User:Jwendt22/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Disability and disasters

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I have always had an interest in the Red Cross and I'm curious about how they plan for different types of disasters. I never really thought, prior to this class, that people with disabilities would obviously need procedures for them that can help them with their individual needs. I found this article really interesting and I was excited to see how I can improve it!

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

The first intro sentence does not perfectly define disability and how it can relate to disasters. It does a good job of introducing the first paragraph but could use a little revamp and alterations of wording. It also jumps into Article 11 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities without discussing its importance or leading into it well. The lead section also does not once reference the following sections that are on the page either. I like its inclusion of article 11 but it needs more introducing and explanation. Overall it does remain to be concise and not overly detailed.

Content

It does a good job of referencing multiple types of disabilities and how they may each be individually impacted. It does also mention the lack of research and prevention planning due to lack of knowledge or just awareness about individuals with disabilities. The parts covering the different types of disabilities was brief and I understand the writers intentions, however, I think it could be reworded better. They could have supplied more information as it covers a couple topics in just one big main paragraph. It briefly touches on sheltering needed for people with disabilities but does not mention a lot of possible solutions or how the disaster teams could go about implementing new procedures. The paragraph also mentions children which is another good stance to mention and how diasters can impact kids with disabilities specifically. I think the second paragraph could also have maybe ended with a better conclusion.

The section is discrimination starts the paragraph well and the reader can know without looking at the title what the section is going to be about. This paragraph nicely covers the discrimination of people with disabilities and the struggles they face within the realm of policies and disaster planning/procedure. It also nicely states how all disabilities struggle during disasters and how some are even at more risk because of unidentifiable features.

The last paragraph regarding management planning is very short and not an equal amount of information compared to the other paragraphs. I also think the introduction sentence to the paragraph could have been a bit more informative a reworded differently to enhance the structure. It also mentions the CRPD but does not mention exactly what that is and how it is relevant to management planning, same with the Sphere project, whatever that it. There is much more information needed in this section.

Tone and Balance

The tone remains neutral and maybe slightly on the advocacy side for people with disabilities. However, it also coincides with the fact that there isn’t a lot of preparedness put in place so I think the tone matches the research nicely. This also remains the same throughout all the paragraphs and there do not seem to be any claims that are heavily biased. I think it slightly persuades the reader to join the argument that there should be more disaster relief and planning for people with disabilities but it is not too obvious or persuading.

Sources and References

There are a few places that mention a citation is needed so I am curious where the information came from. Majority of the work however, does include citation numbers. When I looked at the references section, I do not think it is formatted properly but most appear to be within the last decade or so. More relevant information could be used and updated as well. Lastly, the sources are not all from academic journals or reliable websites. At least, it is not easy to tell where they are from because it is not cited properly at the bottom. It references articles that I don’t necessarily see referenced in the paragraphs above either. I would need to make sure everything in the reference section is relevant to the article.

Organization and writing quality

The organization of this article could be slightly better with maybe a historical paragraph at the beginning and then diving into the issue including possible solutions paragraph or a better disasters management procedure paragraph. There were not a lot of spelling or grammatical errors but I would want to revise a few sentences already there so I could make ot more coherent and concise. There are sections butI think they need to be added to as well as more sections and more information.

Images and Media

There is no media or images at all in the presentation and I think there needs to be a couple images or image examples in this article. There is obviously no captions for the images either because of the lack of images in the first place.

Talk page discussion

I don’t think I see much on the talk page however some students from our section of the class have responded to a few peoples comments I believe.

Overall impressions

Overall, I think this article has a good foundation and a bunch of information to work with. I think it does, however, need a whole new format and relevant information. The references section also needs a big update as well. Some strengths include the structure of the information as well as the diverse array of topics and people with disabilities that it covers.