User:BenjCap/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Article Evaluated: Forestry in Canada

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because forestry is a topic of interest to me. This article matters because many people do not understand the true impact that forestry has on Canada. Having this knowledge accessible will help people understand the topic. Upon first glance, I thought the article did not provide full coverage of the topic with many key pieces of information missing.

Evaluate the article
This article offers a very brief overview of forestry in Canada. Many missing pieces of information do not allow the reader to fully understand the concept. Gaps in necessary information can be seen throughout this article. The first example of this can be seen at the beginning of the article when no clear definition of what forestry is and what the forestry industry entails. This article’s structure although well written primarily focuses on a narrow view of the economic and environmental concerns, with some mention of the management and history surrounding forestry in Canada. The topics present should be further expanded, and new topics should be introduced. Some of these expansions of the article can be the technologies used, major cut sites and companies, permitting and the processes surrounding it, and the issues surrounding cutting whether ethical, biological, and environmental etc. Having this information present will greatly benefit the reader's understanding of Canadian forestry. Another example of an oversite in the article is present when looking at just below the forests heading. A “see also forests in Canada” is visible although the hyperlink leads the reader back to the same article.

This article is written in a very neutral stance on the subject. The viewpoint appears to be neutral without taking any sort of political stance. Although, written in a neutral tone the lack of information and the focus on the economy can lead the user to believe forestry is only driven and concerned about the economy. This can also be seen with the infobox to the right of the article. This box provides links to other economic factors in Canada. Additionally, almost half the sources used are from the Food and agriculture organization. Although, a reputable source primarily using information from one organization or paper can lead to bias. Looking at other references cited in the article it is clear an improvement is necessary. First, several of the sources used appear to be outdated. Source number 1 and 2 both appear to be invalid links containing no article. Similarly, many of the articles cited contain dated material with updated pages readily available. Source #10 is an example of this. The BC government has released new information regarding the mountain pine beetle. The article used information that was last updated in 2009. Finally, many paragraphs lack proper citations with multiple facts and key pieces of information listed without a source. This is a major issue because not only is it plagiarism there is no way to check to see if the information on the page is accurate. The primary area lacking citations is the introduction.

When analyzing clarity in the article it is clear the article is well written in terms of structure, spelling, and grammar. The organization of the information present is laid out in a very natural and flowing way although there are several jumps likely due to a lack of information present and various authors. This can be related to the absence of conversation on the talk page. Despite the article receiving almost monthly edits it lacks a throughout talk page. The talk page has not been used since late 2013 around the time the article was created. The page has never been used as a place of discussion but rather been used to update the quality and importance of the article. This means possible private talk pages are being used to discuss the article. Although, with very few repeat editors means that likely there is very little collaboration on the edits appearing on the article.