Wikipedia:Peer review/African American culture/archive1

African American culture

Trying to get this one up to good article. Suggestions please. CJ 13:06, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Review by Karanacs

• Hi. I would rate this article as B-Class right now. I think there is room for expansion, and you need to work on the citations a bit. I did not review for prose issues, but here are some other things I found:
  • The lead is too short. It needs to be expanded and be more of a small summary of the article (see WP:Lead  Done
  • Need more citations  Done
    • "Significant numbers of people still speak some of these Creole languages," (also, for this one, what do you consider significant? Can you be more specific as to how many people
    • "Several predominantly black churches exist as members of predominantly white denominations." Done
    • "some scholars contend that the fabric of African American culture is shot through with Islamic threads evident in, among other things, the blues."
  • the whole section on Traditional and Aminist Practices
    • the whole Agriculture and Food section
    • most sections of Holidays and Observances are without citations  Done
  • You could have more wikilinks -- for example, Protestant Christianity, Islam  Done
  • I'd like to see a new first section that would be more of a description or very brief history of African-American culture. At the very least, it might be interesting to see when African-American culture began to be recognized as a distinct entity, or when the community began to really take pride in their culture. It may also be important to point out in the body of the article which groups of people this affects. For example, I know some African American leaders have criticzed Barack Obama for not being "black enough." If the African-American culture is primarily that of the descendants of slaves, or of groups of people who've lived through the Civil Rights movement, that should be noted.  Done
  • I think you could flesh out the Christianity section a bit more. Describe some of the customs or behaviors that are different in the Black church. Your source points out the "enthusiastic singing, clapping, dancing, and even spirit-possession. " and others.  Done
  • Under Emancipation Day, move See Also:Juneteenth to be directly under Main Article:  Done
  • I recommend expanding the music section. This is one of the most visible elements of African-American culture and should be showcased as such  Done
  • I would move Art, Music, and Literature to be the first section, as this is what is normally thought of as "culture". I would move Holidays and Observances to be the last section.  Done
  • Your references are not all formatted properly. Every one should have a publisher name, author name if available, and date published if available. see WP:CITE  Done
  • You have see also links for African American art and African American dance. Can these be summarized to be included in this article as well?  Done

Good luck! Karanacs 13:50, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, working on them now. CJ 14:18, 1 June 2007 (UTC)