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.

I looked at the Wikipedia article for the 1798 Revolt of the Alfaiates. The article is very underwhelming, and is no more than a paragraph long. It gives a brief introduction of where the revolt took place, the fact that it was a slave rebellion, stating it was a separatist movement, and the objectives of the rebellion. What it did not give me was whether or not it was actually successful, or any kind of outcome from the revolt. It leaves out significant figures or major battles of conflicts. The only thing that we see is that it had a popular base of slaves.

The article lacks any sources, and draws all its evidence from one book. It has only one foot note at the end of the article so it shows that there was minimal effort put into researching it.

What the article needs is not just what happened during the revolution, but events leading up to it and the end results and legality that came from it. Notable figures, influences of literature, cultural context, anything else to give the reader an idea of why the event was important in the eyes of history.

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

The Wikipedia article I would like to critique is about Moctezuma I, the second Aztec emperor and fifth king of Tenochititlan. The article is easy to read because of its short length but is not sufficient to give the reader more complete picture of Moctezuma’s rule and his impact on Aztec Empire. While containing largely relevant information regarding the topic, the content of the article is mostly comprised of snippets of factoids about Moctezuma I, lacking deep and profound details of his life and legacy. It should also be noted that despite its mostly neutral stance towards the topic and a few references that works well and easy to track down, this article does not seem to be a product of expert academic research, judging by its notable lack of footnotes. The citation seems to be quite a significant problem in this article, for nowhere I could found the evidence that the references are sufficiently supporting the contents of the article. It would have been a lot better if the writers of this article tried to put more details and information into the article and properly cited the referenced works.

It also seemed like there have been very few attention to this article, for in the “talks” page there were only four very short conversations went on about its contents. These were about the Triple Alliance, Codex Mendoza reference, orthograpy of the article title – Moctezuma – and some unencyclopedic phrases contained in previous versions of the article. What is more troubling about the article, however, is that it is a part of several WikiProjects: Mesoamerica, Aztec, Middle Ages, etc. Not so surprisingly, it is rated level 4 vital article, for its lack of substance in spite of the fact that the topic is so important in understanding the foundation of Aztec Empire.