User:Winter Traveler/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: Manakish
 * This article caught my eye from the list Prof. Sharkey provided, because it shares the names of a nearby Lebanese bakery (Manakeesh).

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * The introductory sentence describes the food clearly, but not concisely (hampered by the numerous different spellings/pronunciations of the dish's name.)
 * The Lead does not include a description of the article's major sections.
 * The Lead also includes information that is not present in the article.
 * The Lead is a bit overly detailed, mostly because it comprises almost the entire body of the article.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * The content is relevant to the topic, but is a bit overly detailed at points.
 * The content is up-to-date.
 * I'm not sure if there is missing content, however, I think the depth of discussion about manakish toppings is somewhat out of place.
 * The article addresses a popular Middle Eastern food; if Middle Eastern culture is underrepresented in Wikipedia, then yes, this article does deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * The article is neutral.
 * There are no claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position. However, a lot of the sources appear to mention countries (especially Palestine) by name, which is absent in the article. I note this because the article is marked to be under "Arab-Israeli Arbitration Enforcement".
 * As mentioned, I think the article dwells a bit too long on manakish toppings, but as that's not exactly a "viewpoint", this is a different kind of problem.
 * The article does not attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or another.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Facts in the article appear to be backed up by a somewhat reliable secondary source of information - some are news articles, however, since this is a food item, I don't necessarily think that this is a large problem.
 * I wouldn't say that the sources were particularly thorough.
 * The sources do seem to be current.
 * Despite being an article about a Middle Eastern food, the names of the authors of almost all cited articles are European in origin. It is possible that these people are also Middle Eastern, but it seems unlikely.
 * The links work.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * I would not say that the article is very well-written.
 * The article has a few minor typos (spelling, capitalization).
 * The article is not well-organized.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * The article does include images that enhance understanding of the topic.
 * The images aren't captioned poorly, but they aren't super informative either.
 * The images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations.
 * The images aren't especially visually appealing, but they're not unappealing either - really neutral.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * The talk page almost completely consists of an argument about whether to include a picture of manakish from Israel or manakish from Lebanon or another Arab country. From what I gather, this is part of a larger trend of what is pejoratively referred to as "Zionization" of Middle Eastern cultural articles, and pushback against that (though the claim that this is something people are actively doing may not be accurate).
 * The article is part of WikiProjects for food and drink, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria, and is labeled as "start-class".
 * We have not yet discussed in class the politicization of food or the adoption of traditional Arab foods by immigrants to Israel.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * I think I could best describe the article as "messy".
 * After reading the article, I did know exactly what it was describing, which is something.
 * The article can be formatted better, and more history/cultural relevance of the food could be included, however, this is not really possible at this juncture due to how argumentative the Talk page is.
 * I would describe the article as underdeveloped or poorly developed.

Optional activity

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