User talk:Ceciliasheppard/sandbox

A lead section that is easy to understand
Looking at the lead by itself, do I feel satisfied that I know the importance of the topic? I thought the lead provided was very strong. It was clear, concise, and had a citation.

Looking at the lead again after reading the rest of the article, does the lead reflect the most important information? Looking after the rest of the article, I think this lead pretty well links to the rest of the content. One thing I would encourage is that, in the examples you provide, you touch on each theme you mentioned in your definition ("political, religious, or graphic content deemed inappropriate").

Does the lead give more weight to certain parts of the article over others? Is anything missing? Is anything redundant? The only thing I would add is one more sentence after the lead definition giving a sense of the time, space, and methods of destruction. This would more usefully contextualize what the article is about.

A clear structure
Are the sections organized well, in a sensible order? Would they make more sense presented some other way (chronologically, for example)? Looking at your piece, it seems like you have listed several example that your intend to develop. Given that you have not finished them all, I can't be certain how your order will shake out. Otherwise, looks good to me!

Balanced coverage
Is each section's length equal to its importance to the article's subject? Are there sections in the article that seem unnecessary? Is anything off-topic? Everything looks relevant. The only thing that I would mention is that your addition of a whole section on "Sexual Censorship" seems a little major relative to the other examples. Instead, I would find an example of art censorship and add it to your list of examples.

Does the article reflect all the perspectives represented in the published literature? Are any significant viewpoints left out or missing? It might be worth adding the explanations more for why that censorship occurred. You offer a bit of an explanation for Open Casket, but I recommend including that for each example.

Does the article draw conclusions or try to convince the reader to accept one particular point of view? Absolutely not. I find no persuasive comments in this article.

Neutral content
Do you think you could guess the perspective of the author by reading the article? I know that the author is an art history major from her sandbox, but I cannot sense an overly art protectionist background or agenda in this piece.

Are there any words or phrases that don't feel neutral? For example, "the best idea," "most people," or negative associations, such as "While it's obvious that x, some insist that y." With the current content provided, everything is incredibly neutral without any suggestive language.

Does the article make claims on behalf of unnamed groups or people? For example, "some people say..." Yes. In fact, twice the article names unidentified people. "Some people" was used when describing the anger with the art and "calls for its removal" was attributed to no one.

Does the article focus too much on negative or positive information? Remember, neutral doesn't mean "the best positive light" or "the worst, most critical light." It means a clear reflection of various aspects of a topic. I think there could be room in this article to highlight the productive discussion and debate about censorship. Rather than just showing "oh one side did one thing and the other lost" mention more the discourse about the given art, not just the resolution.

Reliable sources
Are most statements in the article connected to a reliable source, such as textbooks and journal articles? Or do they rely on blogs or self-published authors? I though that everything was well cited. The one item that still needs a citation is the quotation by the author about her reasoning for the artwork.

Are there a lot of statements attributed to one or two sources? If so, it may lead to an unbalanced article, or one that leans too heavily into a single point of view. Right now each statement only appears to have one source connected to it.

Are there any unsourced statements in the article, or statements that you can't find stated in the references? Just because there is a source listed, doesn't mean it's presented accurately! None that I could find!

Dgoydan21 (talk) 19:11, 11 November 2018 (UTC)dgoydan21

Ann's Peer Review of Art Censorship
'''A lead section that is easy to understand Overall, the lead is very strong-- it provides a helpful basic definition of art censorship and tells the reader why this topic is important. It is comprehensive but not redundant with respect to the rest of the article. Because it is only one sentence, though, the reader gets a bit lost in it. I think breaking into two sentences would be helpful. I would write something like "Art Censorship is when art works are decommissioned, removed from view, modified, defaced, or destroyed because their content is judged to be objectionable. Often, this judgment is made because the art work expresses certain contentious political or religious themes or because it contains graphic images."

'''A clear structure The structure is clear, with "Notable Examples" following right after the lead and then the "Methods" section. I was wondering if it would be helpful to organize the notable examples chronologically, so that readers could see how modes/practices of censorship change over time. I'm also not sure how much the "Sexual Censorship" and "Religious Censorship" Sections will differ from what you've already covered in the "Notable Examples" section, given that it looks like you already have specific examples of art works being censored for religious reasons or because they contain sexual content. Maybe instead of those sections (or in addition!) you could write a "Reactions" or "Criticism" section where you discuss how people have responded to instances of art censorship.

'''Balanced coverage Since not all of your sections have been written, I can't see whether they are all approximately the same length. However, the length of the "Open Casket" section seems very reasonable; you could likely make all of your notable-example sub-sections about the same length and end up with a very well filled-out list of examples. The article is definitely not trying to persuade readers toward a certain viewpoint. The one thing I would suggest to make the article more balanced, though, would be to add the "Reactions"/"Criticism" section that I mentioned above.

'''Neutral content Your content is written in quite a neutral tone. None of the information is presented as "negative" or "positive." One small point is the use of the phrase "some people" in the sentence "Some people thought it was inappropriate that a white woman would choose a black Civil Rights movement figure as her subject." Perhaps you could more clearly specify who that group of people was.

'''Reliable sources All of your sources seem reliable; none are of a source type that would raise a red flag for bias. If possible, I would try to add in some academic sources, so that you can get a more well-rounded picture of what the discourse surrounding art censorship is like and how it has changed over time. All of your points are backed up by a citation, so no concerns r/e your citation frequency.

Great start! I can't wait to read the finished product. --Afgmcdonald (talk) 19:39, 15 November 2018 (UTC)