Short Assignment # 5

Part One:

Marshall McLuhan vs. Michelle Citron

Structure of article:

Both articles are outlined in a similar fashion: there is a short introduction followed by an examination of the early life and career of both subjects, followed by the listing and description of major works created by McLuhan and Citron. The difference that is most visible here is the level of detail afforded to certain subjects.

In the McLuhan article, his early life is painted in detail, including tidbits about McLuhan’s religious journey. Citron’s sections are less detailed- her date of birth is not mentioned, nor any snippets of her personal life outside of her academic and professional career.

Kinds of Information contained:

In the McLuhan article, his theories and key concepts that he coined are discussed at length. There is even information included about dissenting opinions. In addition, there is a wealth of ‘trivia’ information woven throughout the McLuhan article, such as his appearance in the film Annie Hall.

In contrast, the Citron article is more factual, with a basic summation of her filmography and multimedia works.

Kinds of information linked to:

The Citron article links to other Wikipedia pages about locations and universities. The McLuhan article does this as well, but also adds links to information about other theorists, terms, and pages for the works of McLuhan.

References:

The references for the Citron article are academic in nature and focused on film studies, specifically feminist film studies.

Tone of Article:

This is where I found the most stark differences between the two articles: the McLuhan article was written with a sense of care and reverence, and includes a level of detail that goes beyond basic information. In contrast, the Citron article is more straightforward and less colorfully detailed.

Part Two:

Featured Article: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump

This featured article, on an 18^th century painting titled: An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, finds it’s strength in the comprehensiveness of information presented. The author was very detailed and thorough when it came to information surrounding this painting and it’s creation. However, on the other side, the author suffers from going off topic and a confusing ordering of information. It would have been better to have a section about the artist, who’s information is spread out throughout the article in haphazard order, followed by information about the painting itself, with subsections for style and technique, and a separate section for the topic of the painting and air pumps in the 18^th century, which the Wikipedia article author clearly found fascinating.