Talk:The Waa-Mu Show

Peer Review

Really good job in creating this article. It's clear that you have put in a lot of work in collecting and compiling all the history and information about the Waa-Mu show. My favorite section is the history section, which does a good job of establishing how the Waa-Mu show came about and why it is significant. You also have a good lead section. Here are my thoughts for improving this article: 1. Organization: the different sections in this article didn't feel balanced or complementary. One glaring example of this are the 3 different sections given to Mission, Vision, and Values Statements. I think these sections are unnecessary, because they give off a persuasive tone (which you don't want on a Wikipedia article) and they are not substantial (each one is about 2 sentences). I think incorporating these sections into the history section would be a cleaner and more neutral way of providing the same information. Another note on organization is that I think the notable alumni section of the article can be broken up into smaller paragraphs; right now it is just one big intimidating wall of text . Consider grouping Past Shows and Recent Shows together. Also in Past Shows you have a show dated for 2017, which is the future. 2. Citation: I noticed that although you had citations for things, you would often put them later in the text, or at the end of a paragraph. This makes it seem that a lot of information in the body is un-cited. Even if it means repeating the same citation many times in the same paragraph, I think each pice of information that requires a citation should get one. This can be seen in the history section in particular. 3. Small tidbits Do away with information that refers to the current year. For example, in your lead you say, "This year will mark the show's 86th year." That information will become quickly outdated (not to mention it sounds a little commercial). Consider instead referring to the date of founding of the show and let readers calculate the age of the show on their own. The last sentence in the history section, "The Waa-Mu Show continues to serve as an important launching pad for many of the University’s most talented performers. Many former Waa-Mu performers have gone on to careers on Broadway and in Hollywood," sounds like it came it out of an ad from the university. It can be done away with. 4. Pitch This is a pitch for changing the focus of the article. Right now, apart from the history section, a large section of the article is focused on highlighting the organization and people working on the show. Consider instead expanding the shows section, and writing more about style, presentation, location, and reception of the shows generally, or specific/notable shows. Of course, this is just a pretty radical pitch, and by no means meant to be prescriptive.

While I may have listed a lot of ways to improve the article, I think you guys have done a really good job overall in creating a page for Waa-Mu! Just8food (talk) 19:43, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi team,

This is a good start so far, and is turning into a good article.

That said, it's still a bit sparse. As I read it, I found myself confused about or wanting to know:

If the show used to be a review, does that mean it wasn't always written by students?
Have there been any notable performances in the past (e.g., anti-war plays during Vietnam, plays that went on to be performed on Broadway, etc.)

Overall, it just needs a little bit more "meat", if you can find it.

One other, very small comment - the summary sentence can go right at the top of the article - it doesn't need a header (see other WP articles as examples).

Finally, you are welcome to contact Ian, our content expert, who may have other pointers for you, or ask me if you have questions

-- Jdfoote (talk) 15:22, 24 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Really enjoyed your article so far! I'm impressed that the Waa-Mu show never before had an article! The few things I noticed were usually just simple flow and placement things:

The end of the introduction/overview section is repetitive. If you stick with either “It had transformed in recent years to become a full-scale musical” or the “However, over the last six years…" the point will easily come across.
In the 1938 tidbit "non-original musicals" section of the History section of the page, I think changing to an overall discussion of what has been done in the case of performances that were non-original musicals, rather than using just the one specific 1938 case, would work better since that instance was not the first time it was done, and it currently just flows a bit weird.
Add the locations that the Waa-Mu has been performed to the paragraph discussing the Cahn auditorium (the paragraph that is currently just below it) the flow is a little funky in its current paragraph, since it's discussing the different directors of the show.
We know that all the Waa-Mu shows are original, feel free to remove the “students put on an original show” from the description of Gold.

Ccowness (talk) 19:32, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I’m impressed with the details that your group has found out about the Waa-Mu Show and the sources are relatively diversified given how affiliated the even is with Northwestern. The writing style is succinct and clear to the point at times, but there are a few notes I’d like to make to improve on the accuracy of information.

I’d suggest using the standardized pronunciation guidelines for Waa-Mu’s pronunciation, instead of “wah mew” because I assume that not everyone pronounces “mew” in the same way.
Define what is a 501(c)(3) organization, right after or further in the article?
A grammatical note, perhaps an addition of comma, in “..within Northwestern University in Evanston, Il that produces student written…”
I suggest not using “this year” throughout the article, presuming that the article may not be edited by people with updated sources every year.
What’s the sources for “first co-educational college musical show”? Be careful to claim something without a creditable source.
There is a combination of history and “notable alumni” content under the heading of History. I suggest you to put the last few sentences there into the section of “notable alumni”.
I believe that mission, vision and values statements can be combined into one section only.

Amanda.xiang (talk) 20:22, 28 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Peer Review

Great work on this team! It's clear you've put a lot of time and effort into this page. I'm really impressed in the length of the article considering the long history of the show and the people that go into it. A few suggestions:

The "statements of the organization" section seems a little out of place to me. I would suggest maybe instead of pasting in the statements you could summarize them and/or find sources that have discussion about the statements?
Under the People section, I think the current team part could benefit from the use of a table or something to make it a bit easier to read.
For notable alumni, you may want to split this into a bulleted list instead of a large paragraph.
A more general comment that some sentences seem to not flow into each other as well, e.g. "The Women's Athletic Association (WAA) and the Men's Union (MU) collaborated to put on the first show. The name "Waa-Mu" is derived from the synthesis of the two groups’ acronyms." I feel like this may work better as one sentence.

Good work y'all! B0ly (talk) 20:36, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]