Talk:Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance

Peer Review
This article seems in great shape. I see the blank areas where you still need to fill in, but the large portion that is complete is done incredibly well. The Wiki reads like a standard Wiki and embodies the neutral and informative tone for Wikipedia. I'm sure these will be placed later, but I do see a need for a secondary source when discussing this but I assume once the reception section is complete there will be more secondary sources. I believe you need 2-3 secondary sources before you can create a new page, so including those will really improve the quality of the article in an "easy" way (as I know doing the work to simply and concisely describe all the small stories of a book/author is the hardest part).

The lead is concise and informative, and the overall article is well organized with headings and subheadings as necessary.

I am hoping that later on you'll be able to upload a cover image for the book, as that would improve the article.

Overall, I am really impressed with your completely new article! Once a few secondary sources are added, maybe a cover photo, and the blanks are filled in it will be a perfect resource for people to check for information about this book. Nuch1102 (talk) 19:27, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Peer Review
I think you did a wonderful job so far on your article! Overall, your summaries look really good. I am not sure if you are planning to include anything else, but I think adding a critical review section would be really interesting. You could use sources of academics reviewing her short stories. I also think that historical context would be really good in your article. I think you could add a little bit more about the stories in your lead or a little bit more about Zora Neale Hurston. Overall, I think you did a really good job keeping things neutral and relevant. I do think that you need to add more sources. You need at least 2-3 sources that are relevant to the subject but are not the subject itself. There are a few things that I think might be helpful to you. I have some specific examples below for you, but in general, I would avoid using words like “Sadly” and “unfortunately” unless they are necessary for paraphrasing. I think they make it a bit less neutral. Furthermore, some of your descriptions of the stories start with “This story” and then some of them start with the name of the story. This is not necessary, but I think it would look nice if you started all of them with the name of the story so that it is consistent. Right before the forward, I believe that Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick should be italicized. In John Redding Goes to Sea, I think one of your sentences should be reformatted to “​​However, his mother, Matty, is possessive, superstitious, and claims to be ill in order to convince him to stay”. I just added a comma after possessive and took out the and. I would also take out the word sadly. In the Conversation of Sam, I think the very first comma is unnecessary (After this tale) and I would take out the word unfortunately. Under the Eatonville Anthology, I would maybe underline or bold the first word that you are discussing just for formatting purposes. I would remove the comma after follows in the first sentence of Book of Harlem.

Bambam1019 (talk) 19:31, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia standards
,, reading the above peer reviews makes me concerned that students in this class have not properly been taught Wikipedia's relevant policies and guidelines. While the article contains lovely and well-written plot summaries, as an actual Wikipedia article this is totally inadequate: articles about books should not be plot summaries, they should briefly summarize the plot before moving on to discussing its reception and impact. Hitting a Straight Lick is a subject for which students should have absolutely no trouble finding top-quality secondary WP:RS: a quick internet search pulls up reviews in NYT, The Guardian, and more. If the student had submitted an article about a more obscure topic written like this, it would likely end up deleted for failure to demonstrate the subject's notability. And this is all the more concerning given that the student that wrote this article is in not one but two different Wikipedia Education-supported classes this term. signed,Rosguill talk 01:25, 6 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @Rosguill, Thank you for sharing you concern about this class. I've actually delved into some literature guides this week as a refresher, in order to properly review literature articles like these and from other classes I've seen submitted this week. I agree the articles weigh heavily on the plot summary, and need to expand more on the reception and impact. I'll address these concerns with students on their talk pages, and with instructors to make sure there's a clear understanding of policies and guidelines moving forward with classes that focus on literature. Thanks for all your time and help with page patrol! Brianda (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:39, 7 December 2022 (UTC)