User:Jlw9439/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
These Happy Golden Years

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose it because I enjoy the author and this book was my favorite in the series. It matters because this book is significant to American literature, but the article seems overly detailed and not neutral in the plot summary.

Evaluate the article
It was useful that the short bio mentioned that the book won the Newbery Medal and the context of the book. From what I remember of the book, the summary is accurate if not a bit long (5 paragraphs). The historical background seems a bit arbitrary, focusing on one or two characters and just a few parts of the setting. It would be helpful to expand on the “Reception” area, including the contemporary criticism that it has received.

There are only four sources: one is from the Newbery site, two are of the book itself, and one is of an old Kirkus review. All of these seem reliable in that they fit the citation guide for Wikipedia (ex., the review is from Kirkus, as opposed to a small blog). However, there could be more citations/reviews. In addition, the historical background section has no citations; it just seems like one person judged the history based on their own knowledge.

The article tone seems neutral. However, the summary does not seem formal enough by nature of the fact that there are too many details (ex., “Laura and Almanzo's romance continues to blossom until…” and “She says a tearful but loving goodbye to her family before leaving for the little house Almanzo has built for them.”)

The lead section follows the guidelines in describing the context of the book (ex., it is the eighth book of a series, location, short summary). It also mentions the Newbery Medal, which is notable enough to note in the lead section.

The plot summary is like a recap as opposed to a condensed version of the book. It also doesn’t separate the author’s perspective enough from the events such that it does not seem formulaic like an encyclopedia entry. It is also not neutral in that it imbues value items to the summary (ex., using words like “Worse, she boards with the head of the school” and “The weather is bitterly cold.”).

The talk page is not populated at all. It is ranked start-class and low importance among four categories: Novels, Children’s literature, South Dakota, and women’s writers.

The syntax, phrasing, and punctuation look good; the only way I would change some phrasings would be to render them more formal/neutral.