Talk:Open Books

Peer Review for COMM206
I think that your group did a good job at simplifying your sentences. Aside from a few sentences that read a little biased, your article is pretty much straight to the facts.

Overall, I think you could resolve a lot of your issues just by reading it out loud. Most of the problems lie in grammar and sentence structure which is a pretty easy fix!

I will definitely be referencing your page as a model for short and simple sentences that get the point across.

Your lead section is kind of lengthy. I think there are some parts that can be moved to other sections to make the paragraph a little bit more readable.

“By providing different programs and giving access”. I think that you should get rid of “different”.

“An online store that offers a selection of purchasable books”. Get rid of “a selection”.

“Programs that allow young authors to create” This part sounds too advertise-ish. You could say teaches instead of allows possibly.

“Writing coach, and published authors students consult” There needs to be a comma between authors and students.

All of the links in your contents tab work perfectly!

In the history section, who is Walter? I do not see a sentence on who that person is before they are mentioned as a part of the “trio”.

“Ratner, Keaty, and Walter, and additional volunteers” Get rid of the “and” before Walter.

“Dedicated themselves to promoting literacy and the power of books within the city of chicago” This sounds too advertise-y too. You could maybe say, “worked to promote literacy and their belief in the power of books”

“recounted the motivation for the creation Open Books stemmed from Chicago’s continuing history of insufficient literacy skills in both adults and public school students.” This sentence needs to be reformatted. And possibly quote it if possible so it doesn't sound biased.

“Many of Open Books actions center around creating access to books, the ability to purchase books, prioritizing time for reading.” Also needs to be reformatted so it’s more easily read.

“In addition, the organization’s volunteers can choose to participate in many ways including tutoring and reading to young children, as well as…” Get rid of “in many ways including” and say “through”.

Reading Buddies: Is it an after school program? Or a lunch program? What age are the volunteers?

Creative Writing Field Trip: you said students twice. “Before going on to write their own work of creative literacy”. This does not make sense. Did you mean to say literature? But that also would be kind of weird to say. Maybe put “before going on to write their own creative narratives” or “creative works”.

Read then Write: “During this program, students read through a text with a volunteer writing coach before going on to write their own creative writing works, which are published in an annual Open Books anthology.” This is a long sentence, maybe split it up by putting a period after works and then starting the next sentence, “These are then published in…”

Open Books Publishing Academy: “is a reading, creative writing, book access & distribution program that allows young authors to create, write and professionally publish a full length novel.” Maybe find a different way to list the aspects of the program. It just doesn't flow well.

“With the assistance of Open Books staff, writing coaches, and published authors students consult industry professionals about design and publication of their books.” You have this exact same sentence in the intro. Please refer to my notes in that section.

Book Grant Program: “Through their Book Grant Program, from 2014-2015 Open Books donated over 130,000 books to community organizations to help create libraries in schools and non profit centers.” I think you should get rid of “through their book grant program” because it is already under the section of book grant program.

Some of your references are repeated. This might just be a mistake that happened when you were numbering them within your actual article.

But they all worked when I clicked through them and it seems like you have a wide variety of sources and from reputable organizations.

I think you can work on “wikifying” the article by linking it through to other pages. Then you won’t have the flag about it being an orphan. I know you have some but maybe try to add more.

JM1922 (talk) 15:40, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

The article is off to a good start. You've certainly got a lot of good information but it could use more organization. Have a little longer of an introduction paragraph with a couple more details. When was it founded? Where are they based? The general information at the top makes the article look a little messy and could use its own info box to clean it up. Instead of diving straight into their programs, take a second to talk about their history. It looks like you have plenty of sources and I bet there is some useful information in there.

My colleague brought up an excellent point in that there isn't consistency in the way you refer to Open Books. It effects the flow of article quite a lot.

The annotated bibliography should not have its own section. If there is information in there that you would like to use, first adjust the language. The tone of the sentences there makes it sound like it was written with bias. Using language like "there goals" does a lot of good, rather than just saying "its a space kids and adults will enjoy" say something like "their goal is to create a space both kids and adults can be engaged in." Tell me a bit more about when these particular programs have begun.

While there is a lot of good information, it's not always the right information. If you're finding that a lot of your sources are saying the same thing, try and dig for more information that doesn't just focus on goals of the organization. What about the people and the history? Two very important things that should have meaningful sections in your article.

Update: The article is a lot easier to read now. The flow has improved and there isn't an overload of information right from the start. Continue to look over it and consider what people want to see initially and what will get them to continue to investigate Open Books. Keep up the work, it's getting there.

Nwm28 (talk) 15:53, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Good job on not settling with the minimum number of sources and annotations. The more appropriate sources, the stronger the article.

You have a good start at splitting up your article with headings and subheadings, but based on your annotations, you could further organize your article with an overview of the organization followed by headings such as History, Locations, Area/People Served (specific demographics, if any), and Programs to name a few.

There must be consistency in the organization’s name. In the article, the organization is listed as “Open Books,” “OpenBooks,” and “Open Book”. According to the sources, it seems that the organization’s proper name is Open Books.

