User:EvergreenStateUser

About Me
Some hobbies that I am fond of doing in my spare time include playing basketball, strumming a guitar, and feeding our farms' livestock. Speaking of livestock, the world's largest beef producer and importer, the United States, primarily focuses on increasing the productivity of the animals through meat and product quality. The beef industry in turn causes a huge economic profit for the United States, yet is very harmful to the environment due to pesticides, harmful chemicals, and constant manure in the air (I am highly passionate for environmental awareness).

My Wikipedia Interests
If I am active on Wikipedia in the near future, I would likely find myself using it for a research paper. I only use Wikipedia if the professor allows permission to do so since it is written by somewhat trustworthy sources; otherwise, I rely on university studies and primary and secondary sources of credibility.

Thank you for visiting my page.

Article Evaluation
I've been quite interested in the use of plectrums (picks) after I received my first guitar. I learned to use them on the acoustic guitar during my sophomore year of high school. I wanted to know Wikipedia's understanding of plectrums as compared to other sources of information, so I visited the plectrum article on Wikipedia, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: its citations, its structure, and its age.

Structure
The article did a stellar job on the explanation of what a plectrum (pick) is through etymology and how it is utilized in just a few lines. It brought out well the history of the plectrum as well as the materials it is made of; however, it overrepresented the harpsichord, a piano-like instrument used only by plucking. It disproportionately took over the article and left only a paragraph towards plectrum itself. Furthermore, if the article spoke more on the modernization of plectrums rather than the 15th Century picks, it would have enhanced the authority of the article; instead, it was a one-dimensional article.

Age
The reference portion of the article had information dating back to 1967,1987, and 1998. Two decades ago of information is simply unreliable and shows irrelevancy to today's researching tools now available. This damages the reliability of the article since it has no new sources of information within the last five years. Had the article mentioned new advancements of picks within the last decade, this would have enhanced the timeline of picks.

General Summary
In totality, this article was subpar. Yes, it was suitable on detailed information given the length of the article. The citations were acceptable, yet some were broad and rather questionable. The article's credentials were dubious considering the information was brought from last century. Overall, the article needs to be revamped especially on the references page.