User:StreamunrealGlow/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?

GarageBand

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

GarageBand is a software that I've used extensively in the past. My familiarity with it, as well as its rating as a grade C article makes it a candidate to critique.

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.)

Content

The article is somewhat not up to date; the section that details its history stops at the year 2017. There hasn't necessarily been monumental changes to the software since then, except for maybe it's applicability to ARM architecture chips in later Macs. Regardless, the section detailed previous software updates and would benefit from the continuation of the section to reflect the most recent updates to GarageBand. To be clear, this isn't necessarily consistent with the rest of the article, because elsewhere in the article they mention more recent updates since 2017, such as the "Music lessons" section.

The content within the article isn't entirely relevant and would benefit from cutting down on the miscellaneous information. For example, there's a section dedicated to "MainStage 2" as a subheading under the heading of "Additional audio loops." While the inclusion of MainStage makes sense given that the application added additional audio instruments to GarageBand, it goes into further detail of MainStage that isn't relevant to GarageBand. In other areas in the article, the writing emphasizes previous versions of GarageBand, though their relevance could be criticized. For example, in the "Limitations" section, they outline the limitations of previous versions, which may not be necessary to mention, as a typical reader would expect only current limitations. The section detailing GarageBand for IOS is disproportionately long considering the content of the MacOS (and original) version. It may be beneficial to separate this section into its own article on the IOS port of the application given their drastic differences. In any case, this section heavily details the specifics of each of the instruments and audio loops of the IOS application, which isn't done for the MacOS version. While greatly detailed, most of the sections in the IOS section don't have references or detail if it's specific to any given version of the app. It's also inconsistent with the organization of the MacOS app, which details the features the application provides, as opposed to the specifics of the instruments, which borders on information overload for the reader. Additionally, information in the IOS section belongs elsewhere in the article; bits of information detailing extensions released by artists is not specific to the IOS app and similar information already has a predefined section titled "Sample multitrack source files." Lastly, there's also statistical claims that don't have a citation, notably that "GarageBand's user base has increased drastically."

Tone

The article is actually very well-balanced in terms of its tone. It doesn't contain any biases or claims that lean in any one direction. The entire article seems to be neutral in the presentation of the facts and doesn't stray from this by including any words that favor or disservice the application. As mentioned in the previous section, there is note that the user base has increased "drastically" which doesn't include a citation; this is perhaps the only writing within the article that is biased.

Sources

The quality of the sources in this article could be improved. Some sources are misaligned and no longer point to what they used to point to. Other sources are missing outright and don't lead to anywhere. Some sources come from Apple themselves, which should be avoided for the sake of bias. Other sources come from blog posts that are not reputable, such as some sources that are twitter (X) posts from individuals.

Talk Page

The talk page is littered with some insight but mainly has miscellaneous conversations that don't pertain to the article itself. For example, an entire section dedicated to ports to the PC, given that the application is specific to MacOS and IOS. The idea itself isn't necessarily unhelpful; if there was a PC port for the application that would be worth mentioning at some point in the article. This isn't the case however and the conversation exists as a long-winded back-and-forth of the speculation of similar applications that are littered with people's opinions on which is better. This conversation doesn't contribute to the article and strays from Wikipedia as a whole. There are several other topics that are simply users asking for advice or seeking to fix a problem they encountered with the application, which again, does not pertain to the article itself. Some people have also mentioned topics or concerns that have not been resolved.

Overall the quality of the article hasn't been discussed much compared to the myriad of topics that are irrelevant to the article.

The article is a C-grade article and belongs to five WikiProjects; Podcasting, Electronic Music, Apple Inc., Professional Sound Production, and Computing: Software.