User:Drpudding/sandbox

Articles of Interest
Overfishing

The page has a banner requesting help with cleaning up the external links and removing ones that are superfluous and not needed.

The article currently has a B rating in both [|WikiProject Fisheries and Fishing], and [|WikiProject Fishes]. It also carries a high priority rating due to the environmental impact issues it covers.

Royal Caribbean International

Categories
Bycatch, Marine conservation, Fisheries observer

Homework Articles
Brilliance of the Seas gears for epic Gulf run

This article focused on the cruise ship 'Brilliance of the Seas' owned by Royal Caribbean and the upgrades that it has undergone in preparations for it coming over to the Caribbean for the 2012-2013 winter season for travel. The ship spent time in several shipyards overseas to get various upgrades and modifications ranging from new dining venues to wi-fi throughout the ship via a large satellite up-link as well as receiving many cosmetic changes to the vessels interior. The article also contained some statistics about the growing number of people choosing cruises as a vacation option with the annual number of passengers expected to reach over 21.6 million in 2012.

Royal Caribbean International; Royal Caribbean International Launches New Global Brand Campaign, Beckoning Consumers to Hear the Call of the Sea

Royal Caribbean is launching a new global advertising campaign based upon the slogan, "The Sea is Calling. Answer it Royally." which seeks to draw in customers by playing on the allure and calm of the ocean and encourages people to patronize their cruise lines to find this ocean going experience. the campaign was designed around research and focus groups from over 16 countries over the course of 2011 with the aid of Royal Caribbean's lead advertising agency, JWT New York.

Homework Essay
When comparing the two articles on the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, one from Wikipedia and the other from the Oxford Encyclopedia of Maritime History, there are many differences in not only the information that is provided to the reader but what the focus of the piece is as well. The Oxford article ‘Shipping: United States’ takes a look at the entire maritime history of the country with a view towards the economic scale and competitiveness of America’s fleet of shipping vessels. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 is later in the article and ties in with a chronological discussion of the government’s many attempts to stimulate the maritime industry through laws, tax exemptions, and subsidiaries to the companies that bought American vessels, or operated within the countries waters. The Wikipedia article offers a more focused look at the law itself as the article contains an excerpt of the law and it outlines the reasons that the government felt that the law was needed. There is discussion of the reasons that there is support for the continuation of the law as well as reasons to dispense of the law and allow free markets to enter the marine shipping industry. The Wikipedia article offers far more information that is relevant to the effects that the law has had, and will continue to have, on the country’s maritime industry, while the Oxford article gives more of a historical look at how and why the law came to be.

The sources used in the Wikipedia article are defiantly applicable to the content and the way the article is written but they are hit and miss in terms of how well they meet the Wikipedia criteria of being a reliable source. Some of the best sources are the law itself considering that it is cited and summarized in the article, a transcription of a Congressional hearing in 2003 about passing the ‘Shipping Open Market Act of 2003’ which would abolish the Merchant Marine Act of 1920. There are several links to news articles that are cited in the piece and they are all fairly good in terms of being a reliable source and the defiantly contribute to the pro/ con section of the Wikipedia article. The bad articles are the few that have links that no longer work and are thus useless to the reader and they cannot be confirmed for quality or relevance to the work.

The readability of the Wikipedia article is pretty good, the piece flows from a summary into a brief history of the Merchant Marine Act or 1920 and the reasoning behind it. It then moves into a pros and cons section and then a small section giving times in which the law has been waived for various reasons, these wraps up the article nicely.

Overall I feel that the two articles are both good but with different goals in terms of what they are trying to inform the reader about, Wikipedia is more concerned with the whole thing and how it relates to the industry it is applicable to. While on the other hand the Oxford Encyclopedia is more related to the historical aspect of the law and the path that lead to it being passed by the government and the reasons behind that choice.

Draft Final Article
User: Drpudding/DrpuddingDraft