The following are some articles from the Novels list that we might consider editing. All are Start-quality, though some are rated Mid-importance and others High, depending on the project we look at. Feel free to check these out and comment if you like any of them. You can also leave some of your findings here too, and we can narrow down on this Talk page before moving to my sandbox. Let me know what you think!

• Thirteen Reasons Why This is a controversial book, though the talk page for it doesn't have many sections. The main dispute there involves the differences between the original book and the Netflix series. Potential edits include cleaning up the plot section (it is too detailed), adding a characters section, and possibly highlighting the controversies surrounding the book itself (this is only touched on as of now).
• Because of Winn Dixie This article only contains a lead and plot section, so there's a lot of room to grow here. It doesn't even have a picture, which is one of the few things discussed on the Talk page. Similar to the article I mentioned above, a lot of the Talk page is devoted to talking about the differences between this book and its movie counter-part, instead of meaningful edits.
• A Good Man Is Hard to Find (short story) Remember Flannery O'Connor from CC Freshman Program? Well, at first glance, this article looks okay. It has a lot of sections, at least. But, the themes section was flagged and the article could probably use copy-edits throughout. The Talk page isn't the most helpful thing, as it mostly centers on missing links and pictures.
• You can also check out the articles for Love Medicine and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I won't explain here for the sake of space but you can check them out if they interest you.

Also, feel free to stray from novels/ short stories, of course! -- Zfischer97 ( talk) 16:35, 17 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey! I really like the options of Thirteen Reasons Why and A Good Man Is Hard to Find (short story)! I was looking through a couple of articles as well, and if you want, I think we could also consider the following:

• Dubliners by James Joyce. This article, while being a good start, I think could really benefit from adding sections about theme and reception. It is listed as a start article of high importance. On the talk page, there isn't much being said about it, other than some questions about the publication history and modification for the external sources, so there could be a good bit of work for growth.
• Coraline This article has a very long plot summary while discussing things like themes or styles at all. There have also been issues raised about copyedits that are needed, plagiarized material on the page, and general questions about some of the details of the book and characters that are felt like they are needed in this article. What this article seems to do pretty well with already is the list of adaptations of the novel and appearances in the media.

So far I think my favorite idea may be your A Good Man Is Hard to Fin (short story) one because we've both studied it last year. My only concern for this article would be if we would be able to find enough sources and material to really develop the article more. What do you think? Sarahlaw1 ( talk) 01:10, 18 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey there, sorry for the late response. I think if we were to edit A Good Man is Hard to Find (short story) we could contribute some good content to the Themes section. It does contain Grace as a theme currently, but even that is underdeveloped and lacking sources. I think we could probably get some, if not all, of our 500 words by building up this article's themes section. What do you think?

I like your suggestions, as well, particularly Coraline. I looked at that one too, and it definitely has too much plot summary and could use some more references. I think it's worthy of our top three for sure, and we could probably contribute to our word requirement by working on the plot. I'd also like to advocate a little for Thirteen Reasons Why; I think there's a lot of material needed in the article that we could add, especially in Characters and Reception sections. Thinking about our word count, reference, and copy edit requirements, I think this article has a lot of opportunities for that. Moving forward, I think I'll go ahead and put our top choices in my Sandbox and try to explain our rationale. Please feel free to enhance/ add to, delete, or otherwise alter what I put in there. We do have to narrow down to our top two choices. Is it cool if I make a section for this and you add our choices? I recommend A Good Man is Hard to Find, Thirteen Reasons Why, or Coraline for the top two. Honestly, though, I'd be fine with anything we've discussed as making it, and I trust your judgment. :) -- Zfischer97 ( talk) 02:02, 18 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey there, I just went ahead and picked our top two, but you can absolutely change them if you want. I just felt bad that I got on here so late, so I went ahead and picked them just in case you didn't see in time. But, really, don't feel bound by those; you can sub-in any article you feel is better. I will work on any article you're comfortable with, and I think any of the ones we suggested would work just fine in different ways. Also feel free to alter my explanations; I'm not sure I answered all the questions we had to. Thanks so much! Zfischer97 ( talk) 03:51, 18 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey! I'm totally fine with the top two being A Good Man is Hard to Find (short story) and Thirteen Reasons Why as well. And don't worry about the time thing at all!! It has been interesting trying to communicate between the talk pages. I did get the first notification, but not after that one, so I wonder if there's a way I could set up an alert system on my end of things? I don't know, just something to think about as we move forward so that we don't have large gaps of time between us working on these pages. Sarahlaw1 ( talk) 16:39, 18 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey! I just updated my preferences, and I hope it will work. At the top of your page, you can click on Preferences and it will take you to a section where you can select how to be notified when certain things happen on Wikipedia. I hope that'll do it. Also, I should be on later-- probably tomorrow-- to note in my Sandbox that we've selected 13 Reasons as our article. Did we decide we wanted to make a New Section in my Sandbox for that? Or would we want to just make a subheading under the "Potential Articles" section? Zfischer97 ( talk) 22:16, 18 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey there! I went ahead and added our final choice to the Sandbox in a subheading format. I also put up there a tentative plan of action, but please feel free to alter, add to, delete, etc. that if you desire. I have not yet posted it in the Talk page on the Thirteen Reasons article, since I wanted your feedback/ contribution first. I have also found a few sources from a quick Summon search that might be useful to us, but also might not be. I'll add them below so you can look at them before we share them to the Thirteen Reasons Talk page. Let me know what you think! (P.S. I know these all say Proquest, but that's just what the citation looked like when I pulled it. Might have to fix those before moving them to the Thirteen Reasons Talk page)

