User:S.obadia/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Option 1

 * Article title
 * The Maze Runner
 * Article Evaluation
 * Lead Section: The lead section of this article has an effective first sentence. The language used is concise and it establishes the most important, relevant information about the book clearly. However, the lead section does not include a description of the article's main sections, besides the "Contents" box that provides links to each section of the article. Additionally, the lead section also includes information about the publication of this novel that is not present in the body of this article. The writing of the lead section, however, is concise and straightforward.
 * Content: The content included in this article is all relevant to the topic. The film adaptation of the novel is discussed on this page even though there is a separate Wikipedia article dedicated to this adaptation (The Maze Runner (film)). Most of the content of the article is up-to-date. However, the "Reception" section only includes a few sources that noted the impact of this novel during the year that it came out. It may be helpful to update this section to include more recent scholarly work about the novel. Besides a lack of in-depth reporting on the reception of this novel since it was published, there does not seem to be any major gaps in this article's coverage. This article does not address any of Wikipedia's equity gaps. Although this book and its film adaptation include some characters from populations that have been historically underrepresented in fantasy literature and film, this article does not explicitly highlight their presence in this work.
 * Tone and Balance: This article has a neutral tone. Because the Wikipedia editor who created it relies on simple, straightforwards sentences and many quotes from Dashner's work and the writings of commentators, there is little bias seen in this article. The viewpoints of commentators who wrote about the effect of this novel when it came out are overrepresented in that there is no comments included from critics or writers who have considered the impact of this book since its release in 2009. For the few viewpoints that are included in this article, there is no note of whether these perspectives on the effect of this novel were popular or more esoteric opinions. This article does not have a persuasive tone at any point, as it reads more like a list of facts and quotes related to the topic.
 * Sources and References: This article does have sources for every fact that is listed. The majority of the article is a plot summary and character descriptions, which the article does not cite because this information can all be found in the novel. The "Development," "Reception," and "Adaptation" sections are backed with reliable secondary source cites. The sources that are cited in the article seem to reflect the early scholarship that was published around the time that this novel was released, but there are not many recent sources cited about the lasting impact of the novel. The sources are not written by diverse authors. Most of the sources cited were written by white men and women in the U.S. There are more recent peer-reviewed articles available that could be added to this page. Many of the sources cited in the article are newspaper articles and interviews with the author. More scholarly work could improve the quality of this article. The links to the sources currently cited do work.
 * Organization and Writing Quality: This article is clearly written and easy to understand. The paragraphs in the "Characters" section each start with a clause instead of a full sentence, but the other sections seem to be grammatically correct and free from spelling mistakes. The article is well-organized into sections, but some sections are much more detailed than others. For example, the "Plot" and "Characters" sections are much larger than any of the other sections that address the creating and reception of this novel and its film adaptation.  Images and Media:  This article only includes one image. The box in the lead section includes one picture of the cover of this novel. It is captioned well. It is cited well, so it seems to adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. The image is placed in a logical spot and is clear and visually interesting.
 * Talk Page Discussion: The conversations on the talk page addresses some of the problems present in the article's character descriptions. One user notes that the article implied that a few characters are in more than a platonic relationship, although this is never formally mentioned in the book or the movie. This issue seems to have been addressed since this user made this comment. Additionally, there are comments noting that the plot summary is confusing and the "Theseus" myth should be mentioned since it is very similar to the plot of this novel. All these comments are separate. There have not been many true conversations between editors on this page. This article is rated start-class, mid-importance for the WikiProject Novels and start-class, high importance for WikiProject Children's literature. The way Wikipedia discusses this topic is different from how we talk about it because we talk about children's literature as being important for literature in general, not just within its own genre.
 * Overall Impressions: This article's overall status is start-class. The article is strong in that it provides a thorough plot summary and list of characters. It begins to address the development and reception of this novel, but those areas could be developed more fully. This article could also be improved with the inclusion of more recent sources from scholarly publications that address the reception and impact of the novel since it was published over a decade ago. This article is underdeveloped, but may be dramatically improved with a few updates.


 * Sources
 * Elliot, A. (2015). Power in Our Words: Finding Community and Mitigating Trauma in James Dashner’s The Maze Runner. Children's Literature Association Quarterly 40 (2), 179-199. doi:10.1353/chq.2015.0022.
 * Irawan, R., & Andriani, D. (2018). An Analysis of Educational Values of Novel “Maze Runner” by James Dashner. Channing: Journal of English Language Education and Literature, 3 (1), 38-50. https://doi.org/10.30599/channing.v3i1.256
 * Tasabela, Clarisa and -, Titis Setyabudi, S.S. M. Hum (2020) Behavior Patterns of Teamwork in The Maze Runner by James Dashner (2009): A Behaviorist Approach. Skripsi thesis, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta.

