User:Hockey.Golf.Fishing/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.) Burt's Bees

The company I have chose to pursue for this semesters work and projects is Burt's Bees. So the article I will be evaluating is the Wikipedia Burt's Bees article.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I decided to choose Burt's Bee's because I saw it on the list and have used there products before. I like there products and have viewed them as a smaller growing company so I wanted to learn more about all aspects of their business. It matters because I am curious how such a natural and environmentally friendly perceived company actually handles there emissions and foot print on the earth. I think it matters to see of companies like Burt's Bees are in fact doing all they can to prevent further climate change. My first impression is that I have learned a lot more about the history of Burt's Bees and how they have gotten here today. Also that there is plenty of room for more sections in the Burt's Bees Wikipedia page, overall it is fairly small.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Starting with the lead section, I think it does a good job of establishing what the company is about, what they do and provides good background knowledge. This lead sections purpose is to be a brief summary for people who may not know much or anything about them. This section is clear and precise on what Burt's Bees is about but is honestly a little bit short and could use some more information. The lead also fails to address future sections of the article so viewers don't know what is next without looking.

When it comes to the content the content is overall pretty good. The content is up to date and factual from what I can tell. It remains neutral which is needed also. After the short lead section it goes into history sections which splits the businesses life into a few different sections. This is valuable to see the different steps they took in the process of becoming what they are too. The history sections are useful but I would argue that this article could use some more sections. The history is useful but is heavily relied upon in the article. More sections about products and sciences behind those products, maybe economics would give viewers more information they might need. The content provided is good and relevant but more sections could/should be added.

Overall, when it comes to the tone and balance piece of the article I think the article remains neutral throughout. The article has a lot of facts represented throughout the different history sections. A lot of the history sections are written in almost a story telling way explaining to the reader how things came to be over time. This could potentially be biased depending where they got this information and who told them. But overall, I don't see any methods of persuasion or bias present.

The references of this article come from a range of dates. Some from the early 2000's which is when the article was founded and mostly has to due with the summary of the company and information with older information which makes sense. There are some that are more up to date but information being out of date is something to watch out for sure. When looking through a few of the references I found reliably sources and peer reviewed sources like the triangle business journal. But at the same time I found references from sources like USA Today which is not the most reputable. This is more of a blog post and when reading has a little bit of an agenda not really neutral like Wikipedia should be. This would definitely be something to look for and be aware of when using this article elsewhere or getting information here. Overall, I think Burt's Bees being a smaller company there is a lack of information which is why some of these references seem to be out of date or not scientific enough.

The organization and writing quality of the article seems to be good and on par with where it should be. I couldn't find any grammatical errors or spelling errors when reading. The information is clear, and I like how it is written in chronological order. The sections make sense being labeled clearly and the information within them directly relating to the label.

There are images in the article that provide further understanding to viewers. There are pictures of different products relative to when they came out and pictures to show the number of products they provide on the shelf. As well as captions for these pictures to explain that. Overall, I wouldn't say the pictures make a huge difference but it does give the viewers an understanding of there products and gives them an image or brand to relate when then hear the name in the future.

When looking at the talk page there is not much to talk about there are a few fixed external links present. The only thing relevant to the class I saw was someone removing the phrase, "'sad' that Burt's Bees claims to move away from small earth-friendly retailers," I thought this was interesting but also was clearly taken out due to the bias and emotion/opinion present. Besides this there was not much to the talk page.

Overall, I think the article does a good job providing a summary of the company and the history of the company. I think the information provided is all good and relevant. The story telling aspect of history is important and easy to read and follow for a reader. I think the article is lacking more sections to learn even more neutrals information on the company. Also, I felt that there was a few red flags in the references due to dates or blogs. I think this is due to the lack of information present about this company. But this is definitely something that could be fixed and paid attention too for sure.