User:Margaretbhanna/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
2000 Kipawa earthquake

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because I am interested in earthquakes and wanted to see if there were any well-documented earthquakes that occurred near me. I know that earthquakes of high magnitude are not common in our area.

Evaluate the article
This article does not really have a lead section, it just jumps right into the facts. Thus, I can not evaluate whether it is concise/detailed or if it includes information that is not present in the article. The article has no major sections as it is so short.

The article's content is relevant to the topic as it discusses the earthquake's main details such as its magnitude, its epicenter, affected locations. its cause and a brief description of the damage it caused. The article was last edited on March 7th, 2022. After looking through some of the previous versions of the article, there were no major changes made as of recent, except for the addition of some hyperlinks. All the content within this page is relevant, but I do believe that there is information missing. Out of curiosity, I looked up a Wikipedia page for another earthquake. After reading it, I realized that my chosen article does not contain the following information: a background of the area (city, province, town, etc.), the area's earthquake/natural disaster history, a detailed description of what triggered the earthquake, the effects of its aftershocks, a more detailed description of reported damages (there are no examples or sources listed), conditions in the aftermath, number of casualties/injuries (if any), rescue and relief efforts (if any), etc.

This article does not relate to a sensitive topic or controversy. I did not find any reason to be concerned about a non-neutral point of view, bias or persuasion.

Most facts within the article are cited, but there are a few that are not. For example, the first two sentences in the second paragraph, the first detailing the damages caused by the earthquake and the second mentioning other earthquakes sharing the same epicenter. This article only references 4 sources, 3 of which are from Natural Resources Canada. One of the 4 links does not work. After doing some research on Google Scholar and the McOdrum Library online databases, I did not find many articles focusing on the 2000 Kipawa earthquake. However, I did find a few relevant articles mentioning the earthquake and other seismic activities in the area. I even found an article the detailing neotectonic activity of the area. In sum, the referencing used on the page does not feature a variety of authors or source types, some facts are not cited and there are better sources available (peer-reviewed articles).

The article is clear, concise and does not have grammatical errors, but it is not well organized as I believe there is enough information out there to lengthen it and even separate the information with subtitles (sections).

The article contains one image, with no caption. It was sourced from Creative Commons, which adheres to Wikipedia's copyright regulations. While it does depict the areas affected by the earthquake and its epicenter, I believe there are more relevant images out there. However, after a quick Google search, I have yet to find any of value. Perhaps this was not a well-documented event (in terms of pictures). While there may not be relevant pictures representing the damages caused by the earthquake, there are relevant images that could be used to give context to the topic of the article. For example, pictures of Lake Kipawa (epicenter), the Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben (the site of the earthquake's trigger), thrust faults, etc.

There are no conversations listed on the article's Talk Page. It is part of 3 WikiProjects but it is rated "Stub-class, Low-importance" in all 3. The article was also "nominated for deletion" on November 22nd of 2018, but the verdict was to keep it.

My overall impression of this article is that it needs some work. I believe that the article mentions relevant information about the topic but does not go in-depth where it needs to. To be improved, more diverse sources need to be added. That should bulk up the article and provide more credibility for the facts already incorporated in the article as well as add new ones.