User:Sam Wege/Caral/CantrellL Peer Review

Peer review

Complete your peer review exercise below, providing as much constructive criticism as possible. The more detailed suggestions you provide, the more useful it will be to your classmate. Make sure you consider each of the following aspects:

Lead

Guiding questions:

Has the Lead been updated to reflect the new content added by your peer?
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:

Is the content added relevant to the topic?
Is the content added up-to-date?
Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions:

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

Sources and References

Guiding questions:

Is all new content backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
Does the content accurately reflect what the cited sources say? (You'll need to refer to the sources to check this.)
Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
Are the sources current?
Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)
Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

Guiding questions:

Is the content added well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
Does the content added have any grammatical or spelling errors?
Is the content added well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

Guiding questions: If your peer added images or media

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?

For New Articles Only

If the draft you're reviewing is for a new article, consider the following in addition to the above.

Does the article meet Wikipedia's Notability requirements - i.e. Is the article supported by 2-3 reliable secondary sources independent of the subject?
How exhaustive is the list of sources? Does it accurately represent all available literature on the subject?
Does the article follow the patterns of other similar articles - i.e. contain any necessary infoboxes, section headings, and any other features contained within similar articles?
Does the article link to other articles so it is more discoverable?

Overall impressions

Guiding questions:

Has the content added improved the overall quality of the article - i.e. Is the article more complete?
What are the strengths of the content added?
How can the content added be improved?

Examples of good feedback

A 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.

Peer review of "Homemaking"
Peer review of this article about a famous painting

Additional Resources

Check out the Editing Wikipedia PDF for general editing tips and suggestions.

General info

Whose work are you reviewing?

Sam Wege

Link to draft you're reviewing
Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)

Evaluate the drafted changes

I didn't see anything in the sandbox so I discussed some of the possible directions you could go in expanding and correcting the article.

The lead of the article starts off well and the first paragraph was very informative. The rest of the information in the lead however, seemed unnecessary or unrelated to the rest of the content of the article and could perhaps be moved to its own section or removed. Overall, the lead should do a better job introducing the topics that will be covered in the rest of the article rather than discussing specific details of Caral and similar societies.

In the subsection "Peaceful society" the article states that Caral must have been a peaceful society as no instruments of war have been uncovered there. This seems very presumptive and puts forth an opinion on the nature of the society with hardly any evidence to support it. In this section, as well as others, it also seems some citations could be added as a lot of facts are given without a source.

Overall it seems like a lot could be added to the article. It gives a good background about the context in which Caral existed but has very little about different aspects of the society itself. There are many possible directions you could take your research in, such as looking more at the architecture, cuisine, etc. One part of the article that seemed particularly interesting to me was the section titled "Scope of site" which mentions how Caral could have been connected to regions as far away as the Amazon through trade. I think the article could benefit from a deeper dive into this and what role trade played in this society.

The overall organization of the article could also use some work. Most of the information in the article is under the section "Archaeological findings", which seems like it could be split up into many different sections based on the various aspects of society it discusses.