Chisholm, James S., and Brandie Trent. ""Everything . . . Affects Everything": Promoting Critical Perspectives Toward Bullying with Thirteen Reasons Why." English Journal 101.6 (2012): 75-80. ProQuest. 18 Apr. 2018 .

I think I found a counter article to this. I think it could be good to include both to show the different points of view.

Watkins, Kaitlyn. "Thirteen Reasons Why ‘13 Reasons Why’ Matters." University Wire. Apr 27 2017 ProQuest. 18 Apr. 2018 .

Jacobson, Sansea L. "Thirteen Reasons to Be Concerned about 13 Reasons Why." Brown University Child & Adolescent Behavior Letter, vol. 33, no. 6, June 2017, p. 8. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1002/cbl.30220.

I think something like this would be important to note because there definitely are differences between the novel and the Netflix adaptation. Including something like this will help make sure that we have a well-rounded depiction and argument that is more neutral overall.

**The above seems like it might be about the show**

Scott, Alev. "Are Trigger Warnings More Harmful than Taboo Subjects?" FT.com(2017) ProQuest. 18 Apr. 2018 .

Kendall, Heidi. ""13 Reasons Why" and the Importance of Suicide Prevention." Missoulian Apr 26 2017 ProQuest. 18 Apr. 2018 .

Hughes, Janette, and Jennifer Lynn Laffier. "Portrayals of Bullying in Young Adult Literature: Considerations for Schools." Canadian Journal of Education 39.3 (2016): 1-24. ProQuest. 18 Apr. 2018 .

I found an article that might go well with this about bullying as well. (see Childers source below)

I hope these look okay! Would you mind moving our plan of action and sources to the Thirteen Reasons Talk page before class tomorrow? Let me know :) Zfischer97 ( talk) 00:54, 20 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Of course not! Will do!!!

Hey! Here are some more sources that might work as well, especially with the controversy topic.

Childers, Katina D., and Annamary Consalvo. “Teacher to Teacher: What Literature Fosters the Examination of Bullying Behaviors?” The English Journal, vol. 101, no. 6, 2012, pp. 26–27. JSTOR.

This one looks like it could be good for examining the negative impact that this story has on readers, especially those that are younger.

Summary: This article examines how high school students can learn from young adult literature. Specifically, it notes how books like Thirteen Reasons Why can draw attention to how students treat each other, making them more aware of bullying. It is able to do so by distancing the reader from their actual life to examine what happens in the book, and then apply that to their own reality.

Parton, Chea. "Breaking the Binary: Using Kohlberg and Lesko to Examine Adolescence in Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why." Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children's Literature, vol. 18, no. 1, 2015. EBSCOhost.

Taking a closer look at the characters of the novel, it could give us some depth on the character section that we can cite.

