User:ARTR2222/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Environmental science

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I choose this article because it was relevant to the course I am in. An article on this topic matters because if humanity has any interest in persisting into the future, environmental science is the most important discipline that we should be listening to at this time in our history. My impression was that this article was not well developed for this topic.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section: The lead section is mediocre in introducing the topic, and could be a lot stronger regarding the significance of the field. It was brief with not too much information which made it a good start for the structure of a Wikipedia article, although it was not well organized and some of the information that was introduced was not further expanded upon in the content of the article. The first paragraph and the second paragraph both discussed other disciplines involved in Environmental science which is repetitive so these should be combined.

Content: This article was not very informative beyond listing the components of this discipline. It would have been more compelling if there was more discussed about the significance of this field. It mentioned in the intro that social sciences is an interdispinary approach is important to environmental science, although under the components it did not mention other disciplines than sciences. This article would benefit from getting into this further. It had a section for "Regulations Involved in Driving the Studies" which is a good start, but I would title it different because those regulations were derived from this discipline, they don't drive this discipline. Some sections that I think would be important "Findings involved in driving this studies", where it describes the gravity of some of the things scientists have learned. Maybe a section on "Environmental justice", in which it address the inequity in environmental problems. This would make the stronger in addressing equity gaps, as Wikipedia states above is important to it's website.

Tone and Balance: The article maintained a neutral point of view. There wasn't the signs of trying to persuade the reader in one way or another, although relating to my above comments about the content, I felt that the absence of some information was almost the opposite problem. If someone uniformed about this topic read this article, I don't think there was not enough information given for them to draw their own conclusions about the importance of the the discipline.

Sources and References: There could be more citations and sources. There are definitely more peer reviewed articles on this topic that this article could draw from. Also the sources did not seem very well rounded. Some areas were lacking citations were they are needed. For example the first sentence of the third paragraph in the lead.

Images and Media: Images were a good start although maybe not the most relevant or compelling. For example, there is a picture of a coral reef with a caption discussing biodiversity, but biodiversity was not mentioned once in the article.

Organization and writing Quality: For the most part writing was adequate although it could be much stronger. In a few instances writing was informal, like the use of "very" or in one sentence they wrote "Environmental studies incorporates more of the social sciences for understanding human relationships, perceptions and policies towards the environment ", I think "more of" could be taken out. In addition, in the sentence "Environmental engineering focuses on design and technology for improving environmental quality in every aspect", "in ever aspect" is neither informative nor formal.

Talk Page Discussion: There was a lot of helpful comments that I would agree with on the talk page, that would address the shortcomings of this article. This article is listed as a level 5 vital article. It is part of Wikiproject Environment and Technology.

Overall Feedback: To echo my comments above, this article is not very well developed and considering the importance of this discipline and the lack of understanding of that importance across society, this would be an important article to make improvements on.