User:Oliviab219/sandbox

Evaluating content
Is everything in the article relevant to the topic? Is there anything that distracted you?


 * Everything in the article is mostly relevant. There is some detailed history of the holiday of Thanksgiving that seems a bit out of place, but otherwise all the information in the article is pertinent to the topic.

Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added? Identify content gaps.


 * I think some of the information about later National Days of Mourning could be updated. The last National Day of Mourning that the article talks about is the 2004 one, and I think some accounts of more current protests could be valuable in this section. Additionally, the article gives very little background information on the United American Indians of New England (UAINE), the organizer of the protest, which should also be rectified.

What else could be improved?


 * The article is organized very poorly and its different sections should be reformatted.

Review the lead section. Does it follow Wikipedia's guidelines to provide basic information and summarize the entire article?


 * While the lead section does provide some background information on the National Day of Mourning, it does not encompass the entirety of the article in its summary and touches on subjects that are not discussed in the article.

Evaluating tone
Is the article neutral? Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?


 * No, the article is neutral and does not express any heavy bias.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?


 * I think that the Background section of the article should include some more information about the responses of Native Americans to the inception of Thanksgiving as an American cultural holiday.

Evaluating sources
Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?


 * Yes, the links work. The sources do support the claims in the article.

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted? For example, does the writer use signal phrases to clearly identify the source of the information?


 * There are many facts in the article that are missing references. Even a few of the facts that are cited have references whose credibility is uncertain. Many of the sources referenced are not neutral. One of the sources cited is an Op-Ed from the New York Times, which is clearly biased towards the beliefs of the author. Another source is a blog entry written by a member of the Wampanoag Tribe, which is also clearly biased. The bias in these and other sources is not noted in the article.

Checking the talk page
Now take a look at how others are talking about this article on the talk page. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?


 * A long conversation took place about whether or not this article expresses a clear point of view. Some users think that by referencing the genocide and assault of millions of Native Americans by Europeans, the article is expressing a point of view, while other users think that this reference is simply a statement of facts. Other conversations on the talk page are about the article's need for more valid, third-party source and confusion about dates and spellings of different Native American tribes.

How is this article rated? Is it part of any WikiProjects?


 * This article is rated Start-Class. It is part of three WikiProjects: WikiProject Holidays, WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, and WikiProject United States/Massachusetts.

How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class.


 * We are yet to talk about this particular topic in class, but overall Wikipedia discusses the interactions between Native Americans and Europeans, specifically the severe mistreatment of Native American people by European settlers, in a much more detached and unbiased way than we do in the classroom.

Lead and plot summary
This Wikipedia article has a lead section and plot summary section that follow Wikipedia's guidelines for writing about books. The plot summary is a good length and concisely describes the points of the novel. However, it does not fully avoid judgments of certain character's actions, which is something against which Wikipedia's guidelines advise. The lead section orients the reader to the book but does not do a great job at summarizing the whole article. I think some parts of the lead section should be transferred into a new background section that gives context for why and when the book was written as well as information about Margaret Atwood.

Background
There is no background section but there are other sections of the article that contain information that belongs in this section (see Genre Classification).

Characters
After the plot summary section, the article contains a section called Characters that gives a few contextual sentences on each of the book's main characters and their roles in the story. I think that this information should be taken out of the characters section and incorporated into the plot summary section to better comply with Wikipedia's guidelines.

Setting
The article has a large section called "setting" in which it describes both the geographical and chronological setting of the book as well as some major themes of the novel. While a lot of this information is valuable and crucial to understanding the purpose of the novel, it would maybe be better placed in the analysis section of the article. Included in the description of these different themes could be critical receptions of how Atwood handled them and some critics' personal takes and additions to her ideas.

Genre Classification
There is a brief section about the genre of the book that quotes Atwood's classification of the book as a work of speculative fiction. It also touches on Atwood's distaste of the novel's classification as a work of science fiction because it is much more grounded in a potential reality than many other books in the science fiction realm. This section contains large chunks of quotations that could be shortened and paraphrased. This section could also benefit from comparing the style of The Handmaid's Tale to some of Atwood's other works.

This section also has a subsection titled "Historical Context" that provides information on Atwood's academic background and her motives for writing the novel. I think this article would benefit from getting rid of this subsection (as it is very out of place) and transplanting its information to a new Background section.