There also must be consistency in how the organization is referenced. In the article, Open Books is called both a book-store and an organization. It would be more clear to explain that the organization created the bookstores to help fund their mission of promoting literacy. Calling Open Books a bookstore makes it seem more commercial and less of a non-profit.

There are contradictions in the annotations, some say the second store is in River North but other sources say the store is in West Loop. According to Google Maps, the store in question is located in West Loop.

The opening headline about the organization seems to beat around the bush a bit, it could be more descriptive while still being concise. For example, it could say: Open Books is a nonprofit organization based in Chicago, Illinois that works to decrease the illiteracy rate by exposing students to literature and mentorship.

The article “draft” should be moved into the mainspace; this way other people can edit it as well.

The annotations should be organized under headings and subheadings as opposed to a list (and remove the heading Annotated Bibliography). Putting the annotations under their appropriate headings will help to make the information flow better and be more cohesive. Annotations should not include testimonials, lengthy quotes, or say “this article…”. Instead of testimonials, sources about the founder, Stacy Ratner, could be included. There are some articles and sources about her. I suggest you look at this link because it has some information about Stacy Ratner. The link also has some interesting information about an initiative called “V-Write” that I think you should mention in your article. It shows that Open Books is more than just a bookstore, they have a mentorship program as well.

The annotations themselves should be edited to sound more neutral. Biased words and phrases such as the following should be changed or deleted from the annotations:
 * “The best part…”
 * “…important events…”
 * “…it is in a cozy spot…”
 * “Open Books is a Kid-friendly bookstore that adults will also enjoy.”

You have a bunch of information at the top of your page that seems like it should be in one of those info-box things. I added one of these on my group’s article, you can copy the formatting from the source editing and paste it onto your page and enter in the information you have to create the box. Also, I think you should cite where you got the information for the box (like the email, hours, etc… is it all from their own website?). The template can be found on my group's page.

Tfpvam (talk) 01:15, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

The article is off to a good start. You've certainly got a lot of good information but it could use more organization. Have a little longer of an introduction paragraph with a couple more details. When was it founded? Where are they based? The general information at the top makes the article look a little messy and could use its own info box to clean it up. Instead of diving straight into their programs, take a second to talk about their history. It looks like you have plenty of sources and I bet there is some useful information in there.

My colleague brought up an excellent point in that there isn't consistency in the way you refer to Open Books. It effects the flow of article quite a lot.

The annotated bibliography should not have its own section. If there is information in there that you would like to use, first adjust the language. The tone of the sentences there makes it sound like it was written with bias. Using language like "there goals" does a lot of good, rather than just saying "its a space kids and adults will enjoy" say something like "their goal is to create a space both kids and adults can be engaged in." Tell me a bit more about when these particular programs have begun.

While there is a lot of good information, it's not always the right information. If you're finding that a lot of your sources are saying the same thing, try and dig for more information that doesn't just focus on goals of the organization. What about the people and the history? Two very important things that should have meaningful sections in your article.

Nwm28 (talk) 12:04, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

I forgot to click on all of the references when I did my peer review. Going back, I now see that some of the links are from the organization's own website and a few of the links that appear to be for LexisNexis articles are not stable links. It is best to have outside sources instead of information from sources that are internally written by the organization.

Tfpvam (talk) 21:14, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi guys. You're off to a great start on this article. It sounds like Open Books does great work. As I read through it, I feel like I am reading a paper rather than an informative article. The use of transitional phrases like


 * "besides that,"
 * "Additionally,"
 * "Moreover,"
 * and "However"

read more like filler than informative. I would get rid of all transitional phrases used. The article also reads as though you're still summarizing all your sources, rather than a cohesive article. A lot of groups are struggling with this step, but there needs to be more of a flow between the sources, rather than a list each of you has thrown together. I agree with Tfpvam that the phases listed above read as biased.

I can clearly see from your article that you have the information needed to separate into sections, yet the sections you have made are too specific. Start with more broad headings. Information about Open Books being a non-profit and their goals as an organization should be at the very beginning of the article, rather than scattered all over the article how it is now. There is no need to actually cite an article, typing out authors and titles like in a paper. That is why Wikipedia has a citation generator, to do all that for you. At this point, there should also not be any "this source" phrases anymore. You want to just extract important information and state it, rather than a summary of an article you read about Open Books.

Overall, I think you have solid information to do an introduction, about, and maybe a collaborations section. I try to think of a Wikipedia article as an outline, using the sections as the title of each section of the outline. This helps for organization, which is the thing most lacking from your article so far. Just do not be so specific with them. The first objective should be to figure out what you want that outline to be and fill the sections in with the information you have so far. Then, you can begin to dig deeper and find other information for different sections.

Good luck on the edits, our own article has a lot of the same issues that you guys are having. Like our professor said in the emails, there's a lot of good information but we need start small. Figure out what information is most important and delete the rest.

I also found a great article on the founder of Open Books, maybe her story should be mentioned. 

Ja00brien (talk) 22:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)