User:HSCI3423 - Student/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
UN-Water

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this topic to evaluate because water infrastructure, accessibility, and environmental impact are major issues in several parts of the world and I wanted to learn more about this global organization that is tackling these problems. This article is important because it provides a lot of useful information about the UN Water project, its history, leadership, and steps that it is taking to address the global water issues. This helps the public be better informed about UN-Water's initiatives. My preliminary impression of this article was that it seems well organized with clear subsections discussing different aspects of the organization. However, it also seems to be somewhat short and I think there is room for improvement and/or addition of some more information and sources.

Lead section

 * The lead for the article includes a good introductory sentence that concisely and clearly introduces the UN-Water organization and describes the overarching goals of addressing water issues.
 * Under the lead, there is no description of the article's major sections but there is a table of contents that links to each of those separate parts in the article. I like that the lead includes a quote explaining the UN-Water organization’s goal/mission statement.
 * The lead accurately summarizes the organization’s efforts without including irrelevant information. It focuses on addressing sanitation problems.
 * Overall, it is very concise without being too detail-oriented (the individual subsections go into further detail later on, giving the article good flow).

Content

 * The content seems properly relevant to the topic, with the article being divided into the following subsections: Issues (which major societal problems are addressed), Activities (the events UN-Water holds and its policy initiatives), Governance (the main partners and higher officials running the program), and History (includes a timeline of major milestones the organization has reached).
 * The content is up-to-date in some areas but is lacking in others. The list of UN-Chairs is up-to-date as Gilbert Houngbo is still the current Chair since 2017. However, the Activities section is lacking information on 2 other initiatives that UN-Water is involved with: SDG 6 Action Space and Water Action Decade. SDG 6 is mentioned as a reporting reference but it would be more clear with additional detail. Additionally, the History section only has milestones listed through 2017, with nothing from 2017-2020. An update here would improve information about the organization’s more current activity.
 * All of the content seems appropriate to be mentioned in the article. However, I do think some areas can be expanded to include more information. In the article, the Governance section, Issues, and Activities section are discussed in approximately the same detail. The Issues section could possibly be expanded to not just discuss the problems (as it stands currently in the article) but also mention how UN-Water is specifically addressing each of those issues. Just mentioning the issue itself does not directly relate back to UN-Water. The activities section can go into more detail regarding World Water Day and World Toilet Day to give more clarity on the differences between the two. The ‘Monitoring and reporting’ section mentions that “all the custodian agencies of the SGD 6 global indicators have come together under the initiative.” It would be better to elaborate which agencies specifically are involved and what they have come together to do.
 * The article does do a good job mentioning issues related to underrepresented populations as access to water and proper sanitary facilities is a major issue around the world, and is also one that this organization is trying to address.

Tone and Balance

 * The article is presented from a neutral point of view, explaining appropriate facts, events, and dates, without including personal opinions or persuasive language.
 * Overally, the article appears to be very information-oriented and does not seem to be biased towards one viewpoint over another. It does a good job of presenting a wide range of ideas including the main issues, the solutions that have been implemented, world collaborations, and future/ongoing projects.
 * There do not seem to be any fringe viewpoints presented at the moment.
 * Given its factual nature, the article does not seem like an attempt to persuade the reader to take any particular positions. It just presents information regarding UN-World’s work.

Sources and References

 * Though the article seems to present a lot of information on a variety of subjects including the background, issues, and initiatives, all of the sources used to back up this information come mainly from one source– the UN-World website. The information presented definitely needs to be backed up with other scholarly secondary sources other than the main organization website to increase the article’s reliability.
 * Though most of the sources come from the UN-Water website, they do seem thorough in presenting the available information on the organization.
 * The sources are current as they come mainly from the UN-Water website or WHO website, which are updated regularly.
 * The sources are not written by a diverse spectrum of authors. Most of the sources come from one website, and it is not clear if the website’s information was drawn from perspectives of underrepresented individuals (the website mainly just display’s the organization’s current works and members).
 * There are other scholarly articles available that deal with the issues of sustainable water resourcing, water allocation around the world, and the various efforts working towards these goals. These articles mention several organizations including UN-World, and would provide good outside/secondary perspectives regarding this organization.
 * Aside from the lack of various sources for information, the article does have several links embedded throughout the page. I’ve checked some of the links and they all lead to the corresponding articles for those terms/ideas.

Organization and writing quality

 * Overall, though the article could use some additional clarification/details in some areas, it is concise and easy to understand to the typical reader.
 * There do not seem to be any major grammatical or other spelling errors.
 * It is also well-organized and has clear sections and subsections to indicate changes in topic.

Images and Media

 * The article presents some good information and does include a few images relating to the topic. These are mainly images of previous Chair members of the organization.
 * The images do have brief captions when clicking on them, and they also have the following information: names corresponding to each Chair member, their nationality, and the term for which they served.
 * Though the images have brief captions, they are not all cited so it is unclear if the images all adhere to the copyright regulations.
 * The images are presented in a visually appealing way. They are presented in a column with the additional information adjacent to each picture. The most recent Chair member is shown first, with each older member shown below.

Talk page discussion

 * There is only one conversation, which is a request to delete inaccurate information due to lack of citations. The editor removed the uncited information and added correct information with a corresponding citation.
 * The article is part of two WikiProjects called ‘International relations’ and ‘Sanitation’. Under the former project, it is rated as ‘Stub-Class’ on the quality scale and ‘Low-importance’ on the importance scale. Under the latter project, it is rated as ‘Start-Class’ on the quality scale and ‘Mid-importance’ on the importance scale.
 * Though we did not specifically discuss water accessibility, sanitation, and sustainability in our class, the Wikipedia article presents all the information in a very factual form rather than as a story. Additionally, our class articles usually are written by one author but this article has been edited by several different people, offering differing viewpoints.

Overall impressions

 * The article’s overall status is Start/Stub. It still has a lot of room for information and additional sources.
 * The article is clearly organized with relevant information displayed about the various aspects of the organization.
 * The article needs much improvement in the sources which are used for the information. Right now, the information is mainly pulled from one website. Other peer-reviewed scholarly articles need to be added to provide external information/perspectives.
 * Overall, I think this article is underdeveloped. There is much room for additional details regarding some of the activities and initiatives taken to address the specific issues mentioned. More reliable sources and citations for the images also need to be added.

HSCI3423 - Student (talk) 00:44, 4 February 2021 (UTC)