential change that could be made to this paragraph is opening with something along the lines of "Research has shown that human language is not always 'arbitrary'" or "It has been shown that human language is not completely 'arbitrary'". This simple change shows that there is a reason to be saying this. Then once this is changed and followed with the research on why this is being said would help improve this article.

The following section discusses studied examples in primate animals. This section presents a fact about human language and follows up the fact with research of this phenomenon shown in baboons. It highlights the key components of the experiment and states the main findings.

The next six sections discuss studied examples in non-primates’ animals. This includes birds, insects, mammals, aquatic mammals, and mollusks. Each of these six sections are laid out in a similar way to the section that discusses studied examples in primate animals. It highlights examples of animals in the six listed categories, discusses ways they communicate one another, and presents research that backs up what is being said and shows how we know what method each specie uses for communicating. Like the previous section, these sections remain neutral and state the facts and findings of studies that have been completed.

These sections are short and concise, they do not go into extensive detail about the experiments but has references and hyperlinks that the reader can go into if they would like to learn more about what is being discussed. However, for anyone looking for a quick summary that still contains lots of useful information, then these sections succeeded in doing that.

The final section of this article compares the terms "animal language" and "animal communication". The first paragraph in this section is done well. It is short and concise. It presents what will be talked about and gives an example of the research that has been completed. However, as we move on in this section, it becomes very long and wordy, there are many parts that could be condensed without losing any of the valuable information. It primarily discusses the controversial aspects of animal language, who has researched this topic as well as their findings. However, the headline of this section is "comparison of the terms 'animal language' and 'animal communication'" yet much of the section only discusses animal language and the controversy of that term. The first paragraph is essentially the only paragraph that discusses animal communication and even then, it only briefly touches on it without giving much information.

On top of this section being long and overly detailed, there are some parts that contain words that are not necessary. An example of this can be seen in the sixth paragraph of this section when it begins the new paragraph with "However, overall," this could easily be shortened down into either "however" or "overall", there is no need for there to be both words. This is just one example, but there are many parts of this section that have unnecessary words added which causes the reader to lose the main point of this section and focus more so on the unnecessary words used.

The biggest issue with the final section of this article is the citations. Five different times throughout this final section of the article, it states that there are citations needed. This will make the reader question the validity of this section of the article and possible the entire article. Without the proper citations, the information in the article is not valid and should not be in there. There is no way for the reader to fact check what is being said, as well as it could be subject to copy right. This is a major problem and would need to be edited before using the final section of this article as a valid source of information.

The article does not contain many figures, however the figures used are effective. There are four figures used throughout this article, three of which are images and one that is a clip of humpback whales’ song. The figures are labelled and described well, however adding more images and clips would make the article more visually appealing and could potentially add more valuable information to the article.

At the end of this article there is an overwhelming number of references, which in theory is excellent, it shows that there was lots of research done on this topic. However, the articles in-text citations are done poorly with some sections not containing a single citation. This causes there to be issues when as while the reader is going through the article there is no way to fact check what is being said. The reader is unable to know that what is being said is true and backed up from completed research. Anyone who would like to use this information in their own papers would not be able to as they do not know where the facts came from. By having very few in text citations there are also copy right issues that arise. The information could be completely plagiarized and there is truly no way of knowing.

The talk page of this article has lots of great conversations happening, including suggestive edits. Some other users made comments about the content of the last section of the article, some of these comments included criticism on how the points about animal communication did not need to be brought up as it is a completely different concept than animal language. This user then goes on to list their planned edits for the article. Many other users also made comments about the lack of in-text citations. One user states how there are many references at the bottom of the article but very few in text citations. This causes issues as the reader will not know what reference is used for what part, this leads to confusion and anyone who would like to use the information in the article in their own written piece would not be able to as they would not know what and where they need to cite. There is a lot of information and constructive criticism being presented in the talk page of this article which will help other editors of this article develop it to contain more concise information as well as improve the citations.

Overall, the article is okay. It is not considered to be a strong article from start to finish, but it does have some strong aspects to it as well as weak ones. The lead section is done extremely well and gives enough information without going too in-depth about the topic. Anyone who is looking for a quick bit of information on this topic could do so by reading the lead sections of this article. The article, however, does go off on tangents which can get wordy and confusing in some areas. Not all the information presented in this article is necessary or even relevant. The article could benefit from being shortened and removing some of the details so that the reader can focus on the information and facts of the article. The figures and media that is used in the article, does help make the article more visually appealing and informative. They are relevant to the topic. The article could benefit from more images however the images that are already present are sufficient.

The biggest concern about this article though as previously mentioned would be the references and in-text citations. Although there are lots of references present at the bottom of the article, there are not enough in-text citations throughout the entire article. The last paragraph is very poor when it comes to having in-text citations, this causes much of that section to not be valid.

By adding in more in-text citations, removing some of the unnecessary content, and potentially adding more visuals, this article could be considered a well-developed article.