User:Printy13/Denotation/Alabaw25 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?

Printy13

Link to draft you're reviewing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Printy13/Denotation?veaction=edit&preload=Template%3ADashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template
Link to the current version of the article (if it exists): Denotation

Evaluate the drafted changes

(Compose a detailed peer review here, considering each of the key aspects listed above if it is relevant. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what feedback looks like.)

Lead

The lead of the article is brief and mentions topics (meaning, reference) that will be covered later in the article. The language is clear, but I believe it can still be shortened; for instance, instead of "...a sign to its meaning, precisely to its literal meaning..." you could reword to "a sign to its literal meaning."

Content

The content added is both up-to-date and relevant, as it lays the parameters for what a denotation is relative to meaning and reference. I feel there may be missing information in the "Denotation and Reference" section, as it discusses mostly reference.

Tone and Balance

Building off the last point, I feel the article could be better balanced by discussing denotation in conjunction with reference more. Right now, the "Denotation and Reference" section appears to over-represent reference in an article about denotation. Overall, however, the tone of the article is neutral and informative, not persuasive. The only aberrant sentence is "In semantics, it is important to distinguish between meaning, reference, and denotation," which may be considered as giving an opinion because of the use of the word "important."

Sources and References

The added sources are definitely reliable, as they are books published in the field of linguistics, which is the realm in which denotation is being discussed. The links to the sources all work. There are sentences that appear to be missing citations; for instance, I wonder whether the last two sentences in the "Denotation and Reference" section could benefit from a citation.

Organization

The article is very well-organized; from the heading, I could logically anticipate the sub-headings. Grammatically and spelling-wise, there are no glaring errors.

Overall impressions

The contributions made to the article are well-developed. The major areas of improvement would be regarding citing remaining sentences and discussing denotation more in the section about denotation and reference.

Response to Peer Review

Thank you so much for your feedback @Alabaw25:! I truly appreciate it. Printy13 (talk) 14:15, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Shorten lead, change "...a sign to its meaning, precisely to its literal meaning..." to "a sign to its literal meaning."

This is a good suggestion, and I will be editing the lead to reflect this change.

Add more information to “Denotation and Reference” sections because it discusses mostly reference

My original thought was to add a section before this that goes into depth about specifics of denotation, so the “Denotation and Reference” section would be more about comparison than bulk information. However, I agree that there does need to be some information about denotation here.

Fix the balance in “Denotation and Reference” because it over-represents reference.

Yes, I agree, and I will be adding more content regarding denotation here.

Fix "In semantics, it is important to distinguish between meaning, reference, and denotation," which may be giving an opinion due to the word “important”.

This statement was an opinion from the author of the source cited at the end of the sentence, so I will edit this to either mention the author by name or take out the value statement.

Add citations to the last two sentences in “Denotation and Reference” section.

These two sentences are related to vocabulary from John Searle’s speech act theory, which I cited earlier in the paragraph. I’ll add phrases like “according to the speech act theory” to make it clear that the definitions come from that citation.