User:Jvaughan219/Al-Andalus/Tul13791 Peer Review

Peer review
(What I have posted below is following the template/guidelines of the "Peer Review an Article" assignment under Week 11)


 * 1) A lead section that is easy to understand
 * 2) Looking at the lead by itself, do I feel satisfied that I know the importance of the topic?
 * 3) The lead by itself indicates the importance of the topic; by indicating that the arts of the Islamic Spanish world centered around the religious and court culture of this region.
 * 4) Looking at the lead again after reading the rest of the article, does the lead reflect the most important information?
 * 5) Yes, the lead reflects the most important information, since the rest of the rough draft goes into detail of the court and religious influences reflected in the artwork.
 * 6) Does the lead give more weight to certain parts of the article over others? Is anything missing? Is anything redundant?
 * 7) The lead does not give more weight to certain parts of the article over others, nothing is missing, and no parts are redundant.
 * 8) A clear structure
 * 9) Are the sections organized well, in a sensible order? Would they make more sense presented some other way (chronologically, for example)?
 * 10) The sections are clear in that they first focus on the court influences, and then discuss religious influences afterwards. The sections may be more clear to readers if there was a subheading for each session.
 * 11) Balanced coverage
 * 12) Is each section's length equal to its importance to the article's subject? Are there sections in the article that seem unnecessary? Is anything off-topic?
 * 13) There appears to be more information on the court section than religious section. No sections in the rough draft seem unnecessary or off topic.
 * 14) Does the article reflect all the perspectives represented in the published literature? Are any significant viewpoints left out or missing?
 * 15) It is hard to conclude if any viewpoints are missing, since there is only one source cited.
 * 16) Does the article draw conclusions or try to convince the reader to accept one particular point of view?

The article does not attempt to draw conclusions or persuade the readers in any way.


 * 1) Neutral content
 * 2) Do you think you could guess the perspective of the author by reading the article?
 * 3) You could not guess the perspective of the author by reading this article.
 * 4) Are there any words or phrases that don't feel neutral? For example, "the best idea," "most people," or negative associations, such as "While it's obvious that x, some insist that y."
 * 5) All words and phrases feel neutral.
 * 6) Does the article make claims on behalf of unnamed groups or people? For example, "some people say..."
 * 7) The article does not make claims on behalf of unnamed groups or people.
 * 8) Does the article focus too much on negative or positive information? Remember, neutral doesn't mean "the best positive light" or "the worst, most critical light." It means a clear reflection of various aspects of a topic.
 * 9) The article focuses on neutral information; not too positive or negative.
 * 10) Reliable sources
 * 11) Are most statements in the article connected to a reliable source, such as textbooks and journal articles? Or do they rely on blogs or self-published authors?
 * 12) The source utilized is reliable, since it is a peer reviewed article published on the MET website database.
 * 13) Are there a lot of statements attributed to one or two sources? If so, it may lead to an unbalanced article, or one that leans too heavily into a single point of view.
 * 14) All of the statements on the rough draft are attributed to one source. There are no internal citations so is difficult to discern which part of the rough draft is citing the MET article.
 * 15) Are there any unsourced statements in the article, or statements that you can't find stated in the references? Just because there is a source listed, doesn't mean it's presented accurately!

There are unsourced statements in the article since there are no internal citations.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tul13791 (talk • contribs)

Prof. Neumeier's comments
Hi Indigo, here are some specific comments:

--It is unclear how you are planning to integrate your edits into the existing article, which I assume will be part of the existing section on "Art and architecture" Perhaps copy and paste the existing article into your sandbox and then highlight your additions in bold?

--Like your peer reviewer, I think you absolutely need to incorporate citations into the text itself (in the form of numbered footnotes, see the existing Al-Andalus article for examples of how this is done), so it is clear which information comes from which scholarly source that you are looking at.

--Speaking of citations, you only have one resource listed. In the assignment guidelines, I recommended using 4-5 scholarly sources for your contribution, so you will need to find more. At the moment, your contribution is very general, and you could add another short paragraph talking about ivory caskets, and even more specifically the casket of al-Mughira we saw in class. Here are some additional sources about Spanish Umayyad ivories that you can look up: (1) -*Francisco Prado-Vilar, Circular Visions of Fertility and Punishment: Caliphal Ivory Caskets from al-Andalus, 1997 (2) Glaire Anderson, “Great Ladies and Noble Daughters: Ivories and Women in the Umayyad Court at Córdoba,” Pearls on a String: Art in the Age of Great Islamic Empires, Amy Landau, ed. (University of Washington Press, 2015), 42-65. (3) "The Art of the Umayyad Period in Spain (711–1031)" https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/sumay/hd_sumay.htm

--Think about adding an image of an ivory casket. Images of the casket of al-Mughira are available in Wikipedia Commons.

--You mention "impressive metalwork and welding uncharacteristic of its time," What did you have in mind as an example?

--In general, do not capitalize the words "art" and "architecture"

And some edits to the text:

--"The Arts of the Islamic Spainish world centered around the religious and court culture of the Arab and Berber invaders who no occupied that land and caliphate." TO "The arts of the Islamic Spanish world centered around the religious and court culture of the Arab and Berber invaders who occupied that land."

--"These new art forms for which were simultaneously being created and redefined were heavily influenced by the overall artistic traditions of the Mediterranean world along with the legacy of previous Caliphates in Jerusalem, Damascus and  Baghdad and adapted and borrowed elements of architecture and decorative design that were already tradition on the Iberian Peninsula much like the employment of the horseshoe arch" TO "These new art forms that were simultaneously being created and redefined were heavily influenced by the overall artistic traditions of the Mediterranean world along with the legacy of previous caliphates in Jerusalem, Damascus and  Baghdad and adapted and borrowed elements of architecture and decorative design that were already part of the building tradition of the Iberian Peninsula such as the horseshoe arch"

--"only from Umayyads homeland of Syria but also other stretches the Byzantine Empire even as far as India and China ." TO "only from the Umayyads homeland of Syria but also the Byzantine Empire and even as far as India and China ."

--you misspell Nasrid as "Nassrid" at one point

— Preceding unsigned comment added by E Neumeier (talk • contribs)