User:JAVermont/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Patagonia, Inc.

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because last semester in my FDS class I began learning about Patagonia and the ethics that their business is built upon. They have a strong belief toward good environmental practices, and their own profit isn't their number one goal which something that I strongly admire. When first reading the article I thought that they captured some aspects of the company pretty well but, others could definitely use some work.

Evaluate the article
Lead section

The lead of this article does include a well rounded idea of the topic by including the company name and what industry they are in. While this lead is good because it doesn’t give too much detail, which would make it annoying to read and ineffective. However, it could give some more information about what the main points of the article are, rather than just saying what the company is and what countries they do business in.

Content

The content of this article is overall well rounded and is related to the topic throughout. The information presented is evenly talked about as well as up to date, going all the way up to 2023. While all of the information that is in this article belongs, I feel there could be a section devoted to the mission of the company. Right now, it feels that the mission of the company is talked about here and there in different sections, but the article could benefit from making it its own section as it is a large part of Patagonia’s business model.

Tone and Balance

This article does a good job of presenting information as it is, without adding opinions about that information. It is hard to say whether some “viewpoints” are over or underrepresented in this article because it feels like more of a fact dump than a piece that really has different viewpoints. For this reason, I would say that it does keep a good neutrality to its tone and does not try to persuade the reader.

Sources and References

This article is backed by 45 sources, leading me to believe that the facts that are presented are factual, as they can be cross referenced to multiple sources. Because there are so many articles, there is also great diversity in the authors of these pieces, giving the article that much more credibility. One flaw I see with these sources is that, while there are a lot of them, many of them are magazines or articles that are not peer reviewed. Like I said earlier it is good that they can be cross referenced, however adding a few peer reviewed articles could add lots of credibility to the sources of this article. All of the links that I tried did work.

Organization and writing quality

The article is mostly well written, with facts presented then explanations of how those facts relate to the topic of the article. There are also little to no noticeable spelling or grammar errors and the organization is good with clear headings. I do notice, however, that this article lacks some transition sentences but that is probably due to the fact that it is written by multiple people, making it harder to mesh styles. Finally, like I noted in the content section, I feel there could be a section added about the companies mission and how they work to achieve that mission.

Images and Media

This article uses images very effectively as they have a few images that directly relate to whatever topic they are talking about, with good, short captions explaining what is in the picture. These images that were used are cited and explained how they were gotten, making them usable for Wikipedia users. The layout of the pictures makes logical sense, however they aren’t the most appealing as they are seemingly just thrown along the side of the article next to the section they relate to.

Talk page discussion

There is lots of good conversation in the talk page of this article. It seems that when people have different ideas of what should and what shouldn’t be included in this article they are able to express their opinions and reasons in the talk page effectively. One common theme that I noticed was that some people thought the article was glazing Patagonia for their activism and not criticizing them enough for the environmental problems that they have come across in the past/present. This article is rated as a C-Class and has a part in six WikiProjects including Climbing, Backpacking, Companies, Brands, Fashion, and Environment with varying levels of importance to each. Wikipedia discusses this topic from a certain companies perspective which we haven’t really touched on in class.

Overall impressions

The overall status of the article is that it is a good way to get some basic knowledge about Patagonia, however a reader won’t find much if any information on any criticisms of the company in this article. One strength of this article is the progressive addition of the History section of the article as there is information all the way from the beginning of the company up to the most recent year. The article could be improved by adding a clearer section for the companies values as well as a more clear section for criticism of the company. The article is slightly underdeveloped and could use work, but the information that is already there is well written and in a good style for Wikipedia.