User:Delrosemcp/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: Alzheimer's disease
• Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
  • I chose to evaluate this article because it relates to some of the material we will be learning in this class. I also chose this article because Alzheimer's is a fascinating illness to learn about, though it is devastating for those who have it.

Lead

Guiding questions

The Lead had an introductory sentence that clearly described what the article was going to be about, providing readers with a brief medical definition of Alzheimer's.

The Lead provided the readers with a section that mentioned as a whole what the article wild be talking about, and below has a table of contents (so to speak) that allows reading to click right to a specific section.

The Lead does not mention any information that is not also presented in further detail throughout the article. everything mentioned in the Lead was mentioned and explained further in the article.

The Lead is concise, mentioning the topics of the sections of the article without over providing facts or other information.

• 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?

Content

Guiding questions

Yes, the article's content is relevant to the topic. All of the content addressed various social, economic, medical/scientific, and historical aspects relating to Alzheimer's.

Although the article has sources that date back as far as 2005, if you click on the View History section, there have been edits as recently as Jan. 21st, 2020. Even in November of last year, people were editing and updating the content of the article, not just editing the sources.

No, there is no content missing and all the content present is relevant, providing well-rounded knowledge about Alzheimer's to the reader.

• 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?

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions

The article is neutral, there are no pharmaceutical companies or other companies or individuals promoting specific treatments or procedure related to Alzheimer's or any other medical condition. The editors always added a counter when the would mention a treatment/medication, which said something along the lines of "further experimentation/testing would need to be done with this first".

There was no bias in the article; the article provided facts about Alzheimer's, and does not lean towards any bias regarding treatment options or caregiving options, the article just lists and explains them neutrally, with no bias. Also, the authors and editors explain all of the hypotheses that various researchers have come up with in regards to what causes Alzheimer's, etc. yet none of the authors lean towards one hypothesis over another. Presentation of the research unbiased and strictly for informative purposes.

I felt the article provided an adequate section for caregiving, since it is one of the only treatment aspects for Alzheimer's patients.

The article clearly only had one goal, and that was to provide knowledge about the various aspects of Alzheimer's disease, a condition that affects millions of people around the world.

• 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?

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?

Organization

Guiding questions

The article is well written, there are no typos, ideas are present clearly with not too little or too much information. The article reads easily, like a magazine article would.

There were no grammatical or spelling errors that I noticed.

The article is broken down into sections ranging from the pathophysiology and clinical aspects of Alzheimer's, down to the ethical, economic and social aspects of Alzheimers. The sections included symptoms and signs, management, epidemiology, prognosis, history, society and culture, and so on.

• 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

Guiding questions

The article includes many scientific diagrams of biological processes as well as PET scans showing temporal lobe function loss in a person with Alzheimer's , diagrams comparing healthy brains to those who have Alzheimer's. The article also had a pathology picture of brain tissue from someone who has Alzheimer's.

The images are well captioned, included links to other wikipedia articles, and clear and concise captions explaining what the image was showing.

Most of the images were access via the Public Domain. Those that were used and were not from the Public Domain were cited properly, giving credit to the sources where those images were retrieved from. So yes, they meet Wikipedia's copyright regulations.

The images are laid out in a way that is easy to incorporate them into the text. By this, I mean that the image is located adjacent to the section in which that picture is relevant.

• 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?

Checking the talk page

Guiding questions

Topics being discussed included research articles that contradicted information presented in the article, as well as users suggesting to editors that the article should be written from a perspective that would allow anybody, not just those with a medical background, to read and comprehend the knowledge presented.

The article is a featured article, as it has been named one of the best articles written and published on Wikipedia. The article is also a part of 6 WikiProjects, ranging from medicine to cognitive science to disability.

I imagine that when we talk about Alzheimer's in class, we will be talking about the molecular/cellular aspects of the illness. While some of the content in the article mentioned this, the article also provided more social and historical components that we probably would not discuss in class.

• 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

Guiding questions

The article's overall status is FA or Featured Article.

The article's strengths include diverse range of topics related to Alzheimer's being discussed with enough information to be useful, but not too much to where it would be overwhelming.

The article could be improved by discussing the demographics and factors that contribute to/suffer from Alzheimer's the most, including if people with low SES or certain races are more prone, and so on.

This article is very thorough and detailed.

• 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?

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

with four tildes — ~~~~

• Link to feedback: