User:Zucchinibyday/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Option 1

 * Article title:Ordinal numeral
 * Article Evaluation:Overall this is article is very poor. The most glaring problem is the article's lack of general view of the subject: it only covers three languages, English, Chinese, and American Sign Language; the latter only gets a single sentence. There is also a general lack of citations. The leading section suffers from both of these issues: it, for the most part, deals only with English, has inadequate citations, and relies on flimsy wording such as "in traditional grammar." As for the other sections, they are individually lacking, and possibly off-topic. To achieve a neutral point of view, the article should first have a section describing ordinal numerals across language in general, perhaps drawing on patterns that seem to be near-universal as well as identifying traits that tend to vary in every language. It should also describe how numerals generally work across different writing systems or in sign language. If I chose this article to improve, this would probably be how I would go about doing so.:As for the individual, language-specific sections, I'm not sure if they belong in this article or not. On the one hand they are relevant to the topic, but on the other hand, to maintain a neutral point of view, the article should have a section for every major language that has had its ordinal system documented. This would not only bloat the article, but it might also make the reading experience poor: if a person is trying to find this information about Japanese, for example, they might not know to check this article, and would instead look in the Japanese article. I would thus say that these sections should be removed and rewritten in each language's article, but I would want to start a discussion about it first and get opinions from other, more experienced editors, especially because I am not familiar with the general format that language pages should have.
 * Sources:https://wals.info/chapter/53

Option 2

 * Article title:The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
 * Article Evaluation:This article has a very straightforward issue - it's tiny! It's had a label calling for additional citations since 2017; from what I can tell, it hasn't had meaningful edits in over 6 years. At first it might seem like the best way to improve the article would be to add more sources, but after some basic research, I wonder if it would be better to propose a merge into the article for the main Oxford English Dictionary as a subsection. On JSTOR, the most recent review of the book was in 1970. On Google Books, its only mentioned in newspapers from the 21st century three times, each time simply referring to the dictionary for the etymology of a word. It doesn't seem notable enough to have its own article.
 * Sources:https://www.jstor.org/action/doBasicSearch?Query=ti%3A%22The+Oxford+Dictionary+of+English+Etymology%22&so=new :https://www.google.com/search?q=%22The+Oxford+Dictionary+of+English+Etymology%22&sca_esv=589713028&tbs=bkt:s,cdr:1,cd_min:2000,cd_max:2099&tbm=bks&sxsrf=AM9HkKksPlUkAENLwj_NW7JQDPgiQ3QoPw:1702280767254&source=lnt&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiguMKD8oaDAxWlEUQIHY06C1oQpwV6BAgBEBQ&biw=1536&bih=704&dpr=1.25

Option 3

 * Article title:Blue spruce
 * Article Evaluation:This is an article I've edited before so I thought I'd revisit it. Overall the article is good and well put together. It has a strong lead section which, in my experience, is consistent with other articles about trees on Wikipedia. My previous work on the article was touching up the Cultivars section, and this is what I think needs work. A couple of the links are broken and could be replaced with new sources or with archives. In addition, the Uses section is quite thin. A quick search for "Blue spruce ethnobotany" reveals a couple sources which could be used to expand this section, both to better highlight Indigenous usage - which is certainly notable - and to provide better information, considering the section seems to have been first written in 2012.
 * Sources:https://www.conifers.org/pi/Picea_pungens.php :https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/misc/ag_654/volume_1/picea/pungens.htm :https://alaskaethnobotany.community.uaf.edu/spruce-root-basketry/

Option 4

 * Article title:Pinus brutia
 * Article Evaluation:This article is fine overall, but has a few noticeable issues. Firstly, there are multiple, substantial claims that are uncited. Notably, the claim that the species was first described in Italy, and the details of the pine's morphology. In general the Description section is poor. Again, the information is not supported by citations. While the style in the section is generally consistent with Wikipedia's guidelines, and with other articles about conifers, the specific sentence "One can see from gallery below in Flowers image, that this pine is not white pine classification, as it clearly has two needles per bundle, meaning it is either a red or jack pine," reads poorly and could be revised.
 * Sources:https://www.jstor.org/stable/45065380