User:Hugheann/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Greenhouse gas emissions by the United States

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
Greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on biogeochemical cycles is an area of research that I am both interested in and that is important to be communicated, and communicated well, due to the threat it poses not only for ecosystems but society as well.

Evaluate the article
The lead paragraph of the article is both concise and presents useful information regarding the article title, explicitly stating the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States in 2019. However, the body of the paragraph then focuses on how this number relates to that of other countries. To gear the lead paragraph towards what the rest of the article addresses I suggest introducing sources of greenhouse emissions and then providing an overview of different groups working to mitigate emissions and the response of the public towards these strategies. The other option would be to gear the rest of the article towards how greenhouse gas emissions in the United States compares to other countries. In summary, the lead paragraph could do a better job setting up the topics addressed in the remainder of the article.

Simply addressing the content of the article, the bulk of information addresses sources and types of greenhouse gases and mitigation efforts. Both of these sections are well developed and address each gas and each source in detail. The final section, which focuses on non-governmental response, could be more developed to include alternate perspectives. Further it was not clear how this section differed from mitigation due to crossover in some of the information. In general however the content was well developed, aside from slight imbalance of detail in each section, and presented in a balanced tone with a neutral perspective. The article discusses climate change and global warming which can sometimes be perceived as controversial topics, yet the articles does a good job presenting scientific research without taking a particular position.

Due to the scientific nature of the subject the article does pull from a large number of references from a large time range, 2007 to 2021. However, the references are mostly from scholarly books and due to the fact that greenhouse gas emissions is a current area of high research the article could definitely pull from more academic and peer-reviewed publications which could boost the credibility of the article. Generally, the information is well up to date, aside from a few statistics (from 2019) that could potentially be updated with present day measurements. Additionally, the article has numerous internal and external links which work and are useful to the reader to gain insight on more technical terms unfamiliar to the average person.

On the topic of organization, the lead paragraph needs to be improved to better address the topics discussed in the paper, whether focusing on mitigation techniques or comparison to greenhouse emissions by other countries. A focused lead paragraph would significantly improve the flow and organization of the article. The writing quality is solid, there are a few typos (places where the convention GhG and GHG is inconsistent), but overall the article is well written with good organization within each of the three major sections.

The article includes multiple figures and images that visually explain different statistics addressed in the text. These figures are very useful to the reader in order to make connections to how greenhouse gas emissions compare across countries and how different sources contribute varying amounts. Additionally, the article includes multiple figures that explain similar concepts. Visually I think this adds to the ability of the article to be understood by a wide audience since everyone interprets figures differently, therefore through conveying the same idea across multiple figures more people will be able to make sense of them.

Overall the article presents valuable information that is both accurate, well referenced, and relevant to the article title. The lead paragraph and article organization could be improved in order to better convey either greenhouse gas emission mitigation strategies in the United States, how these compare to other countries, or both, but in order for the communication to be effective, the article organization needs improvement. Further, the final section on non-governmental response could be more developed, information could be update to present day, and references could be expanded to include more academic publications and a broader range of authors.