User:Rachelswimmer/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: Indigenous education
• I chose this article because I will potentially be using it as my Wikipedia sector article for our class assignment.

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 title of the article is concise, simplistic, and gets straight to the point. The article title is broad enough to discuss many different things that pertain to the topic. The Lead does include an introductory description, however Wikipedia has flagged it due to plagiarism. The author appears to have copy and pasted a large body of text rather than citing the source in their own words. While the Lead does cover the majority of major article sections, I think a better job could be done of briefly outlining the challenges that arise when indigenous languages attempt to incorporate into education. Also, the statement "many postmodern scholars" was used when making an argument which is not a proper way to make a citation. Overall, the Lead is concise and gives a good overview of what the article holds.

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

The article's content is very relevant to the topic of indigenous education. The authors have covered many different aspects of indigenous education, however I believe a lot of information is lacking in this article. I think there should be sections broken down by levels of education and how indigenous learning differs by age. I also think education should be broken down by region, using indigenous peoples in those areas as examples to support the data. This article should include a history of indigenous education rights because it has been such a tumultuous battle over the years. The article also does not discuss the ongoing debates regarding indigenous education, and I think this relevant information considering how much it is currently affecting indigenous communities. Much of the content in this article is way behind the times, and needs to be improved with more current data and knowledge regarding events, challenges, policy, and changes.

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

Upon my initial read, I believed that the article was neutral. However, when I went back to read again I took on a more critical lens. At first, it was easy to miss the bias against western education in favor of indigenous methods because I fell into agreement with much of what was said. However, there is a noticeable bias towards indigenous education. Whenever the Western model and indigenous model of education are compared, which they should not be in a Wikipedia article, the indigenous model is praised while the Western model is criticized. Overall, the article has a strong bias towards indigenous education and comes across as being the superior model. This viewpoint dominates and is the overarching theme of the entire article. The covert preference to indigenous education is omnipresent. I think the authors could be more neutral by not pinning Western and indigenous education models against each other throughout the article. Also, when writing about indigenous education practices, the author should use more neutral language.

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

Multiple times in the article a fact was stated without being backed up by a reliable secondary source. The sources that were provided were almost always out of date. Luckily, the links I tried to open all worked. The problem with sources in this article is that the authors failed to provide relevant and current data, which essentially makes this article obsolete. An encyclopedia page missing data from the last twenty years cannot encompass the entirety of the topic. This article needs to be updated with sources from the past three years to include current events and data, and all facts without a citation need to be revisited and revised.

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 fairly well-written. The authors have done a good job of presenting information in an understandable way that is clear and easy for the reader. However, there are numerous grammatical errors in the article that need to be fixed. Recurring mistakes that I noticed were accidental sentence endings, i.e: "The man was on the. boat He liked the water". Another mistake was capitalizing all the words in a section header when only the first word and person, places, or things should be. Overall, I think there is still plenty of room for improvement in this article, but a nice foundation has been laid out.

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

One image was used at the beginning of the article of two teachers beside a little boy holding a piece of paper. The caption explains that the image is of a primary school in Yangjuan county where the teacher is looking over a students essay about the schoolyard. I think the caption could be a little more specific and include what country Yangjuan is in. I think the caption should also explain how this fits into indigenous education. As for adhering to Wikipedia copyright regulations, it appears that it does. The copyright holder of the file gives anyone permission to use, redistribute, derive work, or use for commercial purposes as long as credit is given. However, on the page I do not see anywhere that credit has been given. The image was uploaded by a person named Tami Blumenfield and she is the source and author, therefore I assume this is her own image she is allowing to be used. Overall, I think this is a good choice image, though it would be more aesthetically pleasing if it were a bit larger.

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 is pretty much dead. Very little is going on behind the scenes of this article. The article is also rated poorly by WikiProject Education. The article received a "Start Class" on the quality scale, which is only one up from being a "Stub", the lowest category. By being in "Start Class", the sources in the article need to be evaluated for reliability and usability according to Wikipedia rules. Also, the article needs an improvement in content and page organization. The way Wikipedia discusses the topic of indigenous education, or any topic for that matter, is much different than our discussions in class. Wikipedia is not supposed to have any bias, opinion, or political sway. On the other hand, our class thrives off of opinion-based discussion and conflicting points of view. Our class also tends to be pretty biased due to the fact that we all hold similar political and ideological views and we therefore discuss topics such as these within that framework.

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 think the article has a lot of room for growth and space to be improved upon. Not many people have contributed to the progress and transformation of this article, which makes it more untrustworthy and lacks substantial information. The strengths are that this Wikipedia page does a good job of explaining the importance of indigenous education and how it is implemented in the school system. However, the article needs to be updated to reflect current times. The majority of the citations are from the early 2000s and only one article is from 2019. Also, education is a very broad term and this article seems to jump around between giving examples of various ages. I think it would be helpful to add on a category with subsections such as preschool, middle school, high school, college or any other variants. I think it could also be beneficial to move the subsection "Challenges (As seen with the Na) under "Difficulties with Implementation". However, I have a hard time understanding the purpose of including the example of the Na. While interesting, I think the example may be too specific and seems to be an outlier within this page considering the fact that no other indigenous tribe is discussed in such detail. The concerns raised in the Na example are however applicable to many indigenous tribes and should be included under difficulties in implementation. The article has also used generalized citations such as "some say" and "most people agree", which are appropriate for Wikipedia and should be changed to something more concrete such as "____ says" or "___ research study resulted in". I also noticed a few grammatical errors that would need to be remedied. In general, the article needs to include more detail about what indigenous education is, what it looks like depending on grade level and region, how it is implemented, and to also include the ongoing debates of whether or not it should be taught in school.

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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