User:Mymywg/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Environmental studies

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it is a general term that I have some understanding of and is related to ERTH 4303. This topic matters because it is vital for people to learn about their impact they have on the earth in order to sustain our planet. My preliminary impression of this article was that it was going to be more aggressive about how important the topic of the article is. However, it was neutral and was the opposite.

Evaluate the article
Evaluating content:

Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

I found everything in the article was relevant to the topic. It included definition and use of environment studies. What was distracting was mentioning the degrees that students can apply to in the field of environment studies in the first body of text. In my opinion, it is not relevant in the beginning of the article. It would make sense for this information to only appear under the 'Education' column only because it is not necessary to understand the meaning of environmental studies.

'''Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?'''

Under Environment Studies in U.S Universities it is mentioned that over 500 colleges and universities in the United States offer environmental studies as a degree. This was referencing a 2018 paper. If new resources were reviewed instead of saying more than 500 colleges, maybe the 500 would increase.

Moreover, some information that was missing was that the culture of the people affect the environment they reside in. Therefore, a directory to culture and how different people live in the world would be relevant because it is a factor in environmental studies.

'''Can you identify any notable equity gaps? Does the article underrepresent or misrepresent historically marginalized populations?'''

The wiki page mentions that human interaction with the environment is the study of environmental studies. However, it is not specified that different people in the world interact with the environment in different