Linguist891

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?

Here is a link to the Wikipedia page I am reviewing about plosives.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I chose this article by looking through the list of C-pages that are categorized as Linguistics articles. Since we have already discussed phonetics, I decided to find an article about a phonetic category I felt comfortable evaluating. By scrolling through the Talk page, it appears that there has been some contention regarding what to actually categorize as a plosive. After glancing at the article itself, there seems to be a relatively detailed breakdown of the different types of plosives and how they are categorized.

Evaluate the article

The lead section appears to be satisfactory, as the first sentence does provide a good overview of what a plosive is, although this could be a bit misleading since aspirated plosives do involve some air. All of the content in the lead section is covered in the article, although some of the sections, such as aspirated plosives, are not even mentioned. The lead section could likely be expanded a bit to at least mention the different types of plosives that exist, as this is not alluded to in the opening.

As far as I am aware, all of the content in the article is up to date, although several of the sources are from the 1980s or 1990s. It could be worthwhile for recent sources to be investigated to determine if the information from the earlier sources is upheld or not. The content is relevant to the topic, as further breakdowns about the types of plosives are provided along with examples in various languages. There does not appear to be any content unrelated to plosives. There is some attempt to categorize plosives in languages that are not as widely studied, such as Hawaiian and various Native American languages, but these are small points mentioned in the article and not the main topic.

The Terminology section of the article does a good job of illustrating differences that arise in the use of the word "plosive" and its development over time. However, it is much easier to pick out the majority viewpoints as set by the IPA, and the minority viewpoints are not directly called out in the same way. Additionally, in the Transcription section, there is a special section for English plosives, but not for any other language, indicating that more importance is being placed on Western phonetics than that of other regions. This section could either be removed or listed clearly as an example of plosives used in a language alongside one or two other plosive inventories from underrepresented languages.

Unfortunately, not all of the facts listed in the article seem to have secondary sources, especially for the languages that are not as widely studied. For example, the Common Plosives section references many other Wikipedia articles when discussing the plosive inventories of other languages, but it would be helpful to provide further reading or sources for this information outside of Wikipedia. There is one source from Estonian authors, which does help provide some diversity in the information provided, but searching for sources from other, non-European or English scholars would certainly boost this. Other sources do exist for the facts that are missing citations that also provide diverse perspectives, such as this breakdown of the Samoan language. A few of the citations do not work or are not complete, mainly citations 3, 8, and 12.

The article is mostly well-written, with a few minor errors, particularly in the Terminology section when the Latin term surdus is introduced. The structure of the article is organized, providing a history of the term first and then delving into how plosives are used or what factors characterize them.

There are no true images in this document, only the IPA representations of each plosive using text placed into tables. This is likely acceptable because this involves a written representation of speech, although adding an image or short animation of how or where plosives are formed could help provide more context.

The Talk page, as alluded to previously, does appear to have debates on how to properly categorize plosives, and it seems like the changes discussed about describing multiple perspectives did make it into the current article. Additionally, there are still some lingering questions or concerns about how phonetic releases and plosives are related on Wikipedia currently and if there should be more information provided in a separate article. The article overall is listed as C-Class and is part of the Linguistics WikiProject. Overall, this article is much more in-depth than the plosives we have covered in class, as shown by the many debates about the variety of ways that plosives could be defined.

All in all, this article seems to have a solid foundation, although it still has issues that prevent it from reaching its full potential. More sources and article space should be devoted to highlighting a variety of plosives from different cultures, and less emphasis should be placed on the English plosives alone. Additionally, images could be added to help users better understand how a plosive is formed, which is especially useful for beginners in linguistics. Despite this, the article is extremely detailed in its evaluation of different plosives, providing several subcategories and descriptions of them. In general, this article seems to be slightly underdeveloped due to its lack of in-depth evaluation or citation of non-English or European sources.

This user is a student editor in Carnegie_Mellon_University/'Crazy'_Linguistically_Rich_Asian_Languages_(Fall_2024).

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