Analysis
There is no analysis section, but there are other sections of the article that contain information that belongs in this section (see Setting).

Publication
There is no section on publication and there is very little information in the article about the formats of the novel's publications. This section would require new research about any publications after the novel's initial publication in 1985, translations, and artwork. Some information for this section could be relocated from the article's "In Other Media" section.

Critical Reception
The reception section contains virtually only information about positive receptions of the book and has about one sentence about negative critical responses to it (in the subsection about race). This section needs a more balanced representation of the novel's critical reception.

Academic Reception
The article also has a section on academic reception that could be synthesized with the critical reception section. This section contains information about the various awards the novel has won and its reception in the classroom that could be valuable as more of a negative critical perception of it.

Others
The article also has a section titled "In Other Media" which details some of the novel's adaptations into movies, audiobooks, and theater.

How to include Merriman and Rule
I would include in the Analysis section a sentence about Rule's comparison of themes in The Handmaid's Tale to themes in Atwood's other works in order to address the content gap about these types of comparisons identified in the "Setting" section of the novel. I would add: "In her article 'Not Fading into another Landscape: Specters of American Empire in Atwood’s Fiction,' Lauren A. Rule describes how Atwood traps the female form in various landscapes throughout both The Handmaid's Tale and Death by Landscape as a means of critiquing US imperialism and likening it to the conquest of the female body as a territory 'ripe for settlement.'"

I would add onto the article's very short section about the critical reception of race in The Handmaid's Tale using Merriman's article. I would write: As voiced in Ben Merriman's article "White-washing Oppression in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale," Atwood has also received criticism for borrowing forms of oppression first seen in Black slavery and translating them into those instated against white women by the Gilead regime without proper acknowledgment."

Fun Home Evaluation
The Fun Home Wikipedia page seems to contain mostly all of the categories suggested by Wikipedia's guidelines for Wikipedia book articles. The lead section introduced Fun Home well and touches on each section of the overall article (publication, summary, critical reception, musical adaptation). The plot summary does a good job at explaining the plot of the graphic novel in a detached and concise manner, but its "themes" and "allusions" subsections should maybe be moved to an analysis section. The artwork section does a good job at explaining how Bechdel made her illustrations and their overall style. The publication section is comprehensive up to 2007, but there is a large content gap about its other publication formats from then on. I think the "reception" part of the publication section should be moved to its own independent section. Lastly, the "musical adaptation" section is quite detailed and I think a lot of the information in it belongs in the Fun Home Musical's separate Wikipedia page.

Comparison
The Fun Home Wikipedia page is a lot more concise and well formatted than The Handmaid's Tale 's Wikipedia article. While The Handmaid's Tale article has a lot of valuable content, it is interspersed throughout the article between extraneous bits of information and overall it is poorly organized. There are also a lot of content gaps in the article that must be addressed. The Fun Home article is organized in line with Wikipedia's guidelines for the most part and is well-written and well-organized. The information in the article is concise but some of it is dated and needs some updating. There are also some sections that should be moved around and condensed in order to better align with Wikipedia book article guidelines.

General observation
The Handmaid's Tale Wikipedia article does not follow Wikipedia's guidelines for a book article.

Concrete point of evaluation
The article contains an entire section on "Characters" that is not advised by Wikipedia's guidelines to be a part of articles on books. This section contains basic information about the role each main character plays in the plot of The Handmaid's Tale and some interspersed analysis (ex: Offred's subsection within the Characters section states: The revelation of Offred's real name does not add to the series in any way, other than humanising her in the presence of the other Handmaids.).

Actionable item
A lot of the information in this Characters section should be moved to the plot section as it serves as context for how each character furthers the story line of the book. Some of it could also be moved to an analysis section that needs to be created. However, a lot of the analysis in the characters section should be cited before it is moved anywhere because it contains unsubstantiated opinions.

Final Draft of Contributions to Wikipedia Article on George
My edits are underlined

Genre section -- added a sentence to contribute to the genre section that Will created

This novel will contribute to the small but growing repertoire of middle-grade literature about gender and sex identity.

