User:Aclarkie23/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
The reason that I chose this article was that while I had a little previous knowledge of the event, I did not know much about the extent or the consequences of the oil spill itself. This was an event that killed multiple people and injured many others, so it is important to learn about it and what exactly went wrong. It is also important to see the affects of the oil spill on the environment, on the company itself, and on the industry. This article provides background to the oil spill, and also goes in depth about the extent of the oil spill. It also gives information about how cleanup went about and the consequences/reactions that the operators and owners had to deal with. My preliminary impression of the article was that it seemed extensive, with many citations throughout to provide backup to the claims.

Evaluate the article
Everything in the lead section seems accurate to what a good lead section needs to be. It is well thought out and gives information about the topic without being too detailed. It also makes the topic clear, in that this article is about the oil spill itself, not the explosion. The content of the article seems to be relevant to the topic of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It goes into depth about the background, the extent of the oil in the spill, the efforts that were taken to stem the flow and contain the spill, the cleanup and consequences, and the reactions and legal aspects surrounding the spill. I felt that there were a few sections that either could have been included elsewhere or gotten rid of, such as the access restrictions, and the popular culture section. The overall article seems to have a pretty neutral tone. I will say, though, that there are times where the given facts could be seen as biased, because there is definitely someone at fault here however nothing seems heavily biased towards a particular position. There is also no where in particular where the reader is being persuaded into any one position or the other. The sources do come from an array of authors and publications. With how many citations are included in the article (416), it is probably safe to assume that the facts stated are supported one way or another. The citations themselves are very diverse. With articles from popular news sources, to editorials from oil-industry specific news cites. The most recent sources that I could find (not through super extensive research) were from 2016, so it could be possible that some facts may have changed in the five years since then. The overall organization and writing quality seems professional. There is accurate and sensible breakdown of the subtopics that are talked about within the article and is pretty concise. There are a few places where the terminology and jargon might be a little hard to understand to someone without their own background knowledge, however most of these places include hyperlinks to their sources and other pages that better explain them. The images that are included in the article all seem to relate to the sections that they are attached to. They all give brief descriptions and are often referenced in the passage, as to not include too many images or images that don't further understanding of the article. There are a few conversations going on about this article within the talk section. One revolves around the potential of updating the environments affects of the oil spill, and including more long term information. It is also a part of a few different WikiProjects, and was referred to a few times by multiple media organizations. I believe that the article is pretty well-developed. My only weakness that I and others in the talk page gathered, was that there is a bit of a gap between the most recent citation and present day, so there is a possibility new information has been discovered. Otherwise I think that this is a detailed article about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill- complete with lots of information regarding different aspects of the oil spill, lots of cited sources, and all thrown together in a pretty understanding way.