User:Hmall1unh/Evaluate an Article

Evaluation of article about David Kaplan's Little Red Riding hood (1997 film)

 * Name of article: [ [ Little Red Riding Hood (1997 film) ] ]
 * Wanted to evaluate the article after much discussion in my Honors Academic Inquiry and Writing Course.

Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?

 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation
The lead does include a brief description of the film, but also mentions it's similarities to other versions of the same story and does not mention them later in the story. There is also mentioning of items from different versions of Little Red Riding Hood in the Lead but no further information is given later in the article. There is a small reference to another version of the story, including a "huntsman", but it is very fragmented and awkward in the summary. Overall, the lead is very misleading, and will makes readers think they will find other information in the article than they actually will.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
 * Is the content up-to-date?

Content evaluation
Some content is relevant, such as mentioning the writer and director, the actors, the narrator, and the plot summary. But there is also content that is not relevant, or it requires further discussion. In the lead there is mentioning of other versions of the story but further information and connection to the film is not included. During the plot summary there is a small mention that the little girl escapes and does not need help from a "huntsman" which originates from another version of the story, yet that is not explained. Authors cannot assume readers' knowledge of other versions of the story and should always discuss any small mentions they include, which are all missing from this article. This article is up-to-date because nothing new has happened for this film since July 2018.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation
The article is neutral on most aspects, however, there is a few claims that appear biased. For example, the article claims that Little Red Riding Hood is "clever" and she is "less innocent" than other versions depict her, but both of these claims are based on opinion and one individual's interpretation of the film. Others can argue that Little Red Riding Hood is naïve, innocent, and only escapes because of luck and a last minute idea. The article also says that the cat warns the young girl about eating her grandmother's flesh, however, it can be argued that the girl did not hear the cat because she continued eating. All of these small ideas seem factual but are not, they are based on one depiction that can be seen different ways. Because the idea of Little Red Riding Hood being clever is solely and idea, it is overrepresented. Furthermore, the fact that this film has many sexual aspects and should not be shown to children, despite it being based on a children's story, is way underrepresented. The sexual content in this film is an undeniably fact. The article does not have enough content to be persuasive, however they claim that Little Red Riding Hood is smart and clever, and provides no other views, therefore they do not allow let the audience think anything else of her.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
There are not many facts in this article, other than the mentioning of the director and writer, actors, and awards. All are backed by other sources, such as the actors' Wikipedia pages, pages for the awards, and a link to the writer/director's small Wikipedia page. The sources are thorough, however, not every mention of a person is linked to a source. There should be further information given on every factual piece mentioned in the article, the source should show where the authors got their information. This link does not have to be to the actor's Wikipedia page, it can be to other websites with any further information about them. There is also several links at the bottom that reference other versions of Little Red Riding Hood, which (as mentioned previously) were only included in the lead or in a few words and never elaborated on; in order to include these websites in the sources, the article should include more information from them. The sources are up-to-date, there is not many new things occurring for this film so there is no need to update the sources past 2018. Checked three links, all three worked.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation
The article is not well-written. The plot summary is a simple summary where several small words are replaced with long words of a strong vocabulary, such as "anthropomorphized". These large vocabulary words are unnecessary in a simple plot summary that students and teachers will use to analyze the film. There are several grammatical errors in this article. For example, when describing the wolf with several (large) adjectives, there are no commas in between the descriptions. The articles reads "An androgynous anthropomorphized black wolf..." when it should say "An androgynous, anthropomorphized, black wolf...". In addition, there are several side comments and separate ideas included, that are not separated by any form of punctuation; for example, the article states "she in fact eats her grandmother's flesh..." instead of correctly saying "she, in fact, eats her grandmother's flesh...". Furthermore, the sentence structure is very unorganized. There are several simple sentences, many complex and run-on sentences, and sentences with an out-of-order structure. One sentence reads "She is thus portrayed, in another contrast to traditional depictions of the story, as being less than innocent" which is very jumbled and could be reorganized to make more sense to readers, such as "She is thus portrayed as being less than innocent, in another contrast to traditional depictions versions of the story." The article is broken down well; lead, plot summary, cast, reception, and notes on sources. However, the lead includes titles of other versions of Little Red Riding Hood, and there is no other mentions of these versions, there should be a section for these stories.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation
The article only has one image, of the poster advertisement for the movie. No pictures of the actors or David Kaplan. The photo is captioned "Film Poster", there should be a year next to it. The images do not adhere to the copyright regulations, there is no citation of where the photo came from. The images are not "laid out" at all, there is only one photo, in the right hand summary.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Talk page evaluation
There is only one comment in the talk page, and it's about how the factual information has no citation. This article is someone is my class' WikiProject. This article discusses this topic exactly how we discuss it in class because the author is a student from the same class.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Overall evaluation
The article, overall, is childish. The summary was typed by one author, but someone went along and replaced and added large vocabulary words. The sentence structure is unorganized, simple, complex, run-on, complex, etc. The article has little to no strengths, maybe one is how short and concise it is, however because it is so short, it misses a lot of important information. The article could be improved by fixing all the grammatical errors, add information about the other versions of Little Red Riding Hood that they mention so subtly, and correctly cite all the information.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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