User:Erica.luo/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
2020 Canadian pipeline and railway protests

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 because it was a topic of interest to me, and I wanted to learn more about it. This article matters because it speaks on the protests that the Wetsuwe'en people are fighting against Canadian pipelines which is an important cause to care about since we live on unceded Indigenous territory. My preliminary impression. My preliminary impression of this article is its conciseness as it summarized a timeline of events that led to the protests, along with the responses, and origins. The single page covered all of the prominent points that needed to be covered.

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’s introduction sentence is clear and concise about the topic. The lead does not provide a description about the sections of the article because it primarily provides background information about the events. The lead doesn’t include information not present in the article, and it is very concise, and not overly detailed.

Content

The article’s content is relevant, and up to date. There is no missing content or irrelevant information. It does represent topics related to an underrepresented group as it talks about the land claim struggles of the Wet'suwet'en, an Indigenous population.

Tone and Balance

The article does appear to be neutral, as it is explanatory and descriptive with no personal opinions, and no heavy bias towards a certain position. The article doesn’t provide viewpoints from the opposing side, but I feel that it is not relevant to such a topic since it is only reporting on specific events in relation to a specific population, and in turn, it also does not try to persuade the reader towards a specific position.

Sources and References

The sources are all backed up by a reliable secondary source of information and are thorough, and reflect the literature available. The sources are current with diverse authors, although there could be more sources by Indigenous authors considering this is their issue. This article is dominated by a majority of news sources which is understandable considering it is reporting on a current ongoing issue so too many academic articles may not be as present. The links do work, as well.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is written concisely and easy to read, with minimal grammatical errors but some of the phrases seem to be using more informal language. The sections of the article are very effective and adhere to the topic’s major points.

Images and Media

The article does include images that enhance the topic and are well-captioned, along with adhering to Wikipedia’s copyright regulations. This article could use more images though, perhaps of varying sizes for visual appeal purposes as it only has four small images, as it appears to be more text dominated.

Talk Page Discussion

This page is part of two following WikiProjects: Indigenous peoples of North America (rated B-class, high importance) and WikiProject Canada/British Columbia (rated B-class, mid-importance). Much of the Talk discussion is debating whether or not the protests are still ongoing or just not covered in mainstream media.

Overall Impression

The article’s overall status is pretty efficient and informational. It’s strengths are the conciseness and easy readability of the article, as it does not use much jargon or inaccessible language. This topic is a continuing issue so as more news comes out surrounding this topic, more information would need to be added to the page but its current stage is pretty well-developed. It could be improved with more formal phrasing, and more better formatted images, along with use of more scholarly sources as opposed to primarily news articles.