User:Chloekesssler/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Environmental communication

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 mainly because I have a passion for environmental communication and have always loved studying/research this aspect of communication. It matters because it can help shape our understanding of environmental issues which is especially important in our generation today. We as humans are very wasteful and are not aware of the detrimental effects our actions and behaviors can have on the environment. I was particularly intruiged because they mentioned climate change, symbolic action, and accurately defined environmental communication (in my opinion) from what I've learned about it thus far.

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 lead section defines environmental communication and what this specific field of research studies. It also mentions the history of environmental communication and is most definitely concise and to the point. It also talks about the interdisciplinary work within this field and how environmental communication has six essentials.

Content: I feel as though the content is very accurate and is not too overwhelming or difficult to read as far as the information goes. They talk about the research that goes on with environmental communication which includes understanding cultural values and understanding, behavior, and bringing about public engagement and change. From what I learned in COM 460, this information definitely matches up from what I've learned and is very accurate/to the point.

Tone and Balance: There are no strong opinions here or right/wrong points, therefore I think there is a very good and clear balance between facts versus opinions. It doesn't attempt to persuade at all but mainly just informs the reader on environmental communication and what that means to us as humans. Not only does it discuss what it is, but it also brings up a very crucial topic of environmental communication which is climate change. They were very careful not to use personal opinions but instead talks about research that was done and how scholars are working to conduct studies with marginalized populations. To add, they also talked about how researchers believe that one's view on the environment shapes their views a variety of ways. Rather than strongly agreeing or saying this is right or wrong, the author provides reasoning as to what the researchers believe is true which is not opinionated but rather factual. Therefore, I believe that this article does a great job with tone and balance and does not offer anything too opinionated as the views are neutral, straight forward, factual, and to the point.

Sources and References: After clicking on each link, I noticed that every one brought me to a new Wikipedia page and I did not have any issues navigating this or run into confusion while doing so. I think when it comes to sources being a bit better, I think there are definitely some out there but they do go more into depth than the potential reader may be able to understand / apply in the real world. Environmental communication can be rather overwhelming to read and there is a lot to read/learn about when it comes to environmental communication. As far as this page goes however, I think it is a very accurate and concise overview of what environmental communication is, why it matters, how researchers are using it, and also included some important key words such as symbolic action, information technology, and climate change. The sources are current and they are accurate as well when reviewing them on the new Wikipedia page that it brought me to. There are also a lot of "see also" and "further readings" that have headings about environmental communication theories, engaging communities in environmental communication, environmental issues, environmental issue topics, and more. The sources reflect the available literature of the topic and have about 20 references which proves that the research is backed up and supported as well.

Organization and Quality Writing: The article is well written, did not have any grammatical errors, and broke down each section so that it was easy for the reader to read and understand what each section was about.

Images and Media: There were two pictures used in this article (since it was only about a page long) and definitely helped the reader understand the topic a bit more. For example, the first picture on the page includes a photograph of the greenhouse effect and its effect in changing the environment and each link worked as well. They are also well captioned and directly related to environmental communication. The second photograph is Ed Hawkin's warming stripes graphics portray global warming since 1850 as a series of color-coded stripes, purposely devoid of scientific notation to be quickly understandable by non-scientists. My initial impression was glad that global warming was being included in this conversation and that this photograph was a bit historic to provide examples and evidence on how far back environmental communication goes and can be applied. They are laid out in an appealing way and are easy to navigate when it comes to reading the article and then looking over at the picture. It was not clustered or difficult to read/understand either. They adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations as well.

Talk Page Discussion: There were not many conversations on the talk page however I did notice that this article has been rated as start class on the project's quality scale and was rated as mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Someone modified one external link in 2018 on Environmental communication. This environment related article is part of the Wikipedia Environment to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment. Based on the lack of information on this page, I would say that there should be a bit more importance and acknowledgement on this issue because it is extremely important for our generation and society.

Overall Impression: For how confusing and information overload this subject can be, I thought it was a well detailed and concise article on the overview of environmental communication and why it is important and relevant. The article can be improved by talking more about what we as humans can do to better our environment without getting too opinionated or strong minded. I think it is well-developed and could use a few more pictures on updated examples of environmental communication and maybe why it is such a problem/issue today. For example, as much as we need to know about the history of environmental communication, I think we too need to recognize WHY it is important and what is happening around the world for this issue to be as important as it is. In other words, adding pictures may help viewers see how and why environmental communication should be taught around the world everywhere so that we can all work together to make our environment a safer and greener place overall.