User:GracieJahn/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.


 * Name of article: Environmental justice and coal mining in Appalachia
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate. I am very interested in the topic, and am writing a paper about it right now. So I have a great amount of background knowledge. I am particularly interested in mountaintop removal and valley fill coal mining techniques. Plus the neutrality of this article is disputed and I thought that would be interesting to look into.

Lead

 * Guiding questions

Yes the lead includes a good definition of what environmental justice is and goes on to briefly describe Appalachia and the coal mining techniques that are used. Yes the lead sets up the entire article, from environmental justice to laws and regulations. I don't see any unnecessary information in the lead that is not addressed later in the article. I think the lead could have been a bit longer to encompass a few more topics that would summarize the article a bit better.


 * 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?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

 * Guiding questions

The article's content is relevant to the topic. The topic is environmental justice and coal mining. It discusses different coal mining techniques, environmental issues, laws and regulations, and the effects on the people of Appalachia.The content seems to be up to date, It was edited earlier this month. The last law/regulation they mention is the Affordable Care Act, this is pretty recent. I' not 100% sure if there have been any new laws pertaining to this since then. But I think that that is the most recent. I am adding a short section on mountaintop removal. It is the largest surface mining technique in Appalachia, with many adverse effects. It is mentioned a lot but there is no explanation on what it is.


 * 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?

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions

-I feel as if the article is neutral, but the neutrality of the article is being disputed. I think many articles about environmental justice or activism are flagged as biased. Just due to the content they contain, but I didn't detect any tone that seemed biased one way or the other.

-I don't see any claims that are biased toward a particular position. This article just runs through facts on coal mining up to the laws and regulations.

-The types of surface coal mining and their specific effects were very under represented. That is what I'm working to fix. They described what surface coal mining is but barely touched on the specific types.

- I do not think this article tried to persuade the reader.


 * 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 were backed up mainly by research papers or credible websites, I noticed a lot of information coming from government agencies. Yes I believe that all of the sources are thorough, everything is backed up by available literature. Yes most of the sources were current, there were a couple that may need to be updated, but I see no major issues here. Yes, all of the links I checked worked.


 * 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?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

 * Guiding questions

I think this article was pretty easy to read. If anything I think more information needs to be added. Some topics are mentioned heavily, yet are not really described. I did not see and grammar or spelling errors. I think the article was pretty well organized, not that great it could have been separated a bit more and flushed out. Some sections could be split up into separate sections to give it a better flow.


 * 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

This article only has two photos, both of which are very similar. They are both pictures of coal mined mountaintops. I think some charts or graphs would be very helpful to understanding some information and processes of coal mining. I checked and both pictures are fair use and were cited properly. The images both caption what they are and the location, I think they are captioned fine. I don't see anything else they could add to the caption. The images are both on the right hand side, I wouldn't say that they aren't visually appealing but they look ok.


 * 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

Many questions about neutrality are being discussed, also people ae just deleting others contributions. I think because this is a sensitive or passionate matter to some, opinions and feelings are being thrown into the mix. The article was once nominated for deletion, and the neutrality is still being debated. It is part of the United States, Women's History and Environment WikiProjects. Some of these people in the talk page get very angry with each other. It makes me a bit nervous to post.


 * 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

This is a pretty good article, I would improve by adding a bit more information on the types of surface mining techniques, but other then that it's a pretty good article! I think it's strengths would be how neutral some of the information is, considering how biased it normally is when I read about it on other sources. I think the article is very well-developed, besides what I am going to add, it is very complete and thought through. Especially since there are other articles that they are trying to get people to post on with information not related to environmental justice or coal mining.


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * 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

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