https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexica

“Mexica”

I looked at the Mexica people of modern day Mexico, most commonly referred to as the Aztec Empire. The content on this page fits the article adequately, but there seems to be a lack of more prominent information. There are some distractions on the words that have links to them. Words such as Mexico, are linked more than once. The article is missing a lot of information and only has two photos, so it doesn’t have much to distract the reader. Because the article is about a people, I don’t believe there can be a noticeable bias in articles like these.

No viewpoints are overrepresented or underrepresented, there just isn’t enough content to determine that yet. The citations are not at all reliable. There is only one link that actually leads to another site, but when you get to that site it’s just a search engine. The other two sources are inadequately cited. Overall, these sources are not reliable at all.

Most of this information has been added on a course of three years but has yet to be significantly edited. This article has potential to be a growing article, but as of now it remains stub-like.The article is not rated or classified yet, it needs much more information and citations before it becomes a complete article. More or less this article covers the more basic generic information that we discussed in class. It talks about their origin and their location in that colonial era.

The wikipedia article I chose to analyze is the cocoa bean. For the most part, everything appears to be on topic. If there is one thing that stands out from the rest of the article, it would be the section on child slavery. Although not irrelevant, it appears to be less focused on the main topic of the article itself, and shifts tones slightly. This section also appears to be the only section with a somewhat biased tone. Although it initially appears neutral, there is a clear emphasis on articles that point out the controversy with the issue, meanwhile still not trying to sound blatantly persuasive. On the same topic of child slavery, this section appears to have only the perspective of those that may view the issue negatively (although this is somewhat unsurprising).

Overall, the references appear to be functional. All the information seems to be well up to date. The most recent edit was this past August. The discussions occurring on the talk page appear to be a mixture of wondering how the article could be improved and asking for general knowledge on the topic of cocoa. The article has been listed as B-class, though it had previously been rated as good. It is also part of three wiki projects: Food and drink, Africa, and plants.

The Wikipedia article I chose to evaluate was on the percussion instrument, the güiro. The article is rather short, but appears to be factual and follow the Wikipedia guidelines. It’s short so everything is relevant to the article topic. There was nothing distracting or out of place throughout the article. In addition, the tone seems neutral and unbiased. All of the links worked throughout the article. There was only one link under references that did not work. There is a subcategory on the page where all the information is from that source so that is a red flag. The other reference links were connected to books. The references seem appropriate and reliable. From what access I had to the books online, the books appear to be neutral, educational sources from a factual view.

There is a bit on the Talk page. There is talk about spelling, picture usage concern, removing a section, merging two pages, and songs with the güiro in it. I think these are really concerning to the topic. I believe some of the information could even be transferred to the main page with some minor editing. It is nice that people note the changes made or questions concerning the topic. The Talk page also includes the WikiProjects. The article is “of interest to the following WikiProjects”: WikiProject Cuba, WikiProject Latin music, WikiProject Puerto Rico, WikiProject Musical Instruments, and WikiProject Percussion. These all pertain to the topic.

One concern with this Wikipedia article is how short the article is in length. Finding extensive information for this topic can be hard. Representationally, a few questions arise. Who uses this instrument today and who used it in the past? Is this a general Latin American instrument or is it more centralized to a specific area? Perhaps the instrument may be used differently in varying parts of Latin America. The history of the uses of the güiro and the use of it today is something that could be added. Perhaps it was used in a religious ritual or governmental ceremony. The sound bite is another concern. There is no citation for it. Musically speaking, it is very bare and two different sounds are heard, one at the beginning and one at the end. Perhaps this can be explained as it may cause confusion. Hearing an instrument is extremely important to further the understanding of an instrument. I think having several sound bites would be fascinating and useful. A sound bite with minimal instrumentation would be beneficial and then maybe a sound bite of a güiro in a fuller instrumental setting.

We have not discussed specific musical instruments in class. However, we have talked about material culture and the cultural importance of items. This Wikipedia article does not reveal or analyze the value of this item in the Latin American culture. Is this item used by certain groups of people of certain economic or social status? What value is and was the güiro associated with in society? These are only some questions regarding material culture and this item.

The article I chose to critique was on the cuatro, a guitar-like instrument played throughout South America.

Although the article had very technical information about the instrument’s structure/tuning configuration, there was little to be observed in any other area about its history. The sources listed seem unaffiliated with any specific company. While there is no talk about the article or its information, it doesn’t seem like it needs any – the sources listed are objective databases and whole websites dedicated to a technical description of how the instrument works.

My biggest critique is that it only touches on any sort of background the instrument has in history, mentioning it most likely has roots in another instrument native to Portugal. I would love to see an expansion on how it took off in the recently colonized areas of the New World, how widespread its use is today, or even famous players of it/occurrences in culture outside of South America. Overall, nothing to complain about save for the fact that there is very little of which to have an opinion.

The Wikipedia page I chose for this assignment deals with the paso doble, a form of ballroom dance which symbolizes a bull fight. Although the article did offer some interesting information about the dance, there were certainly aspects that were not well explained. Additionally, certain parts of the article include potentially contradictory information. For example, the first paragraph explains that the paso doble was most likely created for Spain’s infantry, the second paragraph states that it originated in France and was later introduced in Spain and Portugal to add excitement during a bull fight. While it is possible that both are true, the article does not detail why and how this would have happened.

Perhaps an even more serious oversight is that the page includes no description of the dance’s history in Latin America, despite the fact that it lists the names of numerous Mexican paso dobles. The article also mentions a number of countries in which the paso doble is popular. However, it does not mention anything about the cultural significance of the dance in any locations outside of the Iberian Peninsula.

It is also worth mentioning that this article has multiple errors in grammar and punctuation. Most notably, the article refers to the dance it describes as “pasodoble” although the main ballroom dance page lists it as “paso doble.” While I am not completely certain, I did a few internet searches without finding any instances of the name of the dance written as one word. However, the talk page of the Wikipedia article reveals that the author originally used two words but changed this due to the suggestion of another user.

There is only one other suggestion on the talk page for the article. This one explains that the information on the Spanish Wikipedia article is more precise. Additionally, the English article is a part of WikiProject Spain, WikiProject Dance, and WikiProject France but was rated as “start class, low importance” by all three.

Although this article does raise some interesting topics, it is far from being complete or well-written. Furthermore, the focus is rather Eurocentric. If we were to discuss the “paso doble” in class, we would most likely touch upon the European origins of this dance but consider it more from a Latin American perspective.

Casta

I reviewed an article on casta, the Spanish term for the hierarchical system used to keep track of “blood purity.” This page is part of a series on the history of New Spain and has no banner. Most of the article was relevant, but I was distracted by the solid one-third of the article dedicated to casta paintings. While tangentially related, I believe that casta paintings should have been its own article as that section didn’t add much of note to the rest of the page. Not everyone on the talk page seems to share my opinion, however, because there’s a call to flesh it out. But the same person also goes on to say that it could eventually be its own article. The other conversations on the talk page are minimal. A few things were removed due to lack of sourcing; apparently at one point a group of students from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey replaced the entire article, only to have it all switched back. The tone didn’t strike me as being particularly biased one way or the other. The links I checked all worked, and most led to peer reviewed journals. Looking over the references, peer reviewed journals seem to make up the bulk of the section, with additional references taken from a handful of books or dictionaries from a variety of writers. All the links I checked backed up what was in the article.

Overall, the article seemed well-researched, if a little too ambitious. The history of the sistema de castas was covered thoroughly, the long list of terms used within the system were explained, and the references section was substantial. The biggest issue was that the article began to get off track toward the end and let the discussion of casta paintings get out of control.