User:21RowRowRoYourBoat89/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

Complete your article evaluation below. Here are the key aspects to consider:

Lead section

A good lead section defines the topic and provides a concise overview. A reader who just wants to identify the topic can read the first sentence. A reader who wants a very brief overview of the most important things about it can read the first paragraph. A reader who wants a quick overview can read the whole lead section.

Does the lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
Does the lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
Does the lead include information that is not present in the article? (It shouldn't.)
Is the lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

A good Wikipedia article should cover all the important aspects of a topic, without putting too much weight on one part while neglecting another.

Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
Is the content up-to-date?
Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance

Wikipedia articles should be written from a neutral point of view; if there are substantial differences of interpretation or controversies among published, reliable sources, those views should be described as fairly as possible.

Is the article neutral?
Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
Are minority or fringe viewpoints accurately described as such?
Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

A Wikipedia article should be based on the best sources available for the topic at hand. When possible, this means academic and peer-reviewed publications or scholarly books.

Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
Are the sources current?
Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)
Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization and writing quality

The writing should be clear and professional, the content should be organized sensibly into sections.

Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
Are images well-captioned?
Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Talk page discussion

The article's talk page — and any discussions among other Wikipedia editors that have been taking place there — can be a useful window into the state of an article, and might help you focus on important aspects that you didn't think of.

What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions

What is the article's overall status?
What are the article's strengths?
How can the article be improved?
How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Examples of good feedback

A good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved.

Peer review of this article about a famous painting

Which article are you evaluating?

Snakes in mythology is the article I will be evaluating for this piece.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I have a close relationship with snakes in my personal life and is part of the reason I chose this article to start on. My impression of it was that it contained a well-developed enough page that had some promising leads to work from and toward. However, I think that it contains considerable room for improvement as it is still on a C-class article. This is surprising, to say the least, because snakes seem to be a common thread in many cultures across time and the world.

Evaluate the article

The Lead section is very disjointed and begins from a place of ambiguity, to which I mean, "The behavior of snakes and their facial features (e.g. the unblinking, lidless eyes) seemed to imply that they were intelligent, that they lived by reason and not instinct, and yet their thought-processes were as alien to humans as their ways of movement." I'm not sure how this provides a brief overview of snakes in mythology, but I envision something rather different. The Lead section does not go over the sections include in the entirety of the article, but seems to dive right into a few cultural practices of different people and rituals that have the word "snake" in them. in this sense, however, it does begin to give examples of where within the world and time you might find snakes in mythology, and for that I see some promising features. For the Content aspect, in this article many areas are touched upon, but I think that there can be much more depth involved in the cohesion of different topics as it relates to all cultures of the world and throughout most of time. I think there can be a few, if not many subheadings attributed to this subject that aren't currently present. Under the subheadings Water, Wisdom, and Healing, there is very little attributed here. This article does not hold relevance in terms of equity gaps, unless you are referring to snakes being overrepresented in mythology compared to other animals, or more specifically, reptiles. The article appears neutral in its representation of the known material available. It touches on many different cultures of the world and does not appear to be biased towards one in particular, in this sense. I don't think there are fringe topics related to this article because it is based on mythologies, which are inherently fringe in and of themselves.

There are many sources cited at the bottom of the article, as well as throughout the article next to their corresponding information. The links to the sources seemed a little troublesome to access, insofar as that it required chasing down many different sites to get to the original one cited. The timelines of the sources spanned from the earliest I could see being from 1901 all the way to the most recent I found, in January of this year (2022). The links were shown to be a diverse group of information and spanning many institutional realms. However, many were in foreign languages and lose some meaning in their translation to English, where I could understand what I was reading. I anticipate many more sources, and notably, more reliable sources being available as they pertain to a more specified search of information regarding this topic. Aside from a few grammatical errors, it was fairly smooth to read and transition from section to section. It became a little daunting having to go back and forth between the different culture's belief systems and how they incorporated snakes into their own mythologies. It was rather disjointed in this way. The major sections or subheadings were, again, sparse insofar as each of the cultures mentioned could be expanded on broadly just in regard to snakes in their myths. This jumbled mess of information that bounces back and forth makes it particularly difficult to stay invested in if trying to garner any substantial knowledge from it.

The article had only two images, and while the first one at the top was slightly captioned, it really just left me with more questions then answers. There could be a multitude more images attributed to this page, indeed. The two images available appeared to be adhering to copyright laws and Wikipedia standards, as far as I could tell. There were only three total remarks on the Talk page for this article, however, it did state that it was part of the Mythology WikiProjects in accordance with other Mythology-related topic's projects. I would assess this article as only really just underdeveloped. My opinion is that has the makings of a great article, but there just isn't a lot of "heft" to it in its current form. The article is rated as a C-class of High Importance. I think it can be improved upon by providing more in-depth discussion of each of the culture's representation of the snake in their respective mythologies, as well as potentially more historical insight throughout a broader swath of time not inherently included in the article thus far. I look forward to improving this article substantially.