User talk:Lingip001/sandbox

Article Evaluation

Article chosen: Sound change

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

I found everything in the article relevant, but I got a little lost in the introduction of the topic. The introduction is quite long and not particularly structured. In the first paragraph alone multiple attempts to define/explain the article topic.

• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

The article is neutral. The tone is very descriptive and explanatory, thus by nature there is not much room for a bias towards a particular position.

• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

No, there are no viewpoints that are over or underrepresented.

• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

The citation links all work. To see if the source actually supports the claims in the article, I checked the third citation as a sample and found that the journal article that was cited was supportive. However, for the other two citations, only the authors of sources - "Sihler" and "Anttila" - are written down, which makes it quite hard for the readers to check the sources.

• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

This article currently only has 3 citations and not all facts are referenced. Two out of the three existing citations are not properly cited either so I'm unable to check where exactly the information comes from.

• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

The last update was made in 2015 which is quite recent especially given the topic 'sound change' for which the underlying principles don't change over time. If I were to think of something to add to the page, it would be about reconstruction of sound change that we talked about in class.

• Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

There are debates on the content of the article, such as if what is represented is correct and/or current. There are also conversations about what specific words should be used to explain so that they can best represent what they are trying to convey. One interesting conversation I noted was one about how they should refine another article which is on a similar yet different topic, so that readers don't confuse the two topics.

• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

On the quality aspect, the article was rated 'start-class' and it is part of the WikiProject Linguistics.

• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

In class we were discussing more generally about the history of languages of which the topic of 'sound change' was a part of, so we didn't talk as extensively about principles and types of sound change which the Wikipedia article goes into.

Article Evaluation

Article chosen: Accent (sociolinguistics)

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

I found everything in the article highly relevant to the topic of the article. Although no content distracted me, the Wikipedia's template message that said "The neutrality of this article is disputed" in the 'Accent Discrimination' section did catch my attention.

• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

As I noted before, in the 'Accent Discrimination' section there is a Wikipedia template message that informs the reader that the neutrality of this section is debated. However, having read through the section I actually did not feel that there were any claims or frames that appear heavily biased toward a particular position. I felt that all statements were factual, objective and backed with a credible source. So, I checked out the talk page to see why this section was flagged. I found out that the user who felt that this section was not neutral just felt that the phenomenon of accent discrimination was subjective, yet I'm not sure how this user's opinion holds up as there are studies and numbers backing this phenomenon.

• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

No, there are no viewpoints that are over or underrepresented.

• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

I checked a sample of citations. Of those I checked, I found that all links work and that the sources support the claims in the article.

• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

The facts are referenced with reliable sources such as journal articles and dictionary publications. The studies in the journal article seem credible as they are published in major journals, yet there are always risks that the articles were written in a biased manner. Also, as the page notes, there could certainly be some more citations to improve the reliability of the article.

• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

All information seems to be up to date, but the 'Development' section could certainly be expanded to better explain how accents are formed. In the introduction they mention a few of these factors such as "locality in which its speakers reside (a regional or geographical accent), the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class (a social accent), or influence from their first language (a foreign accent)". So, these factors could each be explained further.

• Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

The Talk page consists of discussions around how to best classify the article, how to factually represent the information without sounding subjective and why certain aspects of the article were added.

• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

The article is rated as a C-class and is part of the WikiProject Linguistics.

• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

In class we focused more on what leads to a variation in language rather than the consequences of the variation, whereas the Wikipedia article placed more emphasis on the consequences particularly in the social environment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lingip001 (talk • contribs) 20:17, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Article Evaluation

Article Chosen: Language-learning aptitude

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Everything in the article seemed relevant to the article topic. However, I did find some things a little distracting. Firstly, there were some repetitions of information. Secondly, I don't think the section headers made much intuitive sense for a reader that is not familiar with the article topic. Lastly, I think the sections could be re-ordered so that the information presented makes more sense.

• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

The article sounds neutral as there are no opinionated phrases. However some facts are not cited which raises concern.

• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

No viewpoints seem particularly over or under-represented.

• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

There are only 2 citations. Both links work and support the claims in the article.

• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

Not all facts are cited and referenced. The 2 references come from published books that covers a large scope of the language acquisition topic. I would consider both references neutral.

• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

I don't believe any information is out of date. One reference does date back to 1989, however the citation pulled from this reference is the definition of language-learning aptitude, which I do not believe changed much over time.

• Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

There is not much happening in the Talk page. Only one person has posted about a potential merger of this article topic with another similar one. However, no one has answered.

• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

It is rated as a start-class and it is a part of four WikiProjects.

• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

In class, we talked about the difference of language acquisition ability in children and adults, but the article did not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lingip001 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Article Evaluation

Article Chosen: Sentence processing

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Everything in the article seems relevant to the topic; nothing particularly stood out as distracting.

• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

The article seems neutral as all information are presented as a factual statement, but the fact that there aren't many citations makes me question the validity of these statements.

• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

I don't think there are any viewpoints that are over or under represented.

• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

All citations links work and having checked the references, the sources do support the claims in the article.

• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

Of the facts that are referenced, the references are appropriate and reliable. The sources are all scientific journal articles, which are highly vetted for biases and thus should be neutral.

• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

No information seems particularly out of date. But the article needs additional citations for verification.

• Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

There is only one post in the Talk page, and it is a question about adding content (examples). No one has answered the question.

• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

The article has been rated B-class and is part of WikiProjects Linguistics.

• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

I was not in class so I'm not quite sure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lingip001 (talk • contribs) 21:43, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Article Evaluation

Article Chosen: Khoisan languages

• Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Everything in the article seems to be relevant to the topic and nothing distracted me.

• Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

I believe the article is neutral, and is without any claims that appear heavily biased. All statements are very factual.

• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

No viewpoints are over or underrepresented. The article just gives us the context of Khoisan languages and what it entails.

• Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

All links work, and the sources seem to support the claims in the article. However, there are some citations that say "citation needed". When I click on this link it brings me to a completely different article page titled Wikipedia:Citation needed.

• Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

The references are all published academic papers except one which references the British Encyclopedia. They are neutral sources although there are always risk of inherent bias imposed by the writer of the papers and Encyclopedia.

• Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

No information seems to be out of date. But there is an entire "to-do list" on the Talk page that lists all the missing information that is to be added.

• Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

The Talk page discusses the validity of the content, language used to represent the content, and additional information that should be added.

• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

The article is rated C-class and is of interest to four different WikiProjects.

• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

In class we only briefly touched on the "clicking language" in the context of how we tell apart a language. In this article, much more context and history of the Khoisan language is detailed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lingip001 (talk • contribs) 15:55, 19 November 2017 (UTC)