User:Babybear444/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article searching through Wiki Project: Poetry articles, to find an article that is relevant to our class discussions. We have discussed Maya Angelou at length, particularly focused on her relationship to the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Evaluate the article
This article is relatively short and concise, and is summed up well in the lead section. All of the information brought up in the lead section is addressed again later in the body. The article is for the most part neutral and factual, although the author does introduce a possibly unfounded relationship between Angelou's speech at Bill Clinton's inauguration and the publishing of this book. One paragraph is dedicated to Maya Angelou's personal life and its effect on her poetry, prose, and autobiography. There aren't necessarily any false conclusions or connections made in this paragraph, as most of the work appears to be well cited. This section does get a little tangential, but overall I think a personal and professional background is useful information to put the popularity of the poem collection into context with Angelou's other work. The talk page shows this is a B-Class rated article (mid importance), and is of interest to three WikiProjects. There is some discussion about orphan links, and I added a question about where the author made the connection between the publication date and the inauguration.

comments on this evaluation
1. The evaluation of the lead is fine.

2. You make an interesting observation about the possibly speculative connection suggested between Angelou’s reading at Clinton’s inauguration and the publication of the collection. You’re right that no source is cited for this comment. Your question on the Talk page is a productive step.

3. Your discussion of the paragraph about the connections between Angelou’s personal life and her writing is also well conceived. Angelou’s personal life is mentioned not for its own sake but, as you suggest, to put her poetry in the context of her work in other genres. This discussion is useful because of critical disagreements about the relative importance of her poetry.

4. Did you notice any problems of punctuation or phrasing?