Option 2
This article is not currently divided into sections, so it is difficult to ascertain what is intended to be the lead section. The first sentence merely states that this topic has been of interest since the 1970's. This does not clearly describe the topic of the article. There are no sections in this article, so the first section does not describe any sections that follow. The first paragraph of this article presents large claims that are not supported with cites which is problematic. This first section is concise but does not contain the information that one would expect to see in the first section of this article. This article does deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps in that it addresses the representation of disabled people in children's literature, which is a historically underrepresented group and topic.
 * Article title
 * Disability in children's literature
 * Article Evaluation
 * Lead Section:

Content: The content in this article is relevant to the topic. However, the content is not exactly up-to-date, as the majority of the article is focused on the way disabilities were represented in children's literature during the mid- to late twentieth century, especially in the 1970's. There needs to be more discussion of the state of disability representation in children's literature in the twenty-first century.

Tone and Balance: This article is not written neutrally. It seems to have a persuasive angle in that it is trying to convey how deeply the disability community has been misrepresented by children's literature in the past century. This article contains strong language that seems intended to convince readers of the severity of this problem. This article currently states that the lack of disabled main characters in children's literature is "obviously a big problem," and that "disabilities should be portrayed in a realistic way." Fringe viewpoints are not discussed. There is no discussion about people who may feel that disability representation is fair as it stands in children's literature, even though this topic likely should not be framed as a debate at all. This article tries to persuade its audience that the current representation of disabled characters in children's literature is not sufficient.

Sources and References: Although this article makes many large claims, it is supported by relatively few sources. Some statements that are written as facts are not cited, especially near the beginning of the article. While the sources that are cited come are reliable and include prominent disability studies scholars, there are only ten sources cited, which cannot possibly reflect all the available literature on this topic. Most of the sources are from the twenty-first century, but none were published after 2015. Most of the sources were written by white writers, which is a problem since the disability studies field has historically centered white disabled people. There are more recent sources available that are peer-reviewed and written by disabled scholars of color. The links on this page work.

Organization and Writing Quality: This article is not well written, as it is persuasive and often includes informal language and grammatical errors. There are also no section dividers, so it reads more like a term paper than a Wikipedia article.

Images and Media: This article does not include any images.

Talk Page Discussion: The talk page of this article only has a few entries, and both are focused on addressing problems with citations in this article. This article is rated start-class and mid-importance for the WikiProject Children's Literature and WikiProject Disability. Wikipedia does not think children's literature is a subject of high importance, but our class does.

Overall Impressions: This article is not well-developed or well-edited. Its strengths are that it exists and provides a starting point for improvement. This article should be edited for bias, made to include more sources, and edited to address the fact that only disability in children's literature in America is discussed in this piece. This article is poorly developed.


 * Sources
 * Kleekamp, M.C. & Zapata, A. (2019). Interrogating Depictions of Disability in Children’s Picturebooks. The Reading Teacher, 72( 5), 589– 597. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1766
 * Michals, T., & McTiernan, C. (2018). " Oh, Why Can't You Remain Like This Forever!": Children's Literature, Growth, and Disability. Disability Studies Quarterly, 38(2).
 * Yenika-Agbaw, V. (2011). Reading Disability in Children's Literature: Hans Christian Andersen's Tales. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 5(1), 91-107. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/418659.

Option 3
Lead Section: The lead section of this article begins with a sentence that is concise and tells readers what this article addresses. The lead section does not include a description of the article's main sections. The lead section notes that this book was originally written as a webcomic, but that is not brought up again at any point in the article. Additionally, the author of this book is mentioned in the lead section, but not anywhere else in the article. This lead section is very short and concise.
 * Article title
 * Smile (comic book)
 * Article Evaluation

Content: The content that this article includes is relevant to the topic. It is relatively up-to-date, as it includes information about the reception of this book from 2017. It should be updated to include the past 5 years, however. There is a great deal of content missing from this article. This article only has one section, "Reception, Awards, and Recognition." There should at least be a plot summary section, a character list section, and a section about the development of this graphic novel. This article does not deal with any of Wikipedia's equity gaps or address any topics related to historically underrepresented populations. However, it could note that the author of this graphic novel is a woman, making her a member of an underrepresented group in comic book creating.

Tone and Balance: This article is neutral. The positive reviews this book has received are noting in a straightforward way. However, there is no recognition of any negative reviews this book has received. Therefore, the viewpoints of this book's critics are underrepresented. No minority viewpoints are discussed. Still, this article does not use persuasive language to guide the opinions of its readers.

Sources and References: Every fact in the "Reception, Awards, and Recognition" section is cited. However, the lead section does not contain cites to back up the basic facts about the book. Additionally, many of the sources cited are from newspaper articles rather than peer-reviewed publications. None of the sources were published more recently than 2014. There are more articles and more recent sources that can be cited for an article on this influential book. The sources are not written by diverse authors, and there does not seem to have been any effort to cite the work of historically marginalized individuals. There are many new and more reliable (peer-reviewed) sources available that highlight the enormous impact this book has had on the young adult graphic novel industry. The links currently included in this article work.

Organization and Writing Quality: This article is well-written. It uses neutral and professional language and concise sentences. There are no grammatical or spelling mistakes in this article. There is only one section label, which is the main problem with this article.

Images and Media: This article includes one image of the cover of the book. This is helpful and appropriate image, and it is well-captioned. It seems to adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations because it is cited. It is placed in an appropriate spot in the box with quick facts about the book at the top of the page.

