User:Dagny371/Average American Man (1921)/Third500 Peer Review

Peer review
This is where you will complete your peer review exercise. Please use the following template to fill out your review.

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing? I am reviewing Dagny371's article on Average American Man
 * Link to draft you're reviewing: User:Dagny371/Average American Man (1921)

Lead
The Lead in this case is a little brief and not as relevant in previewing what you are discussing about the figure. While it is very concise, the lead makes no specific foreshadowing of how the statue was eugenic, mention of how it was calculated/created, or inclusion of its implications. I would add at least one sentence about this in the lead as these topics comprise a significant part of your overall Wikipedia article. The introductory sentence in this case is very strong and encompassing of what the Average American Man statue is at a higher level. Overall, the lead would benefit from 1-2 additional sentences following the introductory sentence going into more detail about the eugenic nature of the statue and the ensuing debate. (For instance, these could be summary sentences of the "conception" and "criticism" sections of your article.) This is a strength that I can incorporate into my own article as my article on Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals does not contain adequate discussions of memorials in its lead section. On another note, you do a strong job of linking in other Wikipedia articles like the International Congress of Eugenics throughout all the sections; continue to do this as you add to your article. Additionally in accordance with Wikipedia guidelines, you largely don't introduce any new information in the lead that isn't already present in your article so continue to use the lead as a summary of information stated later. The only exception to this is that you should include the information about the height and material of the sculpture, (e.g. "22 inch plaster sculpture"), elsewhere in the article, perhaps the conception or image caption, so that the lead doesn't solely discuss this information.

Content
The content is organized and appropriate for the article on the Average American Man. While the article mainly touches on its conception, exhibition, and criticisms, there is less information about longer term implications or more recent commentary on the statue. The article's content would benefit from text that describes how this statue is seen in the modern day or if there are any analogous composite eugenic statues that have been created since Davenport's sculpture.

Tone and Balance
There are minimal concerns with the tone and balance of your article as you maintain an objective tone and make sure to include a variety of viewpoints surrounding the sculpture, especially in the criticism section. There are fewer references in support of the statue in comparison to its criticism so this may be an underrepresented viewpoint.

Sources and References
Criticism:

While I do like the longer excerpt from the poster of the statue and think that it makes a useful contribution to the article, you use too many other quotes in the subsequent sections of the article especially in the Criticism section. You often quote entire sentences of each reviewer to the point where the Wikipedia article's word count is comprised of a significant portion of quoted words. The article would be stronger if you try to quote a little less frequently and instead paraphrased with footnote citations. A balance between longer quotes and paraphrasing will lead to better flow for your article for the reader. You can look at other more established Wikipedia articles for examples on striking more of a balance between paraphrasing and quotations. Additionally, there is little need to quote just a single nouns if you are paraphrasing in your own words and including a footnote citation. These are superfluous and interrupt the flow of the passage as a whole. (For instance, you don't need to place quotation marks around the word "types" at the end of the Criticism section.) This is one of the top two changes, in addition to the comments on organization of new sections, that you can make to your article.

Good things:

When it comes to the sources of your articles, you have a good diversity of sources and inclusion of both primary and secondary sources. The sources are current, thorough, and up to date. However, the inclusion of more content and sources establishing how there was widespread concerning with the deterioration of America's physique and 'stock' with other races, immigration, and weaker generations, will provide more context for the sculpture. As a result, I recommend writing a few background sentences about the eugenics movement at the time and other thinkers who were promoting the same ideals as Davenport with appropriate cited sources. This may necessitate another section of the article titled "Eugenic Ideals" depending on how much background research you provide in this area.

Organization
For better organization in your article, you should separate the "Conception and Exhibition" section into two separate sections with distinct headings. This will break up the large amount of text in this section and make for easier viewing on the part of the reader. The Conception section can include the original sections first paragraph and the paragraph of "Although the data...well-funded government." The remaining parts of the "Conception and Exhibition" section can be placed into the distinct Exhibition section. Overall, your article is free of major grammatical or spelling errors and the text is very direct and clear to read. You avoid flowery language or unnecessary details that would detract from your article's objective; continue this trend into your future section(s). I think that the organization is the easiest and strongest change you can make to your article.

Regarding grammatical considerations, make sure to keep consistency with the pronouns that you use to refer to the sculpture. In the second sentence of the Criticism section you refer to the statue as "he"; however in other sections you use "it" for the pronoun. The lack of consistency makes the article look disorganized for the reader.

Images and Media
The article only has one image at the moment with the picture of the actual statue. While this image is well captioned and laid out in a visually appealing fashion, the article would benefit from at least one additional image source, perhaps of the International Congress of Eugenics. The "Conception and Exhibition" and "Criticism" sections placed together is quite dense without any break so the 2nd image could placed following exhibition and preceding the criticism section. I would look at how the Wikipedia pages for other works of art like the Venus of Willendorf to see how those sculptures are cited. For instance, in the Venus of Willendorf's image caption, the material of the statue is listed. Your information on the Average American Man should parallel these patterns in how Wikipedia cites sculpture pieces.

For New Articles Only
The new article developed does meet the Wikipedia notability requirements and is fairly thorough with a strong list of sources. There are adequate links to other articles, I would just ensure that you go into other articles to link your article on the Average American Man so individuals are able to locate this page.

Overall impressions
Overall, the article is strong and well researched. There are a few gaps in information that you can research more deeply to fill out the article in addition to some formatting and organization fixes that will further increase the readability of the article for the reader.