User:JMahnPoli/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
STOCK Act

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
This article illuminates the beginning topic issue that I have chosen for my final paper/class project. I wanted to address the STOCK Act, and why I believe political representatives should not be allowed to use their position of power to enhance their participation in owning any shares of stock. As I briefly scroll through this article preliminarily, it seems to be very detailed in each section of the policy, and includes multiple sources to support the information.

Evaluate the article
Content / Tone / Quality

Upon review of this article, the information provided remains to stay on topic and be relevant to the STOCK Act. It contains appropriate and attention-getting headlines for the title and sub-sections. The right panel contains an appropriate logo, which is the U.S seal, along with the necessary information that includes the correct time this policy was enacted, it’s public law citation, and the series of dates in which it took to pass each portion of Congress throughout its process. The article begins with a brief explanation of when it was signed into law, the history of its similar events, and the significant persons of interest that assisted with this policy. It does repeat some of the basic information multiple times throughout the article in the initial paragraph, the ‘About STOCK’ subsection, and again in the ‘Amendment’ subsection. The information provided has a neutral tone and does not use any language that would signify any position of bias towards any political party and strictly states the facts of the process of this policy being passed.

Sources and References / Plaigarism

The explanation of the detailed STOCK Act of 2012 is outlined in the subsections ‘Section 3-19’. However, all sections have been plagiarized, and in some cases word for word per the publication hyperlinked in the opening paragraph. Prior to section headings, the author states “the following summary was written by the Congressional Research Service…”, and uses the exact wordage of the policy without using quotations, or citing the source. Aside from this, the author uses hyperlinks to direct the reader to important individuals, such as President Obama or other members of Congress, as well as linkage to publications needed. The links work properly, and are in correspondence to the information presented.

Talk Page

The talk page has a few responses regarding correcting some of the information. For instance, one user addresses previous status of Congress members in never being exempt from trading laws which contradicts the article. Another user simply adds to the discussion of potential violations regarding the recent SARS-2 public insider info, and adds some information about the issue. Overall, there is minimal discussion on this page, and just a few responses.

Overall Impressions

It’s difficult to give an overall status of this article, because of the fact that the section summary of the policy is completely plagiarized. The author gives a good introduction and lead discussion to the topic, however still in this regard is repetitive. The strengths of this article is providing adequate information of the STOCK Act, remaining unbiased, and gives additional insight through providing links that add to the information. The article can be improved in a number of ways, by rewording and paraphrasing the contents of the policy, as well as removing repetitive concepts of the policy. I believe this article is underdeveloped, and with more thought and attention can be improved to give the reader additional insight on the subject by examples of historical issues that resulted in the proclamation of this act.