User:Iconners/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.

• Lancaster High School (New York): Lancaster High School (New York)
• I attended the school for all four years of high school and three generations of my family have done the same.

Lead

Guiding questions

• 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?
• Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation

The Lead consists of only three sentences. Given that, the first sentence clearly and concisely introduces the article's topic with enough information to provide a decent understanding but not enough for it to be overwhelming. However, the brevity of the Lead does mean that it fails to provide a description of the article's major sections only mentioning the operating district and current principal which are only otherwise mentioned in the manual of style and not in the article itself. Overview of sections including academics, music, academies, athletics, clubs and activities and alumni are missing from the Lead. While the lead is concise it may be overly so, failing to provide an introduction to the information included in the article.

Content

Guiding questions

• 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?

Content evaluation

All content is relevant to the topic. However a good deal is not up-to-date with AP/honors course offerings and football coaching information being incorrect. Also, there appears to be a good deal of missing information. Many of the academies suffer from non-descriptions, simply restating the name of the academy in a formulaic sentence. The descriptions of programs within the music and athletics sections also appear to be pretty bare-bones.

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions

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

Tone and balance evaluation

As all information presented is of a purely factual nature there is a neutral tone without any biased positions or persuasive attitudes.

Sources and References

Guiding questions

• 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?
• Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation

The sourcing of this article needs a great deal of improvement. The list of principals given in the history section as well as the course offerings have no source. For information that is cited, a good deal of citations link to archived webpages which no longer provide current/accurate information. In addition many of the links are broken, giving a "this page does not exist/has been moved" message when clicked. For example the Impact Bible Club link directs to a nonexistent instagram while many academy sources link to decade old information.

Organization

Guiding questions

• 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?

Organization evaluation

The article is well-written with proper English that is concise and easy to read if perhaps a little shallow. The organization is well done with many sections and subsections that make certain elements of the article's information easy to locate and makes the article easier to digest.

Images and Media

Guiding questions

• 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?

Images and media evaluation

The article includes one image of the new mascot which is clearly captioned and provides the reader with information that could not be well conveyed through text. The image is public domain and free of copyright restrictions to the best of my knowledge. The location of the image is appropriate.

Checking the talk page

Guiding questions

• 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?

Talk page evaluation

The talk page contains multiple requests for an image of the school to be added. There is also a request to make the tone of the athletics section more neutral which I believe has since been addressed. There has also been a decent amount of source modification relatively recently. The article is rated C-Class Low-Importance in both the Western New York and Schools WikiProjects.

Overall impressions

Guiding questions

• 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?

Overall evaluation

Overall I would say the article has strong beginnings but is severally underdeveloped. With more recent sourcing that provides a greater amount of information the article could be vastly improved. That being said, the neutral tone, organization and relevance of content are all strong points.

Optional activity

• Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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