User:Louie2002/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Climate change and Indigenous peoples

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because although it is a good starting point, as it is a previous project done by a student, it lacks in specifics and organization of regions. I think that it is important to position the interrelation of Indigenous people's rights and climate change initiatives as an international phenomenon and this article is able to address this through its organization by region globally. Through illustrating climate change in relation to Indigenous movements and through a decolonial perspective, it decenters Western perspectives and solutions from being the most prioritized, allowing climate change to be viewed from a more intersectional lens.

Evaluate the article
The lead section accurately defines the topic and provides a general overview of the topic. The introductory sentence describes the contents of the article and gives context which illustrates the relevance of the article. However, the article does not include a brief description of the major sections, which in this case are the regions that are explored later on. Additionally, it does not include reasoning for the unequal distribution of information between the regions. Although the lead section is concise, there are many spelling and grammatical errors which impact the clarity of the piece. It could also use more details about the contents of the page. There are many more grammatical and spelling errors that appear throughout the piece, such as the lack of capitalization of the word Indigenous, which appear repeatedly.

The content of the article requires the most editing as there is an unequal distribution of information. The organization is inconsistent as there seems to be an exploration by region, but the table of contents places some regions as subheads while others seem to be headers. Additionally, some regions have more detailed accounts and more in-depth exploration. The section describing Latin America breaks down into gender inequality, adaptation strategies, impacts, global action, and background subsections that provide a considerable amount of information. No other section has this much content. Sections are also divided by states, countries, or continents, as there is a section specifically on the state of Alaska but also a section on the entire continent of Africa. Although the article addresses Indigenous issues which are historically underrepresented, the unequal distribution of information and generalizations of the continent of Africa present underdeveloped and exclusive explorations of this discussion. The content's organization is the greatest weakness as there is a lot of information missing and a lot that does not belong.

The article does a good job of presenting facts and historical information that remains neutral and accurate. There is no clearly evident bias that overpowers the content. However, because of the imbalance in information some viewpoints are overrepresented, such as Indigenous peoples and practices in Latin America, and some viewpoints are underrepresented, such as Indigenous peoples and practices in Africa.

Although there are many sources listed in the References section, there are many facts and historical figures that lack citations. Additionally, more information needs to be added to the sections which are severely underrepresented, which warrants more diversity in sources. The links work but there needs to be more in-text citations, as many sources listed are not found in the content of the piece.

There are six total images throughout the text, many of which are not representative of the content. Many of the images are not visually appealing and lack good descriptions. Although they adhere to the copyright status, they do not enhance the article, and their presence distracts. There are little to no pictures of Indigenous practices discussed and seem to be generalizations of the topics discussed.

The talk page discussions center around language usage and organization. As previously mentioned, there are many spelling errors and questionable phrasing used throughout the piece. Additionally, contributors suggest steering away from using a specific country's example as representative of an entire continent. This article has been part of many other WikiProjects and was also a result of WikiEducation initiatives like the one we are participating in.

Overall, this article can be improved in content, organization, spelling, and sources. Although it is a good start and remains neutral when discussing politicized issues, it is lacking in many ways and requires many steps in order to be used as a source for the education of the public.