User:Theleot/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.


 * Name of article: Bouteloua radicosa
 * One of the suggestions provided by the training module regarding choosing an article was to find an article within a WikiProject I found interesting. I'm fond of WikiProject Plants so I perused the project's 'New Articles' list and found Bouteloua radicosa.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? Yes.
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? Yes.
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article? Yes, unfortunately. The lead discusses where the grass is native to, but fails to expand on that topic in the distribution section.
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? The lead is reasonably concise.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic? Yes; nothing in the article is not directly relevant to the topic.
 * Is the content up-to-date? Maybe? The source used the most is from 1951, but two others are less than 20 years old. Given the subject matter, this seems reasonable if not ideal.
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? I'm no Poaceae expert, but I can look to the opinions of those who are. The article is rated start-class in the plants WikiProject so I can only presume the article is missing some information.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral? Yes.
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? No.
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? The article focuses on botanical scientific description and classification. Perhaps an ethnobotanical perspective is left out?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? No.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Not quite. In the process of rephrasing sources, the writer misrepresented some facts. For example, while the article claims that the grass's panicles have seven to twelve branches, the source says "usually with 7-12 branches [emphasis added]." This omission is significant and amounts to an unsupported claim.
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? No. I was easily able to find a description of the species in Manual of Grasses for North America, a 2007 book, making it more current than any of the sources cited in the article. The absence of this clearly relevant source suggests many valuable resources may have been overlooked.
 * Are the sources current? As discussed previously, they're reasonably current given the subject matter. However, sources of the same age could not be considered current on a subject like gravitational waves given numerous recent discoveries.
 * Check a few links. Do they work? Yes.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read? It is concise and clear, but the average reader would have some trouble parsing the technical botanical jargon.
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? Not to my eye.
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? Yes.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? One image is included. It is relevant and useful.
 * Are images well-captioned? The image is clearly captioned.
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? By nature of its age, the image is in the public domain.
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? The portrait image is correctly placed within the infobox.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? No conversations are found on the talk page.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? The article is start-class as evaluated by WikiProject Plants.
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? We haven't (and will likely never) discuss this topic in class.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status? I agree with WikiProject Plants' evaluation--the article is developing but still quite incomplete.
 * What are the article's strengths? It is clear and concise.
 * How can the article be improved? It could be written in simpler words, though doing so might sacrifice its brevity. More and more current sources would be ideal.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed? I suspect the article is underdeveloped as a result of limited sources (in terms of usage, not availability).

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: I opted to edit the article rather than leaving an evaluation on the talk page as the change was quite minor.