User:BornAYasMain/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?

History of the petroleum industry

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

The article was chosen because oil is one of the worlds most abundant natural resources, it is interesting because it covers the entire history of the industry, how it began many years ago, to how it looks in modern day and age (different types of oil industries). It was pretty interesting partly learning about the history but I saw there was a lot of text with no citations, which could be improved.

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.)

When evaluating the content, the information was relevant to the topic at hand, and covered many aspects of the oil industry, heavily covering the history and different types of oil industries. For information that could be added, information on oil production in some of the other top oil producing countries (UAE, Iran etc) could be helpful. To improve the article, adding more citations in the early-modern history of the industry could be helpful, or even throughout the article as there was often many paragraphs with no citations in them. The article remains neutral, however only really goes into detail about the United States when it comes to early oil production, but could do with more information on other countries at the time (if there is information present on the matter). Clicking on a few citations, from the few I clicked on, some took me to the bottom of the references page and had no link to an external sites, but a few did. Clicking on a few sites that did have links, some led to scientific papers written on the matter, some to old news reports on the topic, and others to other peer reviewed articles. Some of sources could be viewed as unreliable, but a majority of the valid links led to reliable sources. In the talk tab, there are discussions on whether certain information is correct or not, people asking if more information on the topic at hand is available for certain subtopics, and also suggestions on what to add for certain sections (such as modern history). Also the article itself is not apart of any WikiProjects but it is of interest to a few of them such as Engineering, Trade, and Environment.