User:Mjos02/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Arturo Alfonso Schomburg

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
For one, this is an author we read in class. His wikipedia page was not as robust as some of the other people I looked into, so I figured I'd be able to identify areas of improvement. He was dedicated to documenting the contributions of other Black people, so I feel his wikipedia page should reflect a similar level of care.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

I think this article has a solid lead section. It is concise and gives a good general overview of Schomburg background, work, and legacy.

Content

The content was mostly relevant. The only questionable part was the explanations of his children's names, but perhaps that serves to show his active connection which his Hispanic culture. I wish there were more references to his contemporaries and any collaborative projects he did. Those kinds of connections are really helpful when people are researching a general topic. I also think the career section could be developed. It could include his titles and responsibilities. It might also make sense to move his work at Fisk to this section.

Tone and Balance

The article did a job of maintaining a neutral tone. I did not feel like it was opinionated or persuasive in any way. There were no viewpoints to share.

Source and Writing

There are a good amount of academic sources. Many of them are also pretty recent considering how long ago Schmoburg was active. Some sections, (The Negro Society of Historical Research) were sparse with citations.

Organization

The writing is good. I found it easy to read. However, I do think it could be reorganized, like the career section as I mentioned before.

Images and Media

There were very few picture. I think it would be nice to add more. Someone in the talk page mentioned a book that feature pictures of his wives. A Pictures of the Schomburg library or any monument dedicated to him would be good just to break the monotony of all the text. maybe pictures of his books and essays can be added as well

Talk Page and Discussion

The talk page was mostly what I expected. People mainly pointed out the discrepancies between their research/knowledge and what was in the article. One perosn reference his personally family records which I had never thought of. His issue was that while he believed the information he found to be true, he didn't know if or how he could cite it. I'm interested to see how that will be handled in the long-term. The article was low priority is all it's projects which was to be expected.

Overall ImpressionI thought it was a good article. It was brief and to the point. I think some information could be added, particularly about his writing and more specific achievements. The writing was clear. Additional citations could be added to certain section.