User:Barred.owl.24/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Fur seal

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to evaluate the article on fur seals because I am curious and want to learn more about fur seals. I also find it interesting how not so long ago people used to hunt fur seals for their pelts until they were almost extinct, until people started to put laws in place to help build back the fur seals’ population. The article matters because it is important to know and understand the value of fur seals. My preliminary impression was that the article is thorough in providing a variety of information about fur seals and their behaviors.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

The article provides an introductory sentence covering clearly what the article is going to be about and a clear brief description of some of the major topics going to be covered. It does not really provide a brief introduction to one of the major topics covered, which is the behavior and ecology of fur seals. However, it does not include any other knowledge that is not already in the article.

Content

The article’s content only contains facts about fur seals, as the topic suggests. The content is up-to-date and was edited only a few months ago. I do not think that the article has any content that is missing or content that does not belong.

Tone and Balance

The article does well to stay neutral and only provides facts about the life and habits of fur seals. I do think that under the topic population and survival it could mention some laws or acts like the Fur Seal Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act that were put in place to impede the hunting of fur seals and to protect their populations so their numbers could replenish.

Sources and References

All the facts are backed up by reliable secondary sources, including peer-reviewed articles and books. All the source links work and reflect the literature talked about in the article. Some sources, however, are not current and there are few sources used in the article to provide evidence for information. There is one link, the first source, that sends you to a website that visually does not seem like it would be a reliable source to use. It appears more geared towards a younger audience. However, it was written currently and is maintained by NOAA, which is creditable.

Organization and writing quality

The article is clear and well written, to where in a few paragraphs you can understand the topic being discussed. There is semi frequent use of hyphenated colors that may not be necessary and the word forelimb, in physical appearance, should be all one word not two. Other than this, the writing quality and structure of the article is organized and reflects the major topics discussed in the introduction.

Images and Media

The article includes pictures of different types of fur seals to help the reader better picture and understand fur seals. The pictures are well captioned so that the reader can understand what the image is showing, and they are laid out in an aesthetically pleasing. There is, however, one image Northern fur seal at the Alaska maritime National Wildlife Refuge that does not indicate the copyright status and is labeled as needing a normal copyright tag.

Talk page discussion

There are conversations happening on the talk page. One of which was posted earlier this year. All of them discuss issues within the content of the article. Some of which are, if exploitation of fur seals is written in a neutral context, since the word and topic are negative. Another is how in the article in the beginning contradicts itself when referring to the name fur seals as not being a name for a single taxonomic unit, however the first introduction sentence says that it is. The article is rated as start-class on its content assessment scale. It is a part of the WikiProject Mammals. This article differs from the way we have talked in class in that it only discusses general information about fur seals and does not go into the conservation side of how fur seals are now protected in order to raise their population numbers.

Overall impressions

The article’s overall status is fairly well made. The article does a good job in describing fur seals and their habitat they live in. It also explains their behavior and lifecycle. I think, however, it could expand more on the different acts that were put in place to protect fur seals once it was found that they were almost extinct because of overhunting. At the top of the article, it mentions that it does need more citations and that it needs to be double checked for unsourced material. I think reliance on information from additional peer-reviewed articles would be most helpful in making this article well developed.