User:Biancaneff/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Option 1

 * Article title
 * Morgan le Fay


 * Article Evaluation
 * Originally, I scoped out this topic for the purpose of writing and editing an article about the history of Medicine and use of herbology in the early stages of medicine, and how women were the main "doctors" of the Middle Ages. I then stumbled upon this article thinking that this was about the women of medicine since this was the nickname for them, but upon reading the nickname was actually based on a legend about the half sister of King Arthur. So as for relevance, there is not only connections to one of the Kings and most prominent legends of this time, but the circulation of this legend spreads to not only literature, but the art and even royalty, showing up in other countries like France, Spain and Italy to name a few. Each claim has a citation to back it up, but unfortunately, and noted in the sources, there is lack of foundational textbook and sources that are given as a whole research, instead the author tags citations as needed from outside internet websites, still they are credible like britannica, but heavily relies on only a handful of sources for what seems like a large article. This being about a women lets this article be in the clear for discussing an underrepesented population, but still relies on the discussion of the royal families and King Arthur, a man, or even discusses her appearance in writings or paintings that were also conjured up by men, therefore stealing the spotlight a bit away from le Fay when discussing the men a little more than necessary. The only real critque I have is the modern section of the article, there is virtually one sentence, and a link to another article about le Fay's contribution in the modern world. It almost dissapoints me as a reader because of the context given the entire article and depths taken, only to be ended with one sentence, that was not wwrapping up the article, or giving information that was groundbreaking or seemed worth the read. There were a lot of critics in the talk page, mainly about the same ideas I had about the sources, and lended a few for suggestion. The talk page also had a few writers that wanted to know less about the family icon of the royalty, and more about the geneology that led le Fay to have the supernatural powers that she did. There is also a post about the femine arch and the development seen in today's world, but there was a discussion listed below about it and it seems there is a two way street about the archetype of le Fay and women at that time and today's world.


 * Sources
 * Uses a lot of European and and American university articles and published readings as citations, but the bibliography seems a little bare, there are only 6 books used in consultation for the Wiki article, there is also only 1 external link, which takes you to a webstie by a University, but it is not visually professional nor is there a lot of information unless you investigate the outside sources linked, which the author of this article did not seem to do.

Option 2

 * Article title
 * Apothecary


 * Article Evaluation
 * I then tried to research more about herbalist, or botanist that would use their plants for medicinal purposes in the Middle Ages, perferabbly again the angle about women in medicine and the use of plants in the early ages. This brought me to an article about Apothecary and medical history in the Middle ages. There was a part of the article that discusses this line of work as the entrance to women in healing and medicine. All sounds great right? It is literally 4 sentences. And the only external link is about midwives. The article itself is not high in diverse vocabulary and lacks a lot of links to external citations and credits to the claims they are making in the article. While there are about 40 references, there is one external link, and no bibliography, so it is safe to say there is not enough "meat and potatoes" in this article to make it a credible one. Each description about the history of apothecaries is a sentence, and there is a list of them, but not any information on the article itself about the relations to them. There is very little discussion about underrepresented populations and it doesn't seem to tackle the equity gaps, so that could be added in as well, especially in the area about women in medicine, that can be a big discussion used in that content area. It seems from the talk page on this article that there were a lot of issues initially to the references and incorrect citings of information on the article that have since then been fixed, but that goes to show the aritcle was published without real cross-referencing and still on the article there is a note by Wikipedia that requests for more help on making sections of the article more reliable and credible. There is also discussions on brining in the Bible and modifiying the external links to be more correct and actually able to provide outside information on the topic. Overall, this is probably the first article I stumbled upon where I wasn't impressed and actually wanted to research more about the topic to either edit or find a topic from the article and write my own completely.


 * Sources
 * There were a fair amount of sources that were diverse which was nice, but a lot of them were from websites that I couldn't read, but most of them were scholar works. Sad to say, there were a few of the sources that were great openers to information about topics that were not discussed or barely written about in the article, which makes me question where they incorporated it into the writing, and how those sources can be taken and used properly in an editing of the article.

Option 3

 * Article title
 * Midwifery in the Middle Ages


 * Article Evaluation
 * To continue my quest in finding more about women's roles in medicine, there was a brief discussion in the last article I looked at about midwives in the middle ages, so I decided to find the article about that. This article was interesting, and had a good amount of sources, but a lot of the topics discussed were just quoted, there wasn't a lot of original thought, more just spitting back quotes from the searched sources. It seems that someone had actually already edited this page for a class assignment in their insitution in 2019, and had the same comments to say. What I did like though, is how they brought the questions of witchcraft that were common with the midwives, and the medivial emphasis this source of labor medicine had, but it would have been nice to add the future and present midwivfery service and how it connected to the past.


 * Sources
 * The only thing I would critque was the amount of sources by the same people. It was a good amount of sources if every one was by a different scholar, but the use of citations from one person was not enough to consider it a heavily reliable article since the same author was quoted several times.

Option 4

 * Article title
 * Abbess


 * Article Evaluation
 * Now I'm interested in the topic of women's roles in the Middle Ages, and looking into the role women had in religions brought me to this article. This article is short though, and for the topic and content and age we are talking about, the amount of information is vague and concise. There is so much to the history of religion and growth of it and particiaption in this time, yet that section is a few paragraphs. The roles section has bullet points that could very easily turn into their own sections, and. with the proper research can be major talking points of this article. Not to mention, every discussion of their role is tied to a man, or a male priest is brought up in coversation when discussing the female role in religion, which is boring and frustrating.


 * Sources
 * There are only 6 footnotes, and 6 sources, all of which are old, the latest one being a decade old, and barely hold any discussion in the article. The author did not take the time to properly quote or connect outside links and sources to this article.

Option 5

 * Article title
 * Article Evaluation
 * Sources
 * Sources
 * Sources