User:Victoriawesloh/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Frank Lloyd Wright

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I have heard of Frank Lloyd Wright before, and I find his architecture style very interesting, and definitely a defining aesthetic of the 20th century. This article is important because a lot of people have probably googled his name at one point or another, and would look to this article for good information. My first impression was that it seems very detailed, and has a long table of contents. It seems to be organized well with lots of categories and sub categories for different styles of architecture, sections of personal life, etc. It also has a LOT of sources credited.

Evaluate the article
Lead:

The lead section seems very well put together. It is concise, and sums up who he is, his accomplishments, and the big events of his personal life.

Content:

Overall, there is a lot good content. A few things I think could be improved;

The Adler & Sullivan section seems to have disproportionally more content than the others.

In the Transition section I feel like there could be further divisions of the sections that separate personal life events from the information about the architecture, and more information about the architecture in general. Although, I understand this page is specifically about Wright as a person, and not about a specific style, so it makes sense to clearly make connections between the events in his life and the architecture being created at that time, as long as no bias from the personal events taints the facts about his work.

In the Designing In Japan section, I would be interested in more information about Wright's time in Japan, and not only how he influenced Japanese designers, but how they influenced him as well.

In the Personal Style and Concepts section, I believe that the Design Elements heading could use more information. In many of Wright's houses, he designed interior elements too, such as chairs tables, which are not mentioned in detail. I think further research could also be done into the specific aesthetics of each of his housing styles, and this heading could be developed further to give more information about these aspects separate of the conversation around his personal life.

Lastly, in talking about his dealings with Japanese Art, I think more information could be included about how he acquired so many prints and what his interest was with Japanese art, and if this influenced his architecture style as well (and does he credit the Japanese with any influence? Even if not, I believe the article should still make a note of their influences on him, as long as there are credible sources that point to this influence). It would also be good to include more sources on the impact of his art dealings on the Japanese community.

Organization:

One thing I noticed is the earlier section have defined year ranges (i.e. 1900-1914), but the Midlife and Later Career sections do not. I don't think that there is any missing block of time per say, but I think adding year ranges next to the headers, even if more broad, would be helpful for context.

The section on Community Planning at the end feels a bit out of place to me, I think that information about his community work could be disseminated throughout the sections since it spans many years.

I would also suggest putting the Further Reading section in front of the References, since it is more concise and readable than the large chunk of citations ( although this organization may be standard procedure for all articles I'm not sure).

Tone:

In my opinion, the article appears pretty unbiased and neutral, with a few odd instances. Any information about Wrights ideas/thoughts or anyones opinions about Wright are marked in quotations, so it is clear that these are not the authors thoughts or opinions, but that they come from direct sources.

The Designing in Japan section is a bit oddly worded, some of it sounds more like opinion in saying 'the most important' or 'had a strong influence' without substantial sources.

Also, the excerpt "...were known as '"prairie houses"' because the designs complemented the land around Chicago." in the Prairie Style Houses section, the notion of complimenting the landscape is not backed up in the text.

Lastly, the Significant Later Works section, there are many sentence fragments that make the section a bit more difficult to read.

Images:

The images used work well with the text. They are informative when paired with the information the help visualize his architecture, have good captions, and linked sources. They are all placed on the right margins of the page, and I would include or move some images to be bigger and more featured, to break up the text a bit.

Sources:

Sources seem very thorough. All the sources are linked in the text, and everything is catalogued at the end of the article. I really like the 'See Also' section, that links other Wiki pages that are related to this one for easy access. From clicking on the links, they all seem to work. Some seem a bit older, but that could be attributed the fact that the most primary sources would come from when he was the most active in architecture.

In the sections about Japan, most of the sources don't seem to come from Japanese scholars. It would be nice to include this, so that their perspective is accurately recorded!

Talk Page:

The talk page seems good as well! Most of the recent conversations are about smaller details, which is good because it implies that all of the bigger points are well-researched and not contested. The article has been rated a 'C' though, which means that there is more information needed!

Overall:

Overall, I think there is a lot of good stuff in this article! Most sections are pretty thorough and well-written. There are a few areas that seem a bit denser than others, and more overall information can always be added to give a better picture. In terms of organization, having more divisions with headings and sub headings might be helpful to add some clarity. A thorough proofread might also help to make the text a bit more coherent, since many different people have edited this article, there are many different writing styles present. Most sources seem legitimate and up to date, but adding more sources from different points of view might help add more voices to the conversation.