User:Bokchoychoy/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

 * Religion in Korea
 * Article Evaluation
 * This article is a stub as rated by WikiProject Religion and WikiProject Korea, and it is rated as top-importance by the latter.
 * Most of the sources of this article are reputable, published by neutral and peer-reviewed parties like the University Hawaii Press and the Korean Statistical Information Service. However, two of the sources I must question. The monograph The New History of Korean Civilization by Chai-Shin Yu is self published, and at least one Amazon reviewer of this book claims there are no citations within it. I do not think this source has any place in Wikipedia. The other source that I feel I must at least be skeptical of is the Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Because of extreme bias against the DPRK even amongst official sources in the United States, I have found in the area of Korean studies that claims made by US sources about North Korea can be shaky and outlandish. Stories from North Korean defectors that are sensational in nature and match propagandized accounts of life in North Korea tend to be rewarded with higher interview and public appearance fees. However, I do not feel comfortable discounting this source altogether.
 * This article is obviously short with no true introduction section. It contains little, though the information therein is appropriate for the nature of the article. It lacks depth or detail about any of the religions it mentions (namely the indigenous Korean form of animism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and Christianity) or their significance within a Korean context. When it mentions Buddhism, animism, and Christianity, it does not mention the differing levels of persecution these religions faced under the Confucian worldview that dominated the nobility class in the late Joseon Dynasty.
 * The Talk page mentions Eastern Orthodox churches and their presence in Korea after Russian intervention in the late 1800s and that it needs to be mentioned in the article. There is a Wikipedia page dedicated to the Korean Orthodox Church, but it has never been linked in this article.
 * The article has a decent start, but it needs more substance overall and for its unsubstantiated source to be removed.


 * Sources
 * Grayson, James Huntley. 2007. “The Kwallye Samga of Korea: A Failed Attempt at Christian Accommodation to Confucian Culture.” Asian Folklore Studies 66 (1/2): 125–40. http://search.ebscohost.com.libproxy.albany.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hus&AN=509807264&site=ehost-live.

Option 2

 * Picture bride
 * Article Evaluation
 * This article is rated as a start-class with no importance marker by WikiProject Korea, B-class of mid-importance by WikiProject Japan / History, start-class of mid-importance by WikiProject Hawaii, B-class of low importance by WikiProject United States / Asian Americans, and B-class of mid-importance by WikiProject Women's History.
 * The sources for this article all seem to be published by peer-reviewed journals, major US universities, or through groups based in major universities and do not seem suspect.
 * It has a short but informative introduction that explains the concept behind a picture bride. The article is well-written in a neutral voice with information sections clearly delineated and with good flow from topic to topic. All of the information seems appropriate and useful.
 * I do notice that the article mentions Okinawan picture brides in passing thrice in total, but never reveals any statistics or substance on their experiences as opposed to the wealth of information it has about Japanese women. Korean women are also mentioned to a lesser extent than Japanese women. Because Okinawans and Koreans are traditionally discriminated against within a Japanese context this could constitute an equity gap, especially in the case of Okinawans who are barely mentioned. Interestingly, a contributor to the Talk page had mentioned that the article had previously mentioned only Korean picture brides. It seems the pendulum has swung in the other direction.
 * This article is good, though it needs more information pertaining to Korean and Okinawan women especially. A lack of access to sources in Japanese and Korean (I highly doubt there are many sources in a Ryukyuan/Okinawan language available) may explain this.


 * Sources
 * Yang, Eun Sik. 1984. “Korean Women of America: From Subordination to Partnership, 1903-1930.” Amerasia Journal 11 (2): 1–28. http://search.ebscohost.com.libproxy.albany.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=31h&AN=46924780&site=ehost-live.

Option 3

 * Korean immigration to Hawaii
 * Article Evaluation
 * This article is rated as a start-class of mid-importance by WikiProject Hawaii, start-class with no importance marker by WikiProject Korea, and start-class of low-importance by WikiProject United States / Asian Americans.
 * The sources are appropriate to the claims they back up and are from official sources like the US Census Bureau and from peer-reviewed journals and university presses where applicable.
 * This article is the most disjointed of the three, with its largest section being a somewhat meandering discussion of US-Korea relations during the late Joseon Dynasty. Though this section of the article certainly has the purpose of establishing the prerequisites for the United States allowing Korean immigration into its territories via the 1882 Treaty of Amity and Commerce, that would probably best be established at such a length in the article on the treaty itself. A short explanation that the treaty established an avenue for immigration would suffice. I suspect this last section of the article was added on later, as the rest of it is relatively sound.
 * The talk page reveals that a potential contributor has insisted that more discussion around Korean contributions to Hawaii is needed, while another user has pointed out that the focus should be on the topic of immigration. Perhaps this is an extension of the issues surrounding the structure of the last article section and why there is such a long list (compared to the length of the article itself) of notable Korean-Americans after this section, but it might be unrelated. While paring down the last section would possibly take it down to stub level, that is the most pressing matter regarding the quality of the article's content.
 * Aside from this, the content is sound, though there is little to no discussion about the potential reasons for Korean immigration to Hawaii, which would definitely help give a sense of background to this phenomenon.


 * Sources
 * Macmillan, Michael E. 1985. “Unwanted Allies: Koreans as Enemy Aliens in World War Ii.” Hawaiian Journal of History 19 (November): 179–203. http://search.ebscohost.com.libproxy.albany.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=31h&AN=45817935&site=ehost-live.