User:BilboSwaggins25/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

 * Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
 *  Start Class---Mid Importance 


 * Article Evaluation
 * While there is a good beginning for this article, the reasons why this is labeled as a start are abundantly clear. As it stands currently, there is no analysis section on the article's page, and its contents are extremely imbalanced, with more weight allocated to the poem's appearances in other forms of media rather than the poem itself. The talk section shows that the process of editing this page has been contentious and controversial, most significantly resulting in an admin locking the page for a period of time. It has since been released for editing purposes, albeit with some restrictions, but I think that I would be able to significantly improve this article by adding a properly sourced analysis section, in order to balance out the subject matter of the article.


 * Sources
 * "A Study Guide for Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Cengage Learning Gale" "Masterclass American & British Literature by John Bailey" "Thomas’s Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Jonathan Westphal"

comments - np
You’re right about the shortcomings of the article, and especially the absence of a well sourced analysis section. An earlier analysis section was a subject of the Talk page controversy. That section was finally removed because it was unsourced. I agree with you that the article needs a neutral and reliably sourced analysis section. Creating such a section would be a fine goal for your Wikipedia project.

If you do decide to work on this poem, you will need to find reliable scholarly analyses of the poem. Here are a couple of comments about the sources you list. First, publication information should be provided, including publisher and date and place of publication. Is the third source (Westphal) a journal article, and if so, is there an online link to the journal? And second: the first two sources you list appear to be guides for students. These could be useful as a first step – as a possible source of further references. But they are probably not the kind of reliable scholarly source needed for a Wikipedia article.

You would need to do a search in library databases dedicated to literature topics, as suggested by Susette Newberry in our library research session. You can consult the guide she created for our class here: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/coml2051. You can also get in touch with her (sn18) and arrange a consultation about your project. She is eager to help.

Option 2

 * Hope Is The Thing With Feathers
 *  C-Class---Mid-Importance 


 * Article Evaluation
 * The article for this poem is definitely more substantial than "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night's", however there is a banner across the top of the article noting that the article substantially relies on primary sources, and upon further inspection of the article and bibliography, I've found that this is correct, and while some secondary sources were eventually added, there is still considerable room for improvement, especially regarding citation. The majority of the analysis section is based on a singular secondary source, so I feel that there is room for diversification in that area. There also is a significant need for explanation and proper citation in various parts of the article. For example, there is a reference in the analysis section to a "Mr.Lin" without establishing who this is, and/or why he's relevant. Also, it seems to be slightly opinionated, saying things such as "Dickinson's poems are lauded as mysterious and enigmatic" without clarifying, by whom exactly they are referring.

comments - np
My comments about your option 2 are similar:  First, the analysis section could be a focus of your project. As you note, more sources are needed, and the current account should be revised and better sourced. Second, for this article, too, you will need to consult reliable scholarly sources. Again I’m not sure the study guide you mention is the kind of source you will need, and more information is needed about the other sources.

By the way, there is an significant (though easily correctable) error in the second paragraph of the History of publication section, and specifically in the identification of the “first scholarly collection of Dickinson’s work.”  If you decide to work on the Dickinson article, this will be an additional (smaller) problem to consider.

Option 3

 * Annabel Lee
 *  C-Class---High Importance 


 * Article Evaluation
 * Between the time of my initial analysis of the "Annabel Lee" Wikipedia page, and now, unfortunately not much has changed. The page is still as imbalanced, opinionated, and unfortunately underdeveloped as ever. The citations in the analysis section, are for the majority, used incorrectly, and there is a lot of personal opinion, and what one might consider original research throughout the article. The Adaptations section is merely a list of references rather than a paragraph, and seems to take over a possibly overly significant amount of the page. The Publication History and Reception section is also in need of attention, as I believe the publication history part is fine, but there is hardly a proper public reception element to the section, substituting instead a reference to Lolita that would fit better into the adaptations section.


 * Sources
 * "A Source for Annabel Lee by Robert Adger Law" "Sonority and Semantics in Annabel Lee by Sławomir Studniarz" "Poe, Mrs. Osgood and Annabel Lee by Buford Jones and Kent Ljungquist"

comments - np
You’ve identified several problems with this article, working section by section. Some commenters on the Talk page agree with you that the article appears to contain original research. Work on the article would involve taking a look at the cited sources and determining whether they are reliable and useful, and possibly identifying reliable sources not cited here, and then rewriting these sections to ensure neutral content.

Your point about the Nabokov paragraph is good: it would fit better in a (rewritten) adaptations section.

The sources you identify look promising, but again it’s hard for me to tell without further information.