User:Riverdogs54/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
A. R. Ammons

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I work at the Temple of Zeus Cafe in Klarman Hall, and I recently noticed a plaque on the cafe's wall recognizing A.R. Ammons as a distinguished regular many decades ago. Looking him up, I was interested to find that he was a one of Cornell's most renowned poets.

Evaluate the article
The content of this Wikipedia article is fair. The lead section is concise, accurate, and properly cited, but perhaps a bit too short. Providing only Ammons’ birth and death dates, profession, and major awards, the lead section leaves much to be wondered about his life. To improve this section, it may be useful to include some brief information on the genre or style of poetry he produced, or the institutions he associated with.

The first body section, titled “Poetic themes,” also raises some questions. The section’s author claims that Ammons poetry “addresses religious and philosophical matters and scenes involving nature, almost in a Transcendental fashion.” While this description may be correct, I found it somewhat esoteric and alienating to the everyday reader. I don’t quite understand what it means for something to be in an “almost transcendental fashion,” and I would appreciate a citation at the end of that sentence to find out.

The second body section, titled “Life,” provides several details of Ammons’ younger years, but is somewhat vague in describing his later, only describing his position at Cornell and his residence in New Jersey. If this section were to be expanded, it may be useful to paint a broader picture of his work and accomplishment. Such details these details are covered in the third section, “Awards.” This section was thorough and accurate, though the structure could be improved. The section’s two paragraphs read as a list, so it may be more efficient to organize this section as a bulleted list of awards.

The final body section, titled “poetic style,” was thorough in describing the various meters, punctuation, and types of diction that Ammons used in his poems. I also appreciated how the section’s author described the various poetry terms used, such as “monostich” or “terza libre.” These descriptions make the section more accessible to someone like me, who has not previously studied poetry. My only critique for this section is the somewhat excessive use of quotations. The section may be more concise if the quoted material was paraphrased and properly cited, although this is not a terribly large issue.

Looking at the page as a whole, I believe there are several small improvements that could be made to improve its organization. First, I would recommend placing the “Life” section first, followed by “Poetic themes” and “Poetic style.” Thus, the biographical information of the Lead section would flow neatly into the “Life” section, and the two poetry-specific sections would be grouped together.

In glancing the “talk” and “view history” pages, I noticed there are relatively few discussions and edits of the page, which have been made by a small group of editors. For such a relatively inactive page, I would say that the information provided is fairly good. However, are few small adjustments would go a long way in improving the quality of the page.