User:Atd59/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I have chosen this article as I believe that each section has extensive work. I believe this article matters because Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a classic novel that has been reinterpreted many times whether in film or books. I don't fully remember my preliminary impression of the book since I read it when I was young, but I think that I really enjoyed the Mad Hatter. However, as I grew older I began to understand that each character in Wonderland carried some mental illness and social commentary (eg. the caterpillar and drug use).

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section

The lead includes an introductory sentence and a concise paragraph describing the novel's significance. However, the lead does not provide a brief description of the article's major sections.

Content

I thought the article provided a comprehensive and good balance of sections. Each section was relevant to the novel and even though the Publication Timeline felt a little long, I think it emphasized the extensive impact the book has left on the literary world. Perhaps a topic the article could address is how the book represents underrepresented populations. For example, while the article points out that the animals in the book are anthropomorphized, the article does not further explain each animal's characteristics and how they could relate to human disabilities or addiction problems. Also, I think the Adaptations section could be expanded especially that there are many blockbuster Hollywood movies based on this book.

Tone and Balance

Nonetheless, I think the article's tone remains neutral throughout which provides an unbiased evaluation of the novel. One viewpoint that could be elaborated is the literary nonsense claim. This claim was mentioned both in the second paragraph of the article and has a dedicated section. But, in the section there is only two sentences, and I still do not completely understand the meaning of this genre as well as how the novel might fit in it.

Sources and References

In terms of sources, the Wikipedia article does a great job in providing citations for each claim. The article has 116 references from a variety of reliable sources such as scholarly literature and some peer-reviewed articles. All the links work. But, I think the sources could include more diverse authors as I believe most of them are British. It would be interesting to see multicultural authors speak on the novel and its social commentary.

Organization and Writing Quality

I would agree that the article is well written due to its concise and clearly organized sections. There aren't many frivolous sentences making the article an easy, fast read. Further, there aren't any pressing grammatical errors, but in the Rules and Games section, I would try to vary the sentences as most of them utilize the same sentence structure of commas to separate nonessential elements. Although they are grammatically correct, a greater sentence variety would make reading the section more enjoyable.

Images and Media

There was a lot of images in the article depicting the animals in Wonderland. In the Synopsis section, I think they are helpful in visualizing the characters when they are introduced. But, I think in the Adaptations section, the picture could be replaced with a snip from a movie based on Alice in Wonderland, such as the 2010 Tim Burton adaptation. I felt the picture of people dressing in Alice in Wonderland costume was irrelevant. Each image was cited and given a caption, even though some captions could've been elaborated a little bit. For example, distinguishing which illustrations were part of the original version.

Talk Page

One of the main conversations in the Talk Page have to do with whether the article should merge Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with Through the Looking Glass and rename it as Alice in Wonderland. A user argued that many people refer to both books as Alice in Wonderland or don't even know that there are two distinct books. Most people agreed and this is reflected in the Wiki link where Alice in Wonderland gets redirected to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and you can find references to both works.

Overall Impressions

The article's overall status is B-Class. I thought the article had many strengths such as the extensive knowledge on the publication history of the book and that all claims and images were cited from reputable sources. But, I felt the article could be improved by spending more time on the Adaptations section by incorporating more movie and play adaptations. The section should also distinguish that most adaptations combine both Lewis Carrol novels mentioned in the Talk Page. However, overall, I believe the article is well-developed but minor improvements could increase its credibility.