User:Eswill01/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

 * Name of article: American Literature

I chose to evaluate this article because American Literature is a topic that interests me and is a subject that is somewhat relevant to our course on writing and editing.

Lead
The lead is well constructed, and manages to clearly describe the topic while remaining concise and providing brief information about each of the major periods of American Literature. Despite this, it is a bit overly detailed, providing a lot of specific authors and works from each period, though that works if the lead is viewed as a broad summary of American Literature. Overall, the details about individual authors is perhaps unsuited to the lead section of the article, and more direct and concise descriptions of the major periods of American Literature would be more appropriate than listing notable authors from those periods.

Content
The article's contents cover a wide range of topics relevant to American Literature, and does by breaking the content down by major periods of time, and the form. Each section summarizes the period and provides examples of important works and influential authors from that period. The edit history includes many recent edits, and the information seems to be up to date on recent notable developments in American Literature along with influential authors and their works. Some of the information is slightly irrelevant, needs clarification, or is not neutral though, especially with regards to listing historical events that occurred without support linking those events to the topic (such as the defeat of Hitler being linked to Faulkner's works, etc). The article also highlights contributions coming specifically from underrepresented groups in American Literature, though this section is sparse compared to the other sections in the article.

Tone and Balance
Some sections of the article struggle to maintain a neutral point of view, often being biased both positively and negatively towards certain authors. Labeling the works of Twain as "masterpieces", for example, seems to be rather biased as the opinion is unsupported (influential and both critically and commercially acclaimed are verifiable, but who judges what is and isn't a masterpiece?). No particular viewpoint appears to be over-represented, though by nature of the culture of study surrounding American Literature minority groups, BIPOC authors, and LGBT+ authors are all underrepresented in the article's contents. That being said, the article doesn't seem to be trying to persuade the reader or make a specific point, it just uses non-neutral language to convey verifiable information as opinions instead.

Sources and References
Sources are likely the weakest point of the article, as there appear to be a lot of things presented as fact without supporting evidence in the form of sources. The sources do not reflect the great wealth of information available on American Literature, though the links to the sources present seem to mostly work.

Organization
The article appears to be well organized, using concise and clear paragraphs for readability and few, if any, major grammar or spelling errors. Additionally, the article is broken down into sections that cover the various periods of American Literature as well as notable subsections, such as Nobel Prize winning American Authors as well as works by underrepresented authors. Given this level of organization, it is easy to find information on a specific topic, and the article is easy to read with paragraphs not being too long, but still conveying the relevant information.

Images and Media
The article includes photos of the various authors it lists as influential with well written and accurate captions. While the photos of the authors may not necessarily enhance one's understanding of American Literature as a whole, seeing photos of the authors may offer a more complete perspective to those looking to study American Literature. Additionally, the images do not get in the way of the content, and flow well with the layout of the page to create a more enjoyable reading experience.

Checking the talk page
Most of the conversations in the talk page address the (lack of) Neutral Point of View as well as the gaps in its representation of American Literature, discussing whether genre fiction by notable American Authors should be included in the article, and suggesting notable works and authors that may have been overlooked. The article itself is rated as C-Class, which is not very high, considering the importance of the topic and it being under the Literature and United States WikiProjects.

Overall impressions
Overall, this article is incomplete, though that can largely be attributed to the difficult topic that it covers. It manages to summarize a broad range of movements in American Literature as well as provide clear and concise information on a large number of notable American Authors and their works. The article would be improved by supporting the facts within the article with solid sources and rewriting the article to be more neutral as well as to better represent movements including works written by BIPOC and LGBT+ authors. Aside from that, it covers all of the major periods of American Literature as well as most of the most notable American Authors.