User:K0ch1Mi/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: (link)Surrealist Manifesto
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.

I have chosen this article to evaluate for its relevance to my conference project in another course.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * 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 introductory sentence concisely describes the topic. However, the information noted in this part is confusing. Where it says four manifestos in the beginning, the wording of the Lead can be slightly confusing, making one think that there are only three. Still, the Lead corresponds to the content of the article. The Lead could be shortened, but would lose vital detail.

Content

 * Guiding questions


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

Content evaluation
The articles content is relevant, however the title of the second manifesto for Breton is merely named Breton and does not indicate that this section of the article addresses the second manifesto written by Breton. The First Manifestos section of the article neglects to address the inspiration Breton found from poets from the symbolist movement such as Lautreamont or Arthur Rimbaud. This is a key factor to the Surrealist manifestos as this marks the attitude of the lyric behavior or the poetic nature of the movement and its associations with Romanticism. Instead this is mentioned in the second manifesto section of the article. In the first section neither of the content of the manifesto's by the rival groups are elaborated on nor do they address the differences that led the two leaders, Breton and Goll, to "literally fight." The article also neglects to informe the reader on Freud's influence on the movement.

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
It would have been easy to neglect the fact that there were two rival groups in the beginning of Surrealism, merely paying attention to Andre Breton's manifestos, but this is not the case. On this fact I base the neutral tone of the article. However, the article does not mention that the manifestos were not signed by a single woman, and so is inadvertently feeding into the canon which it was trying to avoid by including Goll. In also neglecting to mention the influence of Freud on the movement/manifestos the article avoids addressing his theories on women being naturally closer to the unconscious than men, which only serves to strengthen ignorance on the context of the movement and support the canonical view.

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
It seems that the secondary sources used are reliable. Yet there are not enough on the topic. There was one source that led straight to a primary source, to one of the manifestos, but this was an image. Otherwise for the most part the sources are current, and the links work. There were three links that were not blue and so made the task of looking for them difficult.

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 sufficiently written, although a little lacking in information. At the end of the Lead it says "...manifesto that was not issued..." which should be "...manifesto which was not issued..." The major points of the topic being the manifestos, each section addressed each manifesto.

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
There are two images total for the entire article. The first is of the cover of Goll's manifesto which is in the public domain. The second is of the cover of Breton's manifesto which is under fair use. They are both well captioned. The placement of the images within the article are not so visually appealing. They are put to the side, one protruding into the other section of the article where the image is no longer relevant.

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 was only one comment, which was directed towards Wikipedia. It was expressing its frustration with the editors inability to use primary sources because of Wikipedia's policies. The article has been rated start-class and is part of WikiProject Visual arts. There are not enough comments in the talk section for me to make a determined evaluation, but the difficulty in addressing historical papers such as manifestos proves difficult and requires vast amounts of reading of peer-review scholarly articles it seems to get to the core of the primary source. This correlates to what the class was discussing about how to approach primary sources in an article and the difficulties that arise with this.

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 articles overall status has been rated start-class and does not mention its priority class. The articles strength is its topic, if editors would only add to the article it would become more complete. The article also has in its introduction in the Lead clearly stated that there are four manifestos, if one of the titles was fixed this would become clearer. The article has much more it needs to be added to it, both in terms of information and in its spectrum of information (this is what will make the article depart from the problematic canon and take on a more neutral stance).

Optional activity

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