User:Aswanson29/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Option 1

 * Article title: "Dependency theory"
 * Article Evaluation:
 * The article's introduction defines Dependency theory and cites the authors of it. They also explained why these academics posited the theory. The article's content is relevant to the topic. However, the article contains far too much information about different academic streams of thought. Moreover, the communist theory of dependency theory has never been tried in practice. The article should contain how Latin American countries pursued Prebisch's theory. One section could be the increase in life expectancy and social policy expansion that helped many people.
 * The article also fails to mention which groups benefitted and which ones were disadvantaged because of this theory. Also, the criticism section of the article is incredibly poor. The author fails to mention the immense amount of inflation that happened in Latin America because of this theory. Latin America destroyed its currency and this was a major factor in not being able to repay foreign debt. Moreover, a major question is whether Latin American products even improved as a result of the Dependency theory. All three criticisms that the article lists don't even have sources. There are no images in the article. Also, the talk page's criticism referred to the lack of sources in many sections. I agree with that too.
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Option 2

 * Article title: "Export-oriented industrialization"
 * Article Evaluation:
 * The article's introduction defines the concept and policies that are associated with it. The article's content is relevant to defining what Export-oriented industrialization is. The article is neutral and doesn't favor one opinion over the other. However, the explanation of Asian countries implementing this model is heavily overrepresented. I'd recommend explaining how Latin American countries implemented the Agro Export Model. This would give the article more substance and would contrast itself with the Asian countries. Also, the author should include why the Latin American model failed and why they shifted to the Import Sub Industrialization Model. He says, "Both Latin American and Asian countries used this strategy at first. However, during the 1950s and 1960s the Asian countries...". It's important to include the results of both countries if the author listed which countries pursued this previously. The article reads like a giant critique of the Asian model with no other examples. It has sources, but the article lacks content. There is no images or media to support the concepts. The author could have shortened his section on the mathematical theory behind the formula. The article's talk page references a Lack of historical evidence and U.S influences on the theory. Overall, I think the author's points are good, but it needs more substance.
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Option 3

 * Article title: "Racial whitening"
 * Article Evaluation:
 * The article's introduction defines what racial whitening is and explains how Brazil pursued this policy. The article explains how Brazil and the United States dealt with the "black problem". One pursued segregation, and Brazil did racial whitening because they already had a substantial mixed population. To make this article stronger, I'd recommend more content. The author repeatedly references Brazil during the 19th century, but fails to mention the other components of their racial whitening strategy. Brazil had censuses which underreported diversity and their education policy hyped up stories about the founding of the country. The draft also intentionally targeted lower classes. I appreciated the author's points on how race is defined largely by class in Brazil. Mixed and black are two separate categories and it's been hard for the country to confront racism if race itself doesn't exist. Additional content from the NPR piece or modern examples of how the country has dealt with racism would be important in this discussion. Even information on the expansion of self-identification of blackness and the Pluralist Movement would be important. I'm sure Wikipedia articles exist on these, but these should be included as hyperlinks. The rating of this article is stub and it makes sense. There's only 3 sections. The author does have well referenced points throughout the article, but I think more content would bolster this piece.
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Option 4

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Option 5

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