User:FlorenceOpoku98/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.

Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
 * Name of article: (Agent Orange)

I chose this article to evaluate because I'm revising it for a Wiki edu project with my partner. I've always heard of Agent Orange, but I didn't know the exact details of how the chemical formed or why there was so much controversy over it, so I thought it would be cool to read an existing Wikipedia article on the topic to learn some facts and see if there were any improvements to be made.

Lead

 * Guiding questions

The Lead does include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes what Agent Orange is as a herbicide chemical, and its use in the military warfare in the United States.
 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?


 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?

Yes, the lead includes a brief description of the article's major sections, first starting off how high doses of Agent Orange were sprayed on and affected millions of Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War. It then lists the diseases Agent Orange caused, and the legal consequences on the United States, and its uses in other historical events. All of the information in the Lead is fully detailed in the article, and doesn't include irrelevent information about the topic. The Lead describes the surface material of the article in a very thorough, understandable way that wasn't too detailed but also wasn't too simplistic and short. After I read it, I viewed it like a summary of the main points the article was going to be about (i.e. Agent Orange origins, usage, health effects on people, international / national regulations, etc.)
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

 * Guiding questions

Yes, the article's content is relevant to the topic. The first heading explains the chemical composition of Agent Orange and its toxicology, and then goes into the first development of TCDD by Great Britain during World War 1. The article goes into its early uses in the 1950s Malayan Emergency to destroy vegetation and food sources, and during Vietnam War between 1961-1971. The content is up-to-date At the same time, there were  links to Books and NGO reports, and of the 163 Notes at the bottom, the last Note was dated in 2017, so this article has definitely been reviewed and edited multiple times. Content that's missing is any recent news between 2015-2020 on international monetary/health care compensation towards people affected by Agent Orange. For example, the end of the Wikipedia page describes Agent Orange clean up programs in 2012, but it doesn't really go into how the dosage and spread of Agent Orange contaminants is tracked nationally in the U.S. and internationally since that time. Also, the article could go into more detail about the ecological impacts of Agent Orange, like how it affects soil, water, and surrounding species. In one of the subsections, an embedded link opens to a different article about the Environmental Impact of the War, but I think it would be better to include more information in this article just so that the content is detailed and consistent. The article does focus on historically marginalized groups and topics. I knew about the Vietnam war in a sense that there was a lot of protests against it in the U.S., but I didn't know that the people exposed to high levels of Agent Orange were civilian Vietnamese populations and military veterans on both U.S. and Vietnamese sides, so I appreciate how this article focuses on those populations that you don't hear of often.
 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions

I would say that the article doesn't place all the blame the United States or Great Britain for Agent Orange contamination. The article does a good job of explaining the nuances and how everyone played their role in spreading this contamination. No, I didn't notice any claims that are outwardly biased or weighed one opinion over another. I think the viewpoints of Vietnamese people were underrepresented a little bit, there were a couple quotes here and there from people contaminated with Agent Orange but the article would've come off as more personal if it included more peoples' experiences to the exposure and longterm outcomes of their lives. No, the articles doesn't try to persuade the reader to adopt or abandon a single position, I think the point of the article is to share as much information about Agent Orange as possible.
 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions

Yes, all of the facts are backed up by reliable secondary source informations, mostly via books, academic articles, and journal articles. Yes, the sources are thorough and reflect available literature on Agent Orange. The sources are relatively current, but there is still room for updates. For example, when I scrolled to the bottom, there were about 21 references, the last dating back to 2009, so I'm sure there are more references we can find between 2009 to now. The sources are written by a diverse spectrum of authors, it's not just one person writing the entire article. They include historically marginalized individuals as well. Yes the links work.
 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation

 * Organization
 * Guiding questions

Yes, the article is very concise, detailed, and easy to understand. No, I didn't notice any grammatical or spelling errors. The article is relatively organized and is split into sections that reflect all the points that were briefed in the introduction.
 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions

Yes, there are several images in the article that help me understand the topic. Yes, the images are well-captioned. Yes, the articles adhere to the Wikipedia's copyright regulations, and they are all properly cited. The images are appealing but I would position them all on one side of the webpage so it's easier to read subsections of the article and look directly at the image. So far, the first two images are on the right side, and then there are two images positioned in-between paragraphs, five images on the right side again, and then one image on the left side so I would rearrange the images so everything looks more organized and not all over the place.
 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions

Conversations that I'll be having behind the scenes with my partner are which sections do we both think need to be added/removed and why, what roles will each of us have in this project, if there are going to be times where we're meeting up to work together on the project or times where we're working separately, and if we're going to set aside time to give each other feedback before our peer review in class. We don't have to meet all of the time but as long as we check in on each other frequently, everyone will be on the same page. Yes, me and my partner are revising this article for our WikiEdu project. The way Wikipedia discusses this article is different in a sense that it doesn't just include information on toxicology and human health impacts of chemicals but it looks at the socioeconomic and political consequences of Agent Orange, and I found that aspect very interesting because there wasn't a huge emphasis on scientific terms and equations that are present in most contaminant-themed Wikipedia articles.
 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions

Overall the article is full of concrete facts about Agent Orange and is backed by a lot of sources relevant to the material. This article's strength is that it follows Wikipedia copyright laws by citing all the images and references that each sentence was based off of it. It explains concepts concisely and clearly without any repetition or over-analyzation so someone who has no idea about Agent Orange can read this article and understand what happened.
 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?

How can the article be improved?

The article can be improved by adding information on Agent Orange's effect on the water and soil quality, if there's any information about that. The article could also include more experiences from people exposed to Agent Orange, and data statistics on longterm impact on humans (female reproductive rates, rates of cancer/ hospitalizations, child development, etc) and agriculture (crop growth, remediation, etc. .   Based on what I've read, this article is in the middle of an underdeveloped article and well-developed article because it seems like it's still in the process of editing and revising, so it's not fully complete but it also doesn't have to be redone from scratch.
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

with four tildes — ~

Has Agent Orange affected poor, rural communities in the U.S.?


 * Link to feedback: --~