~19 words added

Reception section -- added content in order to make it more comprehensive and include more perspectives
George has been received positively by many book critics since its publication. The School Library Journal, in a starred review, writes that George is "a required purchase" for readers interested in Middle-Grade literature. In his 2015 New York Times review of George, children's author Tim Federle describes the novel's depictions of the moments in which Melissa's family members and friends realize she is a girl as "refreshing" and "brilliant." Mel Morrow strongly praises Alex Gino in her Lambda Literary book review, proclaiming George a "life-saving book" and commending it for encouraging acceptance among its readers through intimate glimpses into Melissa's struggle with coming out to her friends and family. In a National Public Radio review of George, doctoral student in transgender studies j wallace skelton praises Alex Gino for their refusal to let Melissa's bullies define her character. Wallace skelton also says that George belongs among the ranks of the best children's literature for its skillful telling of the story of a young kid trying to find their place in the world. '''Gino points out that Melissa is not powerless when she faces her bullies, and that the novel as a whole "is a narrative about a young person who is very much trying to become who they are."  -- move to different section'''

George has also been the subject of public criticism. In a 2019 article in the Journal of Children's Literature, authors and literacy scholars Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth and Caitlin L. Ryan argue that George 's focus on a white transgender character prevents the novel from accurately encapsulating the struggles of transgender people who are marginalized in more ways than just their gender identity. They also point out that Melissa expresses her identity as a girl in very traditionally feminine ways, like by wearing dresses and makeup, thereby shutting people who do not strictly fit into the gender binary out of the novel's representation of transgenderism. J wallace skelton criticized the book's title of George, arguing that it does not support Melissa's true identity as a female by referring to her by the name she was assigned before her transition.

George has appeared on the American Library Association's Top Ten Most Challenged Book list every year since its publication. In 2016, it was listed at number three; in 2017 it was listed at number five, and in 2018, it was listed at number one. Parents and teachers challenge George because it features a transgender girl and her older brother's discussion of age inappropriate material. In response to the challenge against the brother, Gino believes that people are using the case against Scott to hide their underlying issues with the transgender girl.

George was selected to be one of 16 texts for the OBOB (Oregon Battle of the Books) for young middle school students. However, two school districts within Oregon withdrew their students from the competition as a result of the transgender protagonist and plot of the novel.

~290 words added

Analysis section -- created section, touched on a few major themes in order to create baseline for future editors to contribute to
Allyship is a major theme in George. Gino said in an interview at an Ann Arbor bookstore that they wrote George to guide family, friends, teachers and students alike in better sympathizing with the experiences of transgender children. In their 2019 article in the Journal of Children's Literature, Jill M. Hermann-Wilmarth and Caitlin L. Ryan contend that the novel instructs readers on how to be better allies for their transgender friends and peers through its focus on Melissa's interactions with other characters and the impact they have on her. How Melissa is either hurt or helped by these interactions in her coming-out process can help readers create safe spaces for transgender people to express their identities in real life. A book on the inclusion of queer adolescent literature in English Language Arts (ELA) classes suggests the use of George in middle-level ELA classrooms as a means of promoting both allyship and critical discussion about how to remedy difference among their students.

Gender roles and how they define human interaction is another main theme of George. Hermann-Wilmarth and Ryan write that many of Melissa’s interactions with both her peers and superiors exemplify the struggle of transgender children to challenge the gender binary. When Melissa tells Mrs. Udell, for example, that she wants to play Charlotte in the school play, Mrs. Udell does not take her seriously and even “scowls” at the idea, a response that demonstrates her strong discomfort with such a forward challenge of gender roles. Kelly and Scott, Melissa’s best friend and brother, respectively, also have difficulty coming to terms with Melissa’s identity as a female, while other kids at school bully her for her girlishness. She challenges the cisnormative expectations of these characters, resulting in either pain and violence, as in the case of her bullies, or eventual acceptance and growth in the case of her family members and close friends. By providing these various examples of how gender expectations govern different interactions and relationships between characters, George pushes its cisgender readers to consider what it means to be excluded from binary gender roles and how to rid themselves of strict gender expectations.

In a 2015 article in The Conversation, PhD candidate in Children's Literature Rebecca Cierazek discusses how George provides transgender children with a relatable narrative. The dichotomy between who Melissa believes herself to be and who others take her as is representative of the identity struggle many kids face that often goes unrecognized in children's literature. Cierazek suggests that by informing parents and kids about what it means to be transgender, George can help eliminate discrimination of LGBTQ children that often stems from fear and ignorance.

~450 words added