User:Rine02lessthan3/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
A-Tisket, A-Tasket

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
Since I intend to write an article about a poet or piece of poetry, I wanted to evaluate an already-existing article in those categories. When looking through the list of C-Class poetry articles, I came across this one, which made me look fondly back at my childhood. As I read the article, I realized that I'd forgotten a lot about the nursery rhyme, and even that Ella Fitzgerald had written and performed a song about it.

My first impression of the article was that it supplied a good variety of information, but it was short and did not have an ideal ratio of section lengths. For example, I felt that there was much said about Ella Fitzgerald's song and its legacy, and little to no background about the origins of the nursery rhyme, such as historical events that occurred during its emergence.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

This article has a very concise lead that clearly introduces its topic. However, it is too concise in that all of the article's sections are not properly accounted for. There are no mentions of how Fitzgerald's song was further used in various forms of media over the years following, or that the original nursery rhyme included a game. Despite this brevity and lack of information, there was an extra fact in the lead, regarding A-Tisket, A-Tasket's Roud Folk Song Index, which was not further expanded upon.

Content

The article's topic is indeed relevant to the content of the article. The content is up-to-date, and actually contains some particularly recent information considering the nursery rhyme's historic nature. However, I think there is a good amount of missing content, especially involving the original rhyme and game. As I mentioned in my "Why have you chosen this article to evaluate?" section, there is no mention of the historical events surrounding the time at which the rhyme was first recorded. There was also no mention of whether or not the rhyme had spread to countries aside from the US and UK, or even how it had spread to certain regions of those countries. This lack of information contributed to the imbalance throughout this article, as did the numerous 20th- and 21st-century references that are more tangential to the original topic. This article also does not mention any sort of equity gap, which would have been relevant to Ella Fitzgerald's identity as a black woman in a period and place of horrific racial discrimination.

Tone and Balance

The article is mostly neutral, but it often stresses the success of Fitzgerald's song in multiple sections. While the stated success is backed up by Billboard rankings and other, relatively objective standards, the article does not include sources that consider the song to be not so successful. The article also states that the song is "highly regarded" in the lead section, but does not expand upon that point in further sections or even cite it.

Sources and References

There is a relative lack of citations in this article, even considering its short length. I mentioned in the "Tone and Balance" section of this evaluation that the article stresses the success of Fitzgerald's song; these mentions are not always cited. The article even goes so far as to state, without a citation, that Fitzgerald's follow-up song "I Found My Yellow Basket" (1938) was less successful than its predecessor. The sources themselves seem unbiased, but are not diverse; for example, there are two sources by the same author. The number of sources is also quite small, which explains the many uncited pieces of information.

Organization and Writing Quality

This article has concise, grammatically correct sentences and is easy to understand. It is well-organized into sections that are separated by content. However, some of these sections have titles that do not properly describe their contents; for example, "Lyrics by Ella Fitzgerald" mentions how Fitzgerald turned this nursery rhyme into a popular jazz standard (not just a change in lyrics). I also feel that multiple sections are missing, especially a "Background" that could have been an extension of the section regarding the original rhyme.

Images and Media

No images have been attached to this article.

Talk Page Discussion

This article has a C-class rating and is part of the Children's literature, jazz, songs, and poetry WikiProjects. There are only a few comments in the Talk Page, all of which are about different aspects of the article. One could observe a common theme of these comments, which is that they largely talk about information that is incorrect, or that the article is missing altogether. I find that the Talk Page does include conversations about the article similar to ones we would have in class; for example, one comment asked about the meaning of the words "tisket" and "tasket." However, the Talk Page is more general, and looks more for accuracy and variety of information instead of analysis. This can be attributed to the necessarily neutral nature of Wikipedia articles.

Overall Impressions

Overall, this article is a good start, but can be expanded in a myriad of ways. Its strengths mainly lie its readability and organization. Its biggest shortcomings are the lack of detailed, cited information about the original rhyme, as well as the overabundance of information about Fitzgerald's song and modern media. This article can be improved more specifically by expanding on the pre-existing sections, and giving them better titles such as "Background" or "Song/Rendition by Ella Fitzgerald." A higher amount of varied sources would also boost the article's credibility and objectivity. These developments will all help deepen the article's impact, instead of simply adding to more surface-level facts.

comments on your evaluation
1. Your evaluation of the lead is well done.

2. In your evaluation of the Content section, you make a good point about the insufficient history of the nursery rhyme. Even the information given is unclear. For example: what is the relation between the US and UK versions, if they are versions of the same song? Did the rhyme originate in the US? The phrases “first noted” (Content) and “first recorded” (lead) suggest that it did, but do not make that clear (and it seems unlikely, unless the rhyme is relatively recent).

3. In your Tone and Balance section, you note that there are no references to sources that consider Ella Fitzgerald’s song to be not so successful. The information given in the article suggests that the song was indeed successful. The principle of NPOV would require such references only if there are significant questions about the success of the song. Further research would be needed to clarify this point.

4. You are right about the problems with sources and references. Here are a couple of additional points.

a.  You mention that there are two sources by the same author. If you’re referring to citations of Studwell and Baldin, you might go further and consider whether the works cited in 1 and 3 are actually the same. The titles, publication dates, and page references are identical. But it’s hard to tell because the sources are not cited in exactly the same format. So either the two citations should be combined as referring to a single source, or they should be clearly distinguished from each other.

b. You could note the template requesting additional sources for the information in the In popular culture section, much of which remains without citations.

5. You make good points about organization and writing quality. I happened to notice spelling errors (possibly typos) in the Infobox associated with the Ella Fitzgerald section. Would you like to correct the problem? If not, I’ll do it. Let me know if you have questions about this.

6. I’m glad to see you’ve posted comments on the Talk page.

7. Your overall evaluation is excellent. You’ve convincingly identified problems with the article and you make fine suggestions for improvement. Your comments about the unbalanced organization might be relevant to multiple Wikipedia articles, and in particular articles about poems that are associated with works of music; information about musical settings of lyrics and other musical connections frequently dominates such articles.

One further note: I’ve long been curious about why Fitzgerald changed the color of the basket. This is not the most pressing question for an article about “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” but I wonder whether any information about this exists.