User:Cgpitt/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.

• Name of article: (link) Endocannibalism
• Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. I chose this article because I was personally interested in the Wari following one of our lectures last week.

Lead

Guiding questions

• Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic? Yes.
• Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections? No.
• Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article? No.
• Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed? Lead is concise yet maybe not detailed enough.

Content

Guiding questions

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic? Yes.
• Is the content up-to-date? Based off the talk page, edits were made as recently as September 6th of this year to this page so in that respect it's up to date. However some of the references that are cited go back as far as the 1960s. I think that it could include more up-to-date content.
• Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong? I think the biggest section of content that is missing is an overall history of endocannibalism. This section could provide context as to when endocannibalism was thought to begin as well as its overall impacts on the world throughout history. I also think that the section "as a cultural practice" could add more context to endocannibalism within each culture as well as mention the other cultures it is practiced in.
• Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics? No. However it does mention cultures that are generally under represented.

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions

• Is the article neutral? Mostly.
• Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? When discussing the controversy surrounding the pre-history of endocannibalism it seems that only one side of the controversy is presented in that they provide evidence which suggests that endocannibalism may have once been common throughout the world. Yet they don't present the other the side of this argument.
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? I think the pre-history viewpoint mentioned above is the only viewpoint that is overrepresented. Titling this section as a controversy would imply that there is a side that refutes it and there is no mention of this viewpoint.
• Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another? Again, as above, the viewpoint that endocannibalism was one widespread.

Sources and References

Guiding questions

• Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information? Yes.
• Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic? Yes.
• Are the sources current? Relatively. Some sources are as current as 2019 while others were published as early as 1962.
• Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible? Yes.
• Check a few links. Do they work? Yes.

Organization

Guiding questions

• Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read? I do think that this article is well written. Any word or concept that I personally didn't know what it meant or was confused about was linked to another Wikipedia page that clarified its meaning. This was especially useful in the medical implication section. It was concise (maybe a little too concise) and clear.
• Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors? There are a few spelling errors such as words not having plural endings where they are needed.
• Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic? For the information that is provided, I do think that it is well organized and broken down into sections that discuss the main topics. That being said, I also think that as a whole the article could use more information that would make the flow of each section better. For example the 3 sections that mention cultural practices, medical implications, in the pre-history of endocannibalism controversy respectively, don't don't seem to correlate well with each other. I think that it would be useful to start off with an more substantial introduction, followed by a brief overview of the history of endocannibalism, then maybe followed by the pre-history, then going into cultural practices and ending with medical implications or implications in general.

Images and Media

Guiding questions

I think that it is very unfortunate that this page does not contain any images. I think that when you are given such an interesting topic such as endocannibalism, that spans such a variety of unique cultures, there is a great opportunity to include images that represent the diversity within the cultures that practice endocannibalism. I think that this is a very big missed opportunity and if I were to edit this page I would most certainly add images.

• Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic? N/A
• Are images well-captioned? N/A
• Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations? N/A
• Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way? N/A

Checking the talk page

Guiding questions

• What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? The only conversation on the talk page was discussing the validity of the claim that cannibalism was widespread based on the study of the Kuru disease that spreads by human cannibalism. The person who commented was concerned that in the medical implications section of this page it sounded more like a persuasive essay than giving Just the facts.
• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects? It is part of the WikiProject Anthropology as well as Death. In both of these WikiProjects the article has been rated as the start-class.
• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? We have really only mentioned compassionate cannibalism in our class when discussing the Warri of the Amazon. This Wikipedia page also mentions the Warri and is congruent with our discussion of them in one of our asynchronous lectures. However, the term endocannibalism has never come up in class.

Overall impressions

Guiding questions

• What is the article's overall status? This article is listed as start-class
• What are the article's strengths? I think that the article does a good job highlighting the practice of endocannibalism is multiple cultures and presents the information in an unbiased manner. It also does a good job at spanning not just the cultural aspects of endocannibalism but also mentioning its medical implications and controversies regarding its pre-history.
• How can the article be improved? The list of cultures that practice endocannibalism in the article have not sources cited. I also think that when describing the practice in the context of each culture mentioned more detail could have been provided. What information was provided seems to be a little vague.
• How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed? I would consider this article to be underdeveloped solely because it seems to be lacking contextual support in it's section as a cultural practice. I think that if the article is going to mention endocannibalism as a cultural practice and then list cultures known for endocannibalism in the section they should touch on how each culture utilizes this practice. i also think that the overall history of endocannibalism could be mentioned. I think overall if you were using this Wiki page to gather information on endocannibalism you would be left with questions.

Optional activity

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