Talk Page Discussion: There are only a few comments on the talk page for this article. One comment notes that a summary that existed on the page included many mistakes. This summary is no longer on the page. Another commenter questions whether this title of this article should really refer to the book as a "comic book," when the other books by this author are called graphic novels. This article is rated start-class and low importance for WikiProject Children's literature and stub-class and low importance for WikiProject Comics. Wikipedia ranks this highly influential book as low importance, but that is not how we would likely discuss it in class.

Overall Impressions: This article needs a lot of work. The article has a detailed "Reception, Awards, and Recognition" section that is well-cited. Although the content that exists is good, the article is very short and only contains one labeled section. More content needs to be added to this article, and its title should be changed to reflect the fact that it is a graphic novel, not a comic book. This article is extremely underdeveloped.


 * Sources
 * Bradley, J. (2021). Why Comics Are Awesome for Reluctant Readers! The School Librarian, 69(2), 12-13. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/why-comics-are-awesome-reluctant-readers/docview/2544290110/se-2?accountid=11091
 * Dawes, E. T. (2018). Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever. Language Arts, 95(5), 343. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/funny-girl-funniest-stories-ever/docview/2036728090/se-2?accountid=11091
 * Smith, J. M., & Pole, K. (2018). What's going on in a graphic novel?. The Reading Teacher, 72(2), 169-177.

Option 4
Lead Section: This article's lead section is only one sentence long. This article does not have section headings, so there is just one sentence giving an overview of Reynolds, then immediately a paragraph about his upbringing and education. While the first sentence of the article is clear and concisely written, it does not include enough information to introduce the topic of this article. There are no sections in this article, so the "lead section" does not provide a list or description of anything that follows on this page. The first sentence does not include any information that is not present in the article. It is extremely concise.
 * Article title
 * Peter H. Reynolds
 * Article Evaluation

Content: All of the content included in this short article is relevant to the topic of Reynolds' life and work. The content is not up-to-date, as the most recent source cited is from 2008. All of the content that is currently included in the article belongs there, but there is a lot of missing information. The long-term impacts of Reynolds' work is not noted, and the work he has done since 2008 is not mentioned at all in this article. This article does not deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps, nor does it address any topics related to historically marginalized groups.

Tone and Balance: This article is written very neutrally. It is mainly a list of facts about Reynolds' life and projects. There is no talk about the reception of his work beyond awards that he received, so this article has a non-biased tone. The viewpoints of the general public are not included in this article. One cannot get a sense of how Reynolds' books have been received by his readers by reading this article. Additionally, the feedback of critics and reviewers of his work are absent from this article. There are no minority or fringe perspectives addressed in this article. This article does not employ persuasive language.

Sources and References: This article is well-cited. Each sentence that needs one or more cites has one. Many of these cites are from non-peer-reviewed sources like newspaper articles and award announcements, but Reynolds himself does not seem to be involved in the creation of any of the sources that are cited. The sources do not reflect the available literature on the topic because they do not cover the last decade of Reynolds' work and the reception of his work. The sources are not written by a diverse group of authors. It does not seem like the work of historically marginalized individuals was sought out for citing in this article. There are many more recent peer-reviewed articles available that discuss Reynolds' work. These sources may be able to replace some of the less academic sources cited in this article. The links included on this page work.

Organization and Writing Quality: The writing in this article is formal and concise. The writing is straightforward and easy to process. There are no grammatical or spelling mistakes on this page. This page is not organized into sections with headings, but the central topics of each paragraph are clear, meaning that it would be easy to create section headings to improve the organization of this article.

Images and Media: This article does not include any images.

Talk Page Discussion: There has been no conversation between editors on the talk page of this article. This page is rated stub-class for WikiProject Biography and stub-class, mid-importance for WikiProject Children's literature. Wikipedia seems to value the topic of author/illustrator biographies in a similar way as our class.

Overall Impressions: This article provides a good starting point for the making of a good article about Reynolds. All the information that is included is well-written and accurate and covers a broad range of topics related to Reynolds' life. This article can be improved with the addition of section headings for each paragraph and sections dedicated to the reception and impact of Reynolds' work as held by peer-reviewed academic sources. Additionally, his work since 2008 should be included in this article. A full list of the projects he has worked on with links to their Wikipedia pages and a picture of Reynolds at the start of the article would also be beneficial to include. This article is currently underdeveloped.


 * Sources
 * Garces-Bacsal, R. M., AlOwais, N. S., & Ghufli, H. T. (2021, March). Using Multicultural and Global Picturebooks to Enhance Practices in Early Childhood Education. In 5th International Conference on Early Childhood Education (ICECE 2020) (pp. 1-4). Atlantis Press.
 * Johnson, N. J., & Giorgis, C. (2002). Children’s Books: Pleasure Reading. The Reading Teacher, 55(8), 780–788. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205139
 * Ross, S. (2016). Playing from the Heart. Canadian Children's Book News, 39(2), 28. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/playing-heart/docview/1813059932/se-2?accountid=11091