User:Daphyam/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate this article because her story reminded me of a short story I read in 9th grade English class, where children who had been raised in the wild as feral are sent away to learn to act 'proper' so they can re-enter society again. This story was a parallels with the schools which indigenous children were sent to in order to get rid of their 'savage' side, and the fact that she's Indigenous reminded me of that as well, taken from her home and forced into society. In this case, it seems to appear that this transformation was successful, and Le Blanc was able to learn to speak and re-enter society once again after ten years of living in the wild. This case is remarkable because this is one of the only instances where a feral child was able to gain their speech back after being mute for an extended period of time, learned to read and write as an adult, and lived a 'normal' life once again. Feral children cases are fascinating because we can study and learn what becoming one and really living within nature can lead to, and the behaviors it elicits, as well as the effects of having no human contact can have. I was personally amazed when I read this article, because ten years is such a long time to be able to survive in the wild by herself, more-so with no help from animals like many other feral children had.

Evaluate the article
Lead section - This opening adequately introduces our subject, Le Blanc, as a feral child of the 18th century. It covers how people were skeptical of her story, whether it was fictional or not, introducing two paragraphs in the body of this article that talks about the evidence for or against her existence. Many authors have wrote books and biographies about her, some even claiming to have met her. It also gives us the general information about her, such as that she was Native American, lived in the wild from age 9 - 19, where she was then captured by villagers, re-entered society and died at age 63. This information is concise and not overly-detailed.

Content - The content is all relevant, as it talks about different major sources and accounts that point to Le Blanc's existence. I'm not sure how outdated or old this information is, because there could be new information or discoveries made, but I think this article informs the audience mostly about past historical pieces of evidence, with little mention for papers of modern time. A aspect of this story that may be missing is the life of Le Blanc, both before she escaped to the woods and her journey of merging in with society again and learning all her skills, but this content may have been destroyed, or never noted, considering this was about three centuries ago. This article deals with the underrepresented topic of Indigenous peoples, although not much is said about how she was treated or 'medicated' due to this heritage.

Tone and Balance - This article has a neutral tone and doesn't have a hint of the writers voice or opinions. Instead, what is written is the opinion of authors who wrote books and papers about Le Blanc and other information from primary and secondary sources. I think this article is a model of how to keep our writing unbiased.

Sources and References - There are 27 sources for a rather short article, and they are spread out all throughout the paper, all information and sources being able to be traced back. They all seem to be reliable sources, from major papers and textbooks. I checked a few links and they were all still working, and link back to the sources of evidence. Not much can be seen about the diversity of these sources, many of them are French, a few in English since this subject is hardly talked about in America, and an unknown amount of reference from Indigenous people.

Organization and Quality - This article is very well-written and in professional quality. It is organized in a way where you can read about the progression of discoveries about Le Blanc in order. There are no grammatical or spelling errors, and the article is concise and easy to read. I am a bit confused about the categories, but this may just be because of the lack of information.

Images and Media - The article includes one image, but that's it. That image is properly sourced, but isn't well captioned, and leads the readers to make assumptions about it. I think it would help to have a few more images or forms of media, but this may be due to it being too old.

Talking Page Discussion - This article has quite a bit of chatter going on in the background, it seems that there were some biased views and poor writing that has since been revised as it isn't there anymore. There's also some edits made to the references, it looks like there has been a lot done so that evidence is well cited. It's part of the following Wikiprojects: Biography, France, Wisconsin and Women's Rights, rated start-class and mid-importance.

Overall Feedback - There may not be enough information about Le Blanc, seeing as her story takes place in the 1700s. Some people even doubt whether it happened at all. But if there is more to her story, I would recommend trying to find out more about her life personally, not just sources that write about her. What was her life like before she went into the wilderness? Can we describe her journey as she attempted to learn her life-skills back? How did she live as an Indigenous person in the wild vs. in society? Those are a few content questions. There is a good job done citing sources, every sentence leads back to a book, website, or paper. Also, I'm slightly curious about one of the sections present in the article's body, one about another person entirely. Why is this person important enough to include over other authors who have written about Le Blanc? The information is all presented in a professional way, the writing is eloquent and clear. Overall, the things that are written are very informative, although there are some pieces of missing information.