User:MelCarruthers/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Environmental impact of iron ore mining

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article to evaluate because Canada mines a lot of iron ore, especially in the Quebec-Labrador Peninsula. This article matters because mining is a big industry in Canada. However, we are also currently living through an environmental crisis. Therefore, it is important to understand the environmental consequences of extracting iron ore. My preliminary impression was that this article was concise while also including all the necessary information. At first glance, the article also appeared to flow in a logical manner.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

I found that the lead section was well-written. Within the first sentence, the article's topic was introduced and the rest of the first paragraph suitably identified the article's main sections without going into any major details yet.

Content

For the most part, I think the quality of the article's content is also good. The content of the article appears to be up-to-date and was last edited on September 6, 2023. I noticed that there is a warning message under the section Wetlands and Flora which is under the Issues section of mining iron ore. The message draws attention to the fact that the section may contain material not related to the topic of the article. I mostly agree with this message. While iron ore mines certainly have an effect on nearby wetlands and flora, I think this section proceeds to provide extra details about wetlands that are not relevant to the main topic.

Tone and Balance

Overall, this article maintains a neutral point of view and is written with an unbiased tone. The article is impersonal and emotionless. After reading it, I do not feel as though the article has a hidden argument that attempts to persuade the reader.

Sources and References

After reviewing the sources, there are only 2 links out of 14 sources that do not work. Most sources are digitally accessible and appear to be reliable sources. The majority of sources used are government websites (Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Government of Australia) and peer-reviewed articles.

Organization and Writing Quality

Minor grammatical errors (misuse of commas) and occasional awkward phrasing. Even putting some of the sections through a grammar and spell check tool helped confirm some of these errors.

For example, in the first paragraph, I don't think the following sentence is phrased as well as it could be: "This is as a result of the release of the large scale of iron ore tailings (solid wastes produced during the beneficiation process of iron ore concentrate) into the environment which are harmful to both animals and humans." I would rephrase it to, "This is a result of the large-scale iron ore tailings (solid wastes produced during the beneficiation process of iron ore concentrate) that are released into the environment which are harmful to both animals and humans."

Another example: "Irons high demand necessitates continuous mining and processing...". I think it sounds better to say "The high demand for iron necessitates continuous mining and processing...".

Overall, I think the organization of the Article is fine. The article offers a good introduction explaining what iron ore is and what the mining processes are before delving into the environmental issues of iron ore mining.

Images and Media

This article includes 3 images. In my opinion, none of them do an exceptional job of enhancing my understanding of the topic. They are basic photos that do not explicitly illustrate the impact of iron ore mining. The images are captioned with a subject and location but do not go into great detail to describe the image.

Talk Page Discussion

This article has been rated a C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. There is not much activity on the article's talk page. However, one comment mentioned how the article is very specific to Canada which I did not initially notice myself. After taking a look at the article again, I agree with this and noticed that the majority of the sources were based on Canadian sources. Therefore, I support the recommendation made to either revise the article and broaden it to a worldwide scope or give the article a more narrow title to more accurately reflect the content.

Overall Impressions

Overall, I think this article is organized and laid out well. However, I think the writing can be slightly improved. I would say that the article is fairly complete however I wonder if it is worth discussing the potential relationship between environmental racism and iron mines.