User:Njparks/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.

• Shakespearean fool: (Shakespearean fool)
• This article is relevant to physical comedy, social class archetypes, and similar tropes and tools that developed in different forms with some characters in the Commedia tradition.

Lead

The Lead is easy to understand, but not written particularly well. The opening sentence is concise and gives a solid understanding of the subject. The info paragraph underneath is a little less simple; it offers interesting information for the readers, but doesn't flow from subject to subject very well. It's a little less comprehensive in terms of an overall view of the Fool, and offers more of a "background" history than a general definition. It does not clearly outline the rest of the article and in fact contains some information not present in the article proper.

Content

The content of the article is relevant to the topic and very well-organized, though perhaps not as in-depth as it could be. The body of the article is written well, with interesting and specific information as to the history of the Shakespearean Fool and how it functions in Shakespeare's plays. The article uses quotes and specific examples from various plays to evaluate the role; it also gives a streamlined but detailed explanation of how this character type came to be through European culture and English theatre around the time. It includes a list of relevant characters with links for more information on all of them. I would say the article could use more information overall--perhaps contemporary examples of the fool or reactions from Shakespeare's contemporaries and audiences. There is no information to elaborate on the history in the Lead regarding audience reactions and Queen Elizabeth I.

Content evaluation

positive

Tone and Balance

The article is definitely neutral; it doesn't claim that this trope is good or bad, nor does it pull only from one source or perspective. There isn't much information that could be argues in a positive or negative light in the first place, and by using a variety of sources the author has diversified any given slant the article could have.

Tone and balance evaluation

excellent

Sources and References

The iffiest thing about this article is the quality of citation. There are a few long stretches of paragraph that have no citations, and it is difficult to tell which sources are academic or reliable. Almost all of them work, however, and reflect a diverse array of perspectives on the topic. The sources are relatively current (especially for a topic that isn't particularly popular), coming mostly from 2015-16.

Sources and references evaluation

needs improvement

Organization

This article is well-written for the most part. The main body of the article is well-constructed, easy to read, concise, and dynamic. The only issue in organization is that the "costuming" section should definitely be with the other two main body subjects of the article, and the "list of Shakespearean fools" should round out the piece, as it isn't a major source of research or part of the narrative of the article. The writing in the Lead paragraph is much less dynamic and much more clunky than the rest of the piece, and could greatly be improved in the flow; the background information in that paragraph should also be moved further down in the article and be replaced by an overview of the sections to come. There are no grammatical or spelling errors that I can find.

Organization evaluation

could use improvement

Images and Media

There are only two images in the whole article, which, while they add to the interest of the piece and understanding of the topic, are still sparse. They are simply captioned and cited correctly for copyright regulations. They are not laid out in a unique way, but do offer a good visual example of the subjects. Could use more.

Images and media evaluation

could use improvement

Checking the talk page

This article is part of three WikiProjects--Elizabethan theatre, Shakespeare, and Theatre. There are no conversations on the talk page about this topic. The Shakespeare page is the most active, with several subjects regarding other Shakespeare-related pages being evaluated for publishing on the site. The Shakespearean Fool is the same type of sub-section being discussed on that main Shakespeare page.

Talk page evaluation

excellent (in terms of relevance)

Overall impressions

This article, while interesting, is not entirely well-developed. More detail should be given to improving citations, increasing the depth of the history and finding interesting images as well as the organization of the information. Its strengths are in the writing style (for the most part--excluding that Lead paragraph) and in finding relevant information that's interesting to the topic. It is an easily understandable article, but could be much more detailed. By far the biggest issue is the lack of citations for information that is already there. I would say it is underdeveloped, rather than poorly developed.

Overall evaluation

needs improvement

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