User:Drpencil9/Howard Besser/Gainag Peer Review

Peer review

Complete your peer review exercise below, providing as much constructive criticism as possible. The more detailed suggestions you provide, the more useful it will be to your classmate. Make sure you consider each of the following aspects:

Lead

Guiding questions:

Has the Lead been updated to reflect the new content added by your peer?
Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

Guiding questions:

Is the content added relevant to the topic?
Is the content added up-to-date?
Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions:

Is the content added neutral?
Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
Does the content added attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

Guiding questions:

Is all new content backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
Does the content accurately reflect what the cited sources say? (You'll need to refer to the sources to check this.)
Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
Are the sources current?
Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)
Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

Guiding questions:

Is the content added well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
Does the content added have any grammatical or spelling errors?
Is the content added well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

Guiding questions: If your peer added images or media

Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
Are images well-captioned?
Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

For New Articles Only

If the draft you're reviewing is for a new article, consider the following in addition to the above.

Does the article meet Wikipedia's Notability requirements - i.e. Is the article supported by 2-3 reliable secondary sources independent of the subject?
How exhaustive is the list of sources? Does it accurately represent all available literature on the subject?
Does the article follow the patterns of other similar articles - i.e. contain any necessary infoboxes, section headings, and any other features contained within similar articles?
Does the article link to other articles so it is more discoverable?

Overall impressions

Guiding questions:

Has the content added improved the overall quality of the article - i.e. Is the article more complete?
What are the strengths of the content added?
How can the content added be improved?

Examples of good feedback

A good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved.

Peer review of "Homemaking"
Peer review of this article about a famous painting

Additional Resources

Check out the Editing Wikipedia PDF for general editing tips and suggestions.

General info

Whose work are you reviewing?

Drpencil9

Link to draft you're reviewing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Drpencil9/Howard_Besser?veaction=edit&preload=Template%3ADashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template
Link to the current version of the article (if it exists): Howard Besser

Evaluate the drafted changes

Lead

The editor provided a new lead to bring in aspects of the information they are adding to the existing article, but it feels much too long and provides too much information than necessary. There is a lot of biographical information crammed into the lead in sort of a choppy list, some of which seems copied over from the Biography section of the existing article. Remove some of the biographical information and streamline what you want to include so it can be paired down to a brief statement. The lead from the existing includes his involvement in Dublin Core and METS, two very important standards in our field.

Content

I hoped that since the Dublin Core and METS information was removed from the lead in that it would reappear in the body, but it does not. This information should absolutely be reintroduced to the draft article. The editor has created a lot of separate sections of their article, but they are each very brief. The "Timeline" section only covers Besser's life from 1974-1989, but he was born in 1952 and is still alive. This section could be improved if the editor sticks with the "Biography" label provided in the existing article and supplemented the information found there with new information from more current sources if possible.

The Reporting, Study, and Preservation sections are all copied and pasted from the articles cited. I'm not sure what the editor is trying to achieve with these sections, but they will certainly bring up a copyright violation and need to be removed immediately. If the editor wishes to include information from these sources they must paraphrase it in their own words and with proper context.

Tone and Balance

The reporting section does nothing but add the words and opinions of Besser, something that is to be avoided in a wikipedia article. It shifts the bias heavily in the direction of the article subject, away from the necessary neutral tone that must be present.

Sources and References

The reference list is rather small and is comprised of information created by or with Besser, the focus of the article. More secondary sources are needed to provide an outside and neutral bias to the information provided in this article.

Organization

The editor has created additional headings to break up the body of the article, but they did not change the format of the text, so the headings end up blending into the rest of the text, losing their intended affect of dividing the text. If the editor wishes to keep these headings they should change the format of those headings to one of the "subheading" options from the drop down menu above.

Images and Media

The editor has included no images or media, even though the existing article provides a video of the article subject speaking with a colleague on a scholarly topic. The editor should look for an image of Besser to place at the top of the article to accompany their draft.

Overall Impressions

I am not entirely sure what the editor is trying to achieve with their draft. It seems as if they are trying to reinvent the article with stating where they are trying to insert the sections they are creating. They shifted a lot of biographical information from the body of the existing article to their new lead, which defeats the purpose of the old biographical section while defeating the purpose of a concise lead into their article. The biggest red flags are the copy and paste sections in their article. These need to be addressed as soon as possible to prevent any issues of copyright violation and academic dishonesty with the university. The editor needs to find more secondary sources to bring in more information if they want to address the bias of the article away from the literal words of the article subject.