User:Hannahmarriiee/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Office of Seed and Plant Introduction

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article initially because I'm interested in ecology. Looking at the article I saw that it is quite short and contains information that is interesting but not connected to any other ideas. Given that this was a public institution I feel there should be more detailed information about its history and purpose.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

There is a concise lead sentence that describes the institution. It is missing key information about the current state of this office, but implies that it no longer exists using the past tense. There are no further sections in the article.

Content

What little content exists is mostly relevant to the topic, though the least sentence is questionable and lacks a source. There is a lot of content missing from this article including key information like why the office was created and when/why it ended. It doesn't mention any plant species the office was responsible for introducing to the United States. There is also an opportunity in this article to mention the history of plant introduction in the US, and the ethical concerns around introducing new plant species to an ecosystem.

Tone and Balance

The article is pretty short so it's a little difficult to assess the tone. It seems balanced, though there isn't really any controversial information in the article. The article is not trying to persuade the reader of anything.

Sources and References

There is only one source, it is Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring". Given what I know about this book, it doesn't seem like the best source for this topic. The office of Seed and Plant Introduction was a public institution, so there are probably a lot better primary sources of information about this office.

Organization and Writing Quality

The main problem with this article seems to be a lack of information and sources. The small amount of information that is there is concisely and clearly written.

Images and Media

There are no images in this article.

Talk Page Discussion

This article is part of the Ecology WikiProject. It is rated as a stub, and is rated as having overall "low" importance. There doesn't seem to be any other talk happening on this page.

Overall Impressions

This article really needs more information. It is very incomplete. It lacks key information about the start and end of the office, why it was created, and why it doesn't still exist. In addition to adding this key information, other sections this article could expand on include:


 * 1) Types of plants this office was responsible for introducing to the United States
 * 2) Who the key explorers in this office were, and links to their Wikipedia Pages
 * 3) Historical context about why this office was created
 * 4) Ecological context about why this office ceased to exist, and the implications of introducing new species of plants to our ecosystems.

This new information should of course include sections, which this article also lacks, as well as more primary sources of information.