User:Enryonokatamarikun/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Negrophilia

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because while it does provide a fair survey of Parisian negrophilia of the 1920s, it does not cover any modern counterparts or negrophilia fads elsewhere in the world. Additionally, there are gaps in the citations and stylistic elements of the copy that I would change.

Evaluate the article
Lead section - The lead section adequately and concisely addresses the subject and alludes to the one subsequent section.

Content - Although all contained in the short article is relevant to the topic and does not include irrelevant information, it does appear out-of-date in that it only covers the negrophilia of 1920s Paris. Even though this is indeed what many consider the start of negrophilia as a cultural trend, it could also include more recent relevant trends such as the U.S. blaxploitation film genre of the 1970s.

Tone and Balance - The article is generally neutral but sometimes lapses into a somewhat judgemental tone that could favor one particular view. While this would be negligible with more sources, as it sits currently, the article reads a little biased. In my opinion, the problem with balance in this article stems from it being short and without much context or sourcing.

Sources and References - This article has a mixed bag of source qualities. Some are well chosen peer-reviewed journal articles and books, whereas some are online newspaper articles and incomplete citations (title only, no page number). As to modernity, many of the sources are fairly recent or not too aged for an article in the discipline of history. Concerning diversity of sources, I was happy to recognize the book of historian Jennider Boittin who, from my previous readings of her work, is an esteemed feminist historian and expert on early 20th century Parisian theater and colonial narratives. Considering the abbreviated size and scope of the article, the diversity of sources is adequate. However, I find that there are many unsupported claims in this article that should either be referenced, or removed. This is partly a stylistic problem, but it becomes unruly when strong views are under-cited.

Organization and writing quality - The writing is erratic stylistically and suffers from a run-on sentence, as well as a couple punctuation mistakes. While the layout organization cannot be faulted due to its shortness, the style of the writing makes it difficult for the reader to distinguish historical facts from the editor's opinions. As I have previously stated, there is a general deficit of references for facts and viewpoints.

Images and Media - The unique image in the article is appealing and illustrative. According to the editor-generated photo metadata, the photo is in the public domain (PD). Overall, the image is well captioned and adds to the effectiveness of the article.

Talk page discussion - The article is rated as a Start-Class in the Wikiproject African diaspora. There appears to be discussion between the author and two other editors with the overall consensus being that a great deal more work on the article is required. The editors' suggestions differ little from what we covered in class in terms of scope. The suggestions were focused on the lack of a more detailed history of the movement.

Overall - The overall status is a Start-Class article (placed one class above the Stub-Class), meaning that it is still developing and requires addition of both content and sources. Personally, I feel that the main strength of this page lies in its historical focus, which, while underdeveloped, provides a decent frame for more historical content. To reiterate, the article could be greatly improved by addressing the quality and impartiality of its prose as well as by finding more quality sources.