User:Ablip/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)Deforestation in Central America

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 chose this article because it is a very current topic and it relates to my assigned project topic for this course. My preliminary impression was that it has a lot of information and there are a lot of references.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section: The article has a clear and concise title. The first sentence clearly breaks down the major themes and causes for deforestation in Central America such as population growth, agriculture, drug trade, and illegal practices like logging. These are all major headlines in the article itself. The lead also contains a number of statistics relevant to how deforestation is affecting the country as a whole.

Content: The content of the article is relevant. Under the "History" section, information can be updated in the "Most Recently" subsection as there is not a lot of data relating to deforestation in the 21st century. Tone and Balance: The tone was overall neutral and factual. Presenting some information to why there is so much deforestation (i.e the alternative side of the story, need for more produce or farm animals, need for resources) would add to the overall unbiased tone of the article.

Sources and References: Most of the links worked for me (4 did not open) and most came from accredited journals. One article came from the Los Angeles Times which was opinionated and another from Mongabay which was very informal.

Organization and Writing Quality: The article seemed pretty clear and concise. Perhaps changing the phrasing of some sentences could help the article flow a bit better. Images and Media:

Images and Media: The article provides images relating to their respective sections (image of deforestation due to cattle ranching next to subheading about illegal cattle ranching). The captions are clear and relate to the images.

Talk Page Discussion: There is not a lot of information on the talk page but I did notice that other students edited this article as a project in 2021. The student was clear with why they made the edits they made and were open to edits if needed which aligns with what we have spoken about in class.

Overall Impression: The article is overall pretty factual and gives the reader a good idea about the proposed topic. I think I would personally give the article a B as I think it could use more current information.