User:MaeMK22/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
I have chosen to evaluate the article "Bread and Puppet Theater: Bread and Puppet Theater

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article as its content focuses on a museum, but a different kind of museum. The Bread and Puppet Theater is a museum of puppetry and a political theater that uses puppet plays to make political statements. Typically museums are not inclined to make explicit political statements, so this museum stands out quite starkly. I also have a personal affinity for the arts, especially anything that could be considered strange, and the main image for this article caught my attention.

Lead section
The lead section of this article starts with a clear opening sentence, giving the name of the subject, important years, important names, and the subject's goal succinctly. The paragraph below, however, makes statements that are unattributed to any source; this includes a statement on where the subject's name originates and references to the historic phrase "bread and circuses," as well as the use of the phrase "some have heard" with no indication of who "some" could be.

Content
Some sections of this article are well detailed, notably the "History," and "Works" sections. These provide concise but fleshed out information on those topics. The "Conflicts" section is also decently written out but is flagged as lacking in sources. The sections "Critics' comments" and "References in popular media" are not largely written, but this is understandable. These sections may simply have less information to be shared. The "Critics' comments" section, however, does include a sentence that seems out of place. It references the notable performers who have worked with the Bread and Puppet Theater. This sentence contains no critiques (as it should, being under the critiques section), nor is it cited. The least fleshed out section of this article is the "Causes" section. This consists of a bullet point list that simply states the causes that the Bread and Puppet Theater have worked for in the past, but it provides no explanations. The opening sentence of this section is also not very clearly written. Otherwise, the article appears to be up-to-date and not missing any blatantly crucial information.

Tone and balance
The tone of this article is consistent. It appears to be neutral and presents several sides to a topic, especially in the "Conflicts section." Everything stated is stated as fact. There is no attempt to persuade the reader in anyway, neither for nor against the Bread and Puppet Theater. The "Critics comments" could benefit from an expansion of viewpoints, however, as the only comments that are given are positive. Though not impossible, it is unlikely that the only comments on this theater were positive, especially since there is another section in the same article that addresses the conflicts that the Bread and Puppet Theater is involved in.

Sources and references
As previously mentioned, this article is missing many sources. An entire section is completely uncited, and yet this section identifies potentially important controversies that the Bread and Puppet theater has been involved in. The sources themselves seem to be appropriate for the content. Some sources are news articles and one source is the website of the theater, but this is understandable as it is unlikely that research has been done on the Bread and Puppet Theater. Sources such as these are balanced out with books. Source 5, however, seems unrelated to what has been cited. The source link itself leads to a general homepage of the website Chelsea Green, not to any specific article. The information on which this reference is cited within the article is not immediately to be found from that link. The name of the source also seems wholely unrelated to the article itself. The source is a book publisher, not a specific book. Most other sources mention "puppets," "plays," "theater," or notable people in their titles.

Organization and writing quality
There are few minor grammatical mistakes involving commas on the wrong sides of quotation marks, but the writing quality is overall decent. It is very succinct and concise. Nothing seems to be overwritten. There are some sections that contain information that may be better elsewhere (including a critic's comment being included in the "Works" section) but the overall organization is clear. It flows in a readable way and in the pattern that seems standard for articles on Wikipedia.

Images and media
Two of the three images present are relevant, helpful, and appear to be within Wikipedia's copyright guidelines. Opening the photos links to a Wikipedia page giving the information, copyright. The third is within the copyright guidelines, but is uncaptioned and seems unrelated to the sections it is placed next to. It is a photo of the Bread and Puppet Theater tour bus parked on a residential street. There is no context within the sections it appears in. One of the other images is also less than ideally placed — spanning two sections — but the image is directly referenced in one of the sections that it reaches.

Talk page discussion
The talk page includes critiques that the article is biased and reads as a company-made article, critiques that there are not enough sources, and critiques that crucial information is lacking. In interesting discussion is the existence of a point of view within the article (thereby making it not neutral nor objective). A very civil disagreement occurred within the talk page where argument were respectfully made for both sides. The article is also listed in a few related WikiProjects. In all of them it is rated as Start-class, and in all but two it is not given an importance rating. For the WikiProjects on theatre and the state of Vermont, it is rated to be of mid-importance and low-importance, respectively.

Overall impressions
This article has a good starting point and is helpful to understand the basics of the Bread and Puppet Theater, but upon closer inspection it lacks the essential details to make it a good article. This article is still very much in progress and needs more work to become a good article.