Trites, Roberta Seelinger. "Growth in Adolescent Literature: Metaphors, Scripts, and Cognitive Narratology." International Research in Children's Literature, vol. 5, no. 1, July 2012, pp. 64-80. EBSCOhost.

This article might be interesting to include in the controversial section because it seems to argue about how readers can read this book (or watch this story) and learn the opposite from what the other articles we currently have are saying.

What this article argues is that in Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why there is a series of basic/fundamental narratives that are interwoven throughout the plot in a way that allows them to be reached by the young adult audience without being too overwhelming, yet still impactful. It looks at this novel from a scientific point of view by examining how the layout of the text and the story reaches and teaches about larger issues in life and society in a way that a teenager can understand. From there, the reader is able to take what they have read in the book and learn from it in a controlled environment instead of experiencing it first hand themselves for the first time in the real world.

If you have a chance, let me know what you think about these!

In regard to the other points for the plan of action, I think it would be alright to add the basic biographical information on each character as well as which tape they each appear on. For the reception section, I believe we can look into the archives of many major newspapers if they are free (in American ones at least). The book was published about ten years ago, we it should still be fairly easy to find and use. What do you think? I'd be interested especially in reading what prints like the New York Times and Chicago Tribune had to say- about both the book and the Netflix adaptation.

Your sources and edits look great, thanks so much! Zfischer97 ( talk) 06:10, 20 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey there! I figured I would start a new section just about our edits to Thirteen Reasons; the other section was getting a bit long. I have annotated a couple of my sources and I'll move those to the Sandbox here shortly. I'm going to clean up my citations there, as well. I also found some cool and quick newspaper references that we could use, so I will add those to our citation list, as well. Happy editing/ good luck! Zfischer97 ( talk) 00:18, 23 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Characters

I've started on our Characters section which, as a reminder, will be a completely new section to the article. Looking at the current Plot section of the article though, it is really only based on characters. I'm probably going to just shuffle a lot of that information to the Characters section we're creating, but it does leave a basically-empty Plot section if I do. This means I'll probably end up doing at least a basic re-write of the Plot section, unless you have any suggestions? Look over the Plot section of the Thirteen Reasons Why article if you get the chance and let me know what you think! Zfischer97 ( talk) 17:49, 26 April 2018 (UTC) reply

I think I have all the characters in working order, though some might need edits for tone and brevity. I'll leave that to the next draft though! Zfischer97 ( talk) 23:19, 29 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Reception

I added to this section (more than I thought I would). It's reading really positive about the novel right now, which is fine since it all came from our sources. But, we should probably focus in the near future about representing the other side of things, possibly even bringing in the show as a comparison-- like, the book was taken this way, but the show seems to be taken this way, etc. Does that make sense? Always feel free to edit what I've done! Zfischer97 ( talk) 23:21, 29 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Plot

I've copied the Plot section of the current article into my Sandbox so we can copyedit easier/ use any helpful info in building up the characters list. I know a challenge of the section, and probably the reason the section currently looks the way it does, is that the book unfolds through these tapes in much the current format of the Plot section. Still, I think we can make it a bit more concise. But, if you have any suggestions on another way to approach the plot section, let me know or edit away! Zfischer97 ( talk) 05:00, 27 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Would it make sense to have a brief introductory paragraph under the Character heading? Here you might describe what scholars/critics have found notable about Asher's characters. Aschuet1 ( talk) 16:34, 30 April 2018 (UTC) reply

1. Nice job keeping a neutral tone, organized material, and concise language. Your draft was easy to understand, but still generally conveyed your intended meaning. I also really liked the format of your additions and how your organized them.

2. I noticed two specific phrases which were confusing for me. The first is in your reception section; you write "This book has appeared on several "Banned Books" lists but this has also been counteracted by the actions of some high schools." I am not sure I understand this sentence; what is being counteracted by the actions of some high schools? How are they counteracting it? The second phrase is in your plot section, which says "When Bryce starts to touch Hannah, Courtney leaves the hot tub and Hannah doesn't actively resist his attentions, leading to him raping her." I have not read this book, but for a uninformed reader it appears to imply that her lack of resistance was what caused him to rape her. That could possibly be construed as an opinion as not everyone would agree that her lack of resistance automatically leads to her rape; it could also possibly be taken as victim blaming.

