User:Aumgirl2024/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?

Salma Khalil Alio

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

I chose this article because I want to start exploring African literature, and this article was about an African author. This article matters because it recognizes an author of a genre that is not really talked about. My preliminary impression of the article was that I found it fascinating.

Evaluate the article

• I think that overall you did a very nice job of going down the checklist and addressing the important points. I'll leave a few comments interspersed with yours. (If I didn't say anything, I agree with you.) Dr Aaij (talk) 15:27, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Note: as you can see I spent some time tracking down the references--that's the hardest work. I looked at half of them, and the websites they came from, and the "About" pages, and looked for editorial statements and editorial boards and that sort of thing: that is important, cause there's millions of websites and e-publications. If sources are from the New York Times or academic journals, that's easy--but (and you may know this better than others now after looking at this article) a. such authors don't get written about so much in English mainstream publications, and b. well, French! (Which I read and speak, fortunately.)

Lead Section

• The lead only includes one sentence, but it describes the article's topic. I feel as if there could have been more in the lead, such as the artist's major works/ accomplishments.
  • Yes, so here you go: here is room for article improvement. Go do it! (Seriously, go do it--it's good practice.)
• The lead doesn't include a brief description of the article's major section, but it does have a "contents" section.
  • Technically that "Contents" isn't part of the lead.
• The lead is very concise and doesn't include any information that is not present in the article.

Content

• I feel that the article's content is relevant to the topic, as it is an article about the author's life.
• The article isn't too outdated because it mentions things from as late as 2017. However, it doesn't mention anything recent.
  • Yes, so it's worthwhile checking if there's anything new--which would be easier if you spoke French, haha. Chad is a former French colony, of course, so that is also the language of many educational institutions, and the language that Chadian people probably have to use if they want a wider readership.
• I don't think that the article has any missing content, or content that doesn't belong.
• The article addresses a topic related to a historically underrepresented topic by addressing the fact that Salma is the first female cartoonist in Chad.
  • True dat. But shouldn't the lead mention that? It's important enough, given the traditional suppressed role of women in Chad.

Tone and Balance

• I think that the article has a neutral tone, and doesn't appear to have any biased claims.
• It doesn't seem to be any underrepresented/overrepresented viewpoints.
  • Yeah it's so short, it doesn't really have any at all. Plus, it's not likely a thing many people will fight over--not like, I don't know, the Capitol riots or the nationality of Nikalo Tesla.
• The article doesn't attempt to persuade the reader in any way.

Sources and References

• Facts in articles are backed by secondary sources.
  • Hmm the first one is a poem, so that's not much. The second is an interview, and that's not automatically a secondary source about the author (and the citation is unclear: it's an interview that was published in Amina, and you could go and fix that citation). The TchadConvergence ref is just one sentence, and the website itself (see this) is maybe more than "just" a website, but it also proudly proclaims it has a political agenda--one I agree with, but still). Something similar applies to Voice for Thought. And ref 8, from the French Embassy in Chad, that really can't count as an independent secondary source.
• The sources are thorough. Some sources are older, and some were modified as current as 2018.
• The sources appear to be written by a diverse spectrum of authors.
• There are other sources available, I was able to find an interview. However, the interview is written in French. [1]
  • That one is already linked in the article.
• All links that are linked in the article work.

Organization and Writing Quality

• The article is clear and concise. However, it does contain a couple of grammatical and spelling errors
  • I didn't see any; if you're sure, go ahead and correct them.
• The article is also well-organized. It is broken down into the correct sections that are relevant to the major points of the article.

Images and Media

• The article only contains one image- an image of the author. I feel that there could have been more images included, like images of some of the author's work.
  • Yeah but one is dependent on whether those exist, and whether they are free of use (copyright). You can check Wikimedia Commons.
• The image does not have a caption, but it does adhere to the copyright regulations.

Talk Page Discussion

• There are no conversations going on in the Talk page about this article.
• The article is apart of WikiProject Africa/ Chad, WikiProject Women, WikiProject Biography/ Arts and Entertainment, WikiProject Wiki Loves Women, and WikiProject Women Writers. They are all rated Start-class, and most are rated of low-importance.
• The way Wikipedia discusses the topic differs from the way we've discussed the topic in class is that on Wikipedia, it may not be seen as that important, but in class, the topics are discussed as important and something that needs to be more written about.

Overall Impressions

• Overall, the article is good and does its job for the most part.
• The article's strength is its sourcing
• The article could be improved by providing more information if possible, more images, and more to the lead section.
• I would say that the article may be a little underdeveloped.