User:JRABBIT18

Article critique

I have been interested in sewing as one of my hobbies for a few years. I enjoyed shopping with my friends to buy clothes to keep up with the fashion when I was young. After being an adult, I had a chance to take a sewing class for 3 months and I fell in love with making project I have imagined with a sewing machine. I visited the sewing page on Wikipedia with such an interest, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: its lack of citations, its irrelevant sentence placing, and some form of plagiarism.

Citations

In the Wikipedia article of sewing, the author mentions the introduction of sewing machines developing in the 19th century. However, the writer fails to reference on where he/she pulled out that information. This is clearly a narrative about the history of sewing and sewing machine and it needs to include references.

An irrelevant sentence and unreliable source

When the writer is talking about value and greatness of hand sewing, sentence describing the origin of the term “sewing” follows regardless of context. The sentence doesn’t fit with the whole story and makes me feel awkward. Also, the citation in that sentence is linked to Merriam-Webster which is explaining the word of sewing itself, not the source of the word. In addition, there is an explanation about the first patented sewing machine and the reference is linked to ads from retailer website which can not be considered to be unreliable source.

Plagiarism

There are some sentences where the writer left a message such as "citation needed" and I tried to find additional information about that through the internet. Surprisingly, I have noticed that the paragraph was from a Podcast about sewing which is hosted by Jessica Cramer. After reviewing the article, it is evident that the writer plagiarized by copying and pasting excerpts from the Podcast without citation and referencing where it came from.

Summary

Overall, this article is explaining the history and technological advancement of sewing chronologically. It is well scripted with unbiased factual and useful information such as introduction of sewing tool and various types of stitching. Unfortunately, however, there are no photos of that kinds of stitching and only some of it have a link to describe more in detail. Also, when speaking of plagiarism, it can not happened in Wikipedia, where someone takes a script from another’s work without giving proper references. This is a clear example of plagiarism and it’s a serious violation which comes with bad consequences.