User:Carlyc43/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Picture book

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.)

Picture books are a prominent genre of literature and I was surprised to see how scarce this page is. It is rated start-class and high-importance. Picture books were an important part of my childhood and now I see their pedagogical and artistic value as well.

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 follow’s Wikipedia’s guidelines in that it provides basic information, but it does not adequately summarize the entire article. For example, it lists some famous picture books, but does not set up the article by giving brief descriptions of each section that follows. It does not flow smoothly either. There is nothing in the lead about the importance of picture books or typical picture book content. There is an image from Peter Rabbit that adds a nice touch, but even that could be improved by showing both text and picture on a page from Peter Rabbit, instead of just the picture. Additionally, the lead is not well sourced. The first sentence, however, is a good introduction to the article.

Content

While everything in the article is relevant, certain sections are much longer than others, so the article feels unbalanced and does not give a comprehensive overview of the topic of picture books. Specifically, the three historical sections make up the majority of the article and distract from some of the other important sections such as “categories” and “awards.” There are gaps in the article about the importance of picture books and their impact in our culture. There is nothing about the important collaboration between illustrators and authors. Additionally, there is nothing about the influence of picture books on children’s literacy development.

Tone and Balance

The article is neutral for the most part, although there are a few sentences that seemed biased in a certain direction and were unsourced. For example, the article refers to award winners as the “most distinguished American children’s book(s).” Without a source, this seems unbiased. There are many sentences that read as neutral facts, but that are not sourced, which makes me question their trustworthiness. As for balance, majority of the article focuses on the history of picture books and it feels out of balance.

Sources and References

There are only four sources cited in this article. The first one is the International Companion Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. This seems like a trustworthy and reliable source. It does not specifically focus on picture books, but includes chapters about types of children’s literature and the importance of children’s literature. This source is cited in the sections discussing the historic examples of picture books. The second source is Charlotte Huck’s Children’s Literature. It is not directly cited in the article and the link does not work, but it seems to be a reputable source geared towards childhood education. The third source is called The Illustrator and the book in England from 1790-1914. It is also not directly cited in the article, but seems to be most relevant to the historical sections. Lastly, there is a source called Children’s Picture book Price Guide. It is not directly referenced. The article could benefit from the addition of more comprehensive sources, especially in the non-historical sections. There does not seem to be any plagiarism in the article, but there are many parts of the article that seemed unsourced.

Organization and Writing Quality

The structure of the article could use some improvement. The majority of the article focuses on the history of picture books with lists of books from each time period. This history is split into three sections – “early illustrated books,” “early to mid-20th century,” and “mid- to late 20th century.” While there is a lot of interesting information in these sections, it overpowers the rest of the article and focuses too much on the history of picture books. I think the article would benefit from having one concise section about the history of picture books and some more information about awards, categories, and impact.

There were a few instances of wordy-ness and passive tense in the article. I did not notice any spelling or capitalization consistency issues. I highlighted some instances of poorly written sentences or run-ons in my annotation that I will change when editing the document. The biggest copyediting opportunity would be to consolidate some points and make the writing more simple and precise.

Images and Media

There is an image from Peter Rabbit that adds a nice touch, but even that could be improved by showing both text and picture on a page from Peter Rabbit, instead of just the picture.

Talk Page Discussion

There are conversations about what should be added to the article. Someone suggested adding some images. There is currently one on the page, but I think more would be beneficial. There is also conversation about adding development and evolution of the picture book or internationa history of the picture book. Both of these have since been worked on. There was also some conversation about adding information about picture books for adults. The article is rated start-class, high importance. It is part of two WikiProjects – Books and Visual Arts.

Overall

While everything in the article is relevant, certain sections are much longer than others, so the article feels unbalanced and does not give a comprehensive overview of the topic of picture books. Specifically, the three historical sections make up the majority of the article and distract from some of the other important sections such as “categories” and “awards.” There are gaps in the article about the importance of picture books and their impact in our culture. There is nothing about the important collaboration between illustrators and authors. Additionally, there is nothing about the influence of picture books on children’s literacy development.