3. I would add more to your Reception section. Right now, you only give good reviews and the books benefits on its readers, giving a specific example of how educators want to incorporate the novel into the curriculum. However you mention above that it is very controversial, why is this book so controversial? Could you add some negative reactions to this book,and their reasons behind disliking it?

4. Your language is defiantly less complex than my article, which is a problem for me, making it more Wikipedia appropriate. The neutral and simple tone of your article is one I am aiming for in my work. KBMathews ( talk) 18:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC) reply

- I liked the characters section; it provides good context for unfamiliar readers. I also really liked the reception section, as the sources were well synthesized. - I would recommend double checking some of the tense agreements in the plot section, as I think there was an instance of past mixed with present tense in at least one sentence. - If you think it would help, maybe use the sources you already have in the reception section and expound upon what they say a little more to give readers additional context. Even adding a few more sentences for a few of the sources could be useful. -Note: I like that your article sections were accessible to readers who haven't read the novel; it was clear, detailed, and easy to follow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AshMillette ( talk • contribs) 18:16, 30 April 2018 (UTC) reply

Hey there! I made some seemingly-random edits in the Reception section and a little in the Plot section. I think from here, we'll need more edits in the Plot section and maybe a skim of Reception and Characters for grammar. But, otherwise, we're looking good! Zfischer97 ( talk) 04:31, 2 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Oh, and I saw something on the dashboard about adding links to other pages to our article, but I only linked a reference to the Netflix show once. Zfischer97 ( talk) 04:33, 2 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Hello! I read through the sections again as well, sorry I forgot to post here! For the plot section, I reread through it again before I moved it over as well. I think all of the pieces have been moved now! Sarahlaw1 ( talk) 03:18, 4 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Final Recommendations for Improving the Article

Just thought we could share our recommendations for further improving the article here before moving them to the Thirteen Reasons talk page. If you want to comment your thoughts, we could combine them and then add them to the talk page. First, I think it would be good for future editors to revisit the lead section. I think it could be updated to better reflect the coming sections of the article; while it is concise, it seems to lack some details in its summary of the article. I think the article could also benefit from a Themes section, especially considering the novel deals so closely with bullying and suicide, and this would likely build up the reference section of the page, as well. I think the "Differences from the TV series" section has potential to grow, as well. The last sentence in that section is an unsupported claim, but I think with more research, more could be added there, too. Similarly, the Recent Developments section is ongoing and can probably updated. Let me know what you think! Zfischer97 ( talk) 18:04, 6 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Also, it looks like somebody added to our Reception section, but the edit talks about the show and lacks a reference. It reads,

"Additionally, studies show that 13 Reasons Why may have led to a spike in suicide. According to studies, internet searches or suicide (“how to kill yourself”, “committing suicide”) increased by about 19% just weeks after the shows premiere. Researchers are also looking into the show’s possible influence on adolescent depression."

This addition talks solely about the show, while I'd argue that our contributions above tie in the show while still focusing on the novel. So, I think this should be taken out, and more generally, I recommend that the article remove non-referenced claims, especially those that talk about the show exclusively. Zfischer97 ( talk) 20:12, 6 May 2018 (UTC) reply

I noticed that as well. That may be something for to be edited out in the future as it pertains more to the show to the book. Sarahlaw1 ( talk) 13:35, 7 May 2018 (UTC) reply

One of the other things I noticed was that there is also a section called "Recent developments" and I'm wondering if that section would be better labeled as "Controversy"? It's specifically about the removal of the book from schools because of the content. Sarahlaw1 ( talk) 13:35, 7 May 2018 (UTC) reply

To make my rambling more concise, future edits should...

• Continue to focus on the book, unless making meaningful comparison to the show, as I believe we accomplished in our contributions to Reception;
• Eliminate unsupported claims and leaning language;
• Alter the lead section to better summarize the novel and sections of the article;
• Create a Themes section, using research; and
• Update the Recent Developments section as needed.
• Edit the Reception section as needed.
• Consider renaming the "Recent developments" section and expanding on it.

-- Zfischer97 ( talk) 02:30, 7 May 2018 (UTC) Sarahlaw1 ( talk) 13:35, 7 May 2018 (UTC) reply