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Comprehensive Assessment of Articles
editLois Lowry
editAudiences for this page could include readers of her books, or people interested in her literary pursuits or life. This could include students, teachers, scholars, other authors, academics, and others. Because she writes for a younger audience, the age range could be pretty wide. The amount of prior information an audience could have about Lois Lowry and her life could be quite a large range too; if, for example, it were someone who had just read one of her books, they may only be familiar with that work and her name as being attached to it. If it were someone looking at her page because they’ve seen her books around and are curious about the kinds of things she writes about, they may have little to no prior information at all and are looking to learn a lot about her. Hard-core fans of her books would probably also look at her Wikipedia page too, and they would probably have extensive information of at least one of her works, and possibly about other aspects of her career or personal life as well. Generally, audience expectations would probably be to find a biography of sorts about her life, and information about her books. I don’t think the article fully satisfies those expectations: there is a lot of information about Lowry’s personal life, but it’s disjointed, in several different places in the article, and difficult to follow. Also, there is very little information on her books or her work as an author, which is probably what most people are coming to this page for. I don’t think ‘expertise’ is needed; just probably some fact-checking and more citations, plus more information in certain sections.
Right off the bat, I think the lead section could be improved. I think it has too much information in it right now that could be better placed elsewhere in the article. The lead also lacks a cohesion to its ideas; it jumps about a bit without any logical transitions, and also strays from the subject matter, often talking about her works instead of her. The final paragraph in the lead discusses her awards history, but I think it is inappropriately placed there; it would be better placed under a subsection.
The same problem persists in other sections of the article. The internal organization of the section “Early life” lacks cohesion and would benefit from reorganization. I also think this section could be transformed into “Personal life,” because I think the other sections pertaining to her career contain some information that would be considered more personal than career-related, so these could be re-worked into a section about her personal life, including information on her early life. There are two sections for career, “Early career” and “Writing career.” The section “Early career” does not provide any details on Lowry’s personal career, but rather continues to detail her life after marriage. It’s a short section, and she is not even the focus of it; it’s mostly about her family life after marriage. This entire section could be re-incorporated into an earlier “Personal life” section.
The first paragraph of the “Writing career” section does not even talk about her writing; instead, it talks about her passion for photography, which she developed during college. I’m not sure this belongs here either; this could probably also be moved into a “Personal life” section. There are several other instances in this section of information that is not related to her writing career, and should be re-incorporated elsewhere in the article. In fact, there is very little information on her works or writing career as a whole in this section.
This article also has a number of red links in the list of Lowry’s works, which probably need to be combed through, and either updated or removed. The article also has a trivia section, which can be deleted or re-incorporated in a different location of the article. In addition, the table of her works at the very bottom of the page seems redundant—the same information is in a list farther up the page. I also think the article would also benefit from some more images. There is a lot of blocks of text and white space right now.
Baba Yaga
editA number of audiences could be looking at this page, given Baba Yaga’s presence in a variety of mediums, ranging from folklore to books to art to movies to modern video games. They would probably be expecting to read about who Baba Yaga is and her place in Russian folklore, as well as her relevance to modern culture, as she still appears in several places there as well. They are probably interested in her origins and influence. I think, for the most part, the article meets those expectations—though I think more information could be included.
One challenge to keep in mind when editing this article is how much information to include. Being a figure in folklore, there is sure to be no shortage of sources and stories about Baba Yaga. While most audiences are coming to this page to learn more about her, they are probably not looking to read about every single reference to her in folklore or modern culture. Something to keep in mind while editing would be how to represent a full and complete history/description of Baba Yaga, while still keeping the article concise and non-obscure. This page seems to be a little sparse on citations and sources. For an article this extensive, it should probably be supported with a wide variety.
I also think there is a lot of information that can be added here. Again, the challenge would be adding information without adding too much information; but given Baba Yaga’s wide-spread presence, I think more sections could be appropriate.
Also, as a minor formatting issue: some sub-sections of “Appearances in Media” are bulleted lists, while others are just in paragraph form. This needs a consistent format applied.