User:Tnelson31/sandbox

Which article are you evaluating?
Endless knot

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 is about a symbol that was taught to me as a kid and always stuck with me. It matters because it is prevalent in many cultures and religions around the world. My first impression of the article is that it is very short, concise, and to the point.

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.)

Lead: I think the lead sentence could include a little more about the topic, maybe describing the meaning of the symbol quickly. The lead does not include a description of the sections in the article. It also describes places that the symbol is present but does not go into more depth on some of these places later in the article. It is very concise and not overly detailed.

Content: All the articles content is relevant to the article. The content does seem to be up to date. There appears to be much content that is missing. For example, the history section only has one sentence about a place where this symbol showed up. Also, the lead talks about the symbol being present in Celtic, Chinese, and Kazakh culture, but never goes into depth about the significance of this symbol in those cultures. This article could benefit from going more in depth on these topics. I think this article does deal with cultures that are typically underrepresented including ideas from Buddhism and Jainism.

Tone and Balance: The tone of this article does seem to be neutral. None of their claims seem to be heavily biased, every claim is presented in a very matter of fact way. I think the article focuses a little too heavily on Buddhist interpretations of the symbol and does not go into much depth about the other ways it can be interpreted. It does not do a very good job describing the significance of the symbol in other cultures.

Sources: The article does not do a good job of backing up their ideas with sources. For example, none of the various interpretations for the symbol have a source to back it up. There are only two sources but they do seem to be credible and up to date. I think this article just needs to have a lot more sources in order to get various viewpoints on the topic. It does not reflect a diverse set of views and is only taking from two sources. Additional sources would help them add more depth to the article and be able to describe other cultures where this symbol has significance. It does seem to be difficult to find reliable sources on this topic, but I did find a couple books online. The last external link does not work.

Organization and writing quality: The organization of the article is very clear and easy to follow. I think they did a good job clearly labeling the sections and making the article easy to follow.

Images: I think a big strength of this article is the images they provide. Each image has a caption that helps the reader better understand the picture. Additionally, the article provides a diverse set of images to show how the symbol has been used in various contexts. The images are detailed and are organized in a way that makes sense

Talk Page: There are only a couple things going on the talk page. Some people had general questions, but others contributed to certain sections or images being taken out or swapped. One interesting thing discussed is that there were two Wikipedia pages describing the same thing so they decided to combine them into one page. There hasn't been much activity on this page. It is rated in the start category which means it is mostly incomplete. It is also apart of a group of pages dedicated to providing information about Buddhism.

Overall Impression: This article is really concise and to the point. It does a really good job being unbiased towards the topic. This article is pretty underdeveloped and could benefit from including much more sources and information on the topic. One section that could be expanded is the history section. This could talk more about the origins of the symbol and where it has been found in the past. Additionally, it could benefit from adding information about other religions/cultures besides Buddhism. Overall, I think this article is a really good start to the topic, but could greatly benefit from going more in depth into the topic.