User:Ysecord/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I am evaluating an article on palladium.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I worked for a mine that mainly extracted zinc and copper but also small amounts of other metals including palladium. I found it interesting that is a main component in the majority of catalytic converters.

Lead section
Lead sentence and paragraph briefly describe palladium's chemical identity, provides a visual description, compares and contrasts it to other elements of the same group and provides short historical context over it's discovery and naming.

Subsections of the lead section also provide industrial uses of palladium, including it's role in catalytic converters. There is also a description of the ore bodies this element can be found in, including it's rarity and the location of significant deposits.

Content
The content sections are generally relevant to the topic. The article discusses the chemical characteristics and properties of palladium. There is a well developed section on it's applications and the history of it's discovery and uses.

The last paragraph of the history section reflected on the Russian/Ukrainian conflict and it's role on the economics of palladium supply. The following section discusses palladium as an investment, a topic which could be better titled and perhaps should also include the discussion regarding the economics of palladium supply. Additionally, in the applications section, particularly under Jewelry, there is discussion over economic supply and prices that could also be included in an economics section.

While there is a small section discussing the toxic effects and precautions regarding it's effect on health, it is lacking and there is no mention of the environmental effects of it's extraction or disposal.

Tone and Balance
The article is well written in regards of neutrality. The section that discusses the role of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on palladium supply and price is unbias and manages to describe the economic and political very well.

Despite this, the content of the article is heavily skewed towards the applications of palladium. Even the discussion over the history of it's discovery and uses is more developed then the section regarding effects on health. These sections are still succinct and relevant to the topic, it is simply that the effects on health needs to be developed.

Sources and References
Overall, the facts in the article are backed up by reliable secondary sources. The sources are relevant to the topics being discusses. Historical content is linked to appropriate sources while more recent information is related to current sources.

Some statements stand out regarding sources. For example the last sentence of the first paragraph in the characteristics section;

"Electrons that by the Madelung rule would be expected to occupy the 5s instead fill the 4d orbitals, as it is more energetically favorable to have a completely filled 4d10 shell instead of the 5s2 4d8 configuration.[clarification needed]"

The sentence appears to have errors (typo maybe?). It requires both clarification and a source.

The article contains many links to related topics which appear to be in working order.

Organization and writing quality
As previously mentioned, there is discussion over the economics of palladium that are scattered over a few topics which could be better suited under one section of it's own. Apart from that and the example requiring clarification that was previously mentioned, the article is generally concise, well written and structured.

Images and Media
The articles includes images and tables that are relevant and enhance understanding of the topic. They are well placed in the article, properly sized and captioned and adhere to copyright regulations. The jewelry subsection of the application section could use a few images considering it is a well discussed section that includes no images.

Talk page discussion
The talk page proved very useful for me as one contributor shed light onto something I had missed. They mentioned a claim that is not cited; "Until that recent work, it had been thought that palladium was poorly absorbed by the human body when ingested". They add that if recent work has proven palladium is well absorbed then it would have great medical implications that would surely be heavily research and publicized.

In 2020, there was discussion over the lack of citations, which seems to have been rectified.

There rest of the talk page discussion reflects the content of the article. It includes discussion over applications and history/naming of palladium.

Overall impressions
Compared to other metals, or even other closely related ones such as platinum, the article is underdeveloped. There is no discussion regarding it's production (extraction and refinement); this could be cause for the lack of discussion regarding it's environmental effects as well. A quick search on the MacOdrum library I was able to find sources that discuss these topics. This is a section that could be improved.