User:Ginnerz06/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Drawn thread work

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I'm interested in learning more about embroidery. Open work embroidery was commonly found throughout my great grandmother's home and my grandmother sewed the majority of my mother's clothes when she was growing up. I have little detailed knowledge of embroidery. My intention in choosing this topic is that I don't have intimate knowledge of it and therefore may decrease the chance of introducing personal bias towards it. My initial impression when looking at examples of drawn thread work is that it must be a tedious, complicated process. I appreciated the images provided to support the information presented. At a glance this article has several subheadings that support my expectations of this article, but the Sources and References sections seem like they could be lacking.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

Wikipedia's guidance on judging an article's Lead section involves satisfying three types of readers: gaining informational value through one sentence, one paragraph or the entire Lead section. The Lead section jumps back and forth between the process of Drawn thread work, how it fits into some subcategories of embroidery and what it was used for. The sentences are concise but not organized in a way to satisfy readers who only read the first sentence. This lead section does not include a brief description of the article's major sections and lacks a holistic structure that a one paragraph or entire Lead section reader would benefit from.

Content

All content in this article is relevant to drawn thread work. It appears to be sourced from scholarly sources and experts in the field and received updates in the past 2 months related to making the text easier for readers using a translator. The content of this articles reads like a set of rules. It would best serve readers looking for guidance in identifying different styles of drawn thread work. While it mentions where some of the styles may have originated and the ethnicity of people practicing different styles, it lacks cultural context. It left me wondering why are there so many styles and what do these styles represent to the people who implement them in their embroidery work.

Tone and Balance

This article does succeed in maintaining a neutral tone as it read as a set of rules for a type of embroidery. It does not attempt to persuade the reader in any way. It merely reports on what each author noted from the sources they referenced.

Sources and References

This article is severely lacking in sources and among the sources provided, some do not qualify as a reliable secondary source of information. One source is from a webpage that appears to be owned by a company that has a collection of popular click bait websites. Another source leads to what appears to be an outdated web page by an individual named Elizabeth Prickett. There is no mention as to why Prickett is an expert on this subject or adequate references to support the information provided. A quick search on drawn thread work through scholarly databases returns important information missing from this article, including the importance selling this type of embroidery had on Armenian widows and its presence in early 20th century fashion in London. The Encyclopedia of Victorian Needlework by Caulfield seems to be the most reliable source cited.

Organization and writing quality

Each sentence in this article is clear and I did not find grammatical or spelling errors. The lead section and history section do not provide a comprehensive overview based on the subcategories provided. If it was organized in a more logical way it could function as a reference guide to styles of drawn thread work, but the organization of subcategories and information within them is disjointed. Why is cutwork listed a sub category with additional subcategories under it? There is no definition or external link explaining what cutwork is. Why is cutwork listed after other drawn-thread? I expect a subcategory labeled "other" to be the last subcategory listed in an article like this one.

Images and Media

The images provided are helpful and necessary to this article. They include photographs and illustrations representing the some of the styles of drawn thread work discussed in the article. All images appear to fall under public domain upon inspection. Maintaining a layout with text aligned to the left of the web page and the images aligned to the right makes the images easy to reference while reading.

Talk page discussion

The discussion that took place (last entry is dated in 2012 as of Sept. 24, 2021) on the Talk page of this article directly addresses my concerns about cultural representation. The short discussion reveals the complexities with translating Slavic languages to English. It addresses the question of what to do when a spelling of a word has been used incorrectly according to some authoritative sources for over a century. One point of view argues this distinction must be made clear in the article. The other Talk page contributors argue the length of time the "incorrect" spelling has been used warrants the use of it. This article is part of the WikiProject Textile Arts.

Overall impressions

This article currently holds a Start rating among the WikiProject article quality grading scheme. I agree with this rating which is used when an article is under development but still quite incomplete. This article succeeds in concise descriptions of drawn thread work processes and identifying various styles. This article would be improved through revised organization that follows the hierarchy of embroidery subcategories and incorporating cultural context related to drawn thread work. This article is underdeveloped.