User:Tmthompson1121/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Afro-Surrealism

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I had chosen this article as I had never heard of the term "Afro-Surrealism" come up very often. It is extremely interesting and deserves to be spoken and discussed about just as other art movements are. I had also chosen this specific article as while it has quite a bit of information, it is still extremely small in length when compared to other articles about other art movements. The article seems to be a bit biased as well and isn't as neutral as it should be.

Evaluate the article
LEAD SECTION

The lead section of this article is very short. It also isn't really much of an intro, aside from the first line. Information and quotes that provide a bias are what the reader first encounters which sets the tone from the start. The second paragraph primarily lists notable people in the movement but provides no further information. There are also many grammatical errors present throughout. The quotes in the leading section are also far too lengthy and do not particularly provide much neutral insight into the topic.

CONTENT

While the information seems to be relatively up to date and on topic, it is severely lacking in diversity in viewpoints and examples from other artists in the movement. Many of the paragraphs throughout are hardly paragraphs, they're mostly the writer's opinion with a lengthy quote added.

TONE/BALANCE

The content of the article leans heavily into one viewpoint, which seems to be the viewpoint of the person whose contributing the most to it. I would hardly call it neutral to be honest. Throughout the entire "Development" section, the subsections are full of quotes that guide the reader to align with the implied viewpoint and offer little to no perspectives from others.

SOURCES/REFERENCES

The information is relevant and all of the links are working, the most recent article looks to be from 2020. However, there is only one source that comes from before the 2000s and could use a bit more diversity in that area. Many of the sources stem from one person, that being D. Scot Miller. A number of sources seem to be thought pieces from various people mentioned in the leading section, there are not many peer reviewed sources.

ORGANIZATION/WRITING QUALITY

The article has quite a few grammatical errors scattered throughout as well as sentences that tend to run on. The writer has a heavy dependency on quotes to create the body of the paragraph instead of using their own words. I would say the wordage is also not entirely easy to read, due to the quotes taking up a large portion of the article with nothing to break them down, a lot of the academic language would make it hard for some people to wholly understand.

IMAGES/MEDIA

There are no images nor media within the article.

TALK PAGE DISCUSSION

The talk page offers a number of sources and suggestions to better the article, as well as some criticisms on how it is currently written. There also seems to be a bit of hostility between some of the other editors and the person who contributed the most (D. Scot Miller) for suggesting another source be added to the article, of which Miller held animosity towards which seems to explain why the article is heavily reliant on his point of view.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

My overall impressions of this article is how empty it feels. It is essentially one man's vision of what he wants the Afro-Surrealist movement to be with outright refusal to acknowledge other people within the movement. Bluntly, the article is a bit of a trainwreck (much like another person had stated in the talk page) and poorly developed. I think some good improvements to the article would be to start gathering more viewpoints from others as well as gathering more scholarly articles to create a much more solid foundation. Cutting down on the usage and lengths of the quotes would also be a good step. I would say one of the strengths it does have is the current list of people within the Afro-Surrealist movement, it simply needs to be expanded upon.