User:Ceparris/Evaluate an Article
 | Evaluate an article
Complete your article evaluation below. Here are the key aspects to consider: Lead sectionA 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.
ContentA good Wikipedia article should cover all the important aspects of a topic, without putting too much weight on one part while neglecting another.
Tone and BalanceWikipedia 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.
Sources and ReferencesA 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.
Organization and writing qualityThe writing should be clear and professional, the content should be organized sensibly into sections.
Images and Media
Talk page discussionThe 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.
Overall impressions
Examples of good feedbackA 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. |
Which article are you evaluating?
[edit]Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
[edit](Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)
I've chosen the trade beads article because it's part of the topic I plan to research for this course. I chose this topic because I make jewelry myself, and have always been interested in beadwork as an art form. Trade beads are intrinsically tied to the history of African beadwork, and it's important to keep that history alive and available to the public. The article is classified as a stub-class, with a need for more citations and overall more information.
Evaluate the article
[edit](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.)
As the trade bead article is considered a stub-class, there is very little information written of the subject overall, with only a few sources. Because trade beads and slave beads have been utilized across the globe, and are featured in many different cultures, I feel the article would benefit from organizing each culture's histories into their own subsections (instead of cramming every culture into the generalized History section). I also feel as if some sections could be edited or re-written grammatically-wise to help the sentences flow better.
While there are several different sources listed from many different authors, some don't seem very reliable, and the information referenced can most likely be found in more dependable sources. The second source listed in the References section is a link to the Victoria and Albert Museum website, sending you an online catalog of their glass collection, though in the References section, the link is named "Trade Beads". The link's title is misleading, and I cannot find the written information in any of the five times the catalog is referenced.
In the Talk page, there was a debate on wether the article should be named "Trade Beads" or "Slave Beads". The former won, as the glass beads are more commonly referenced as such, with data such as the number of Google hits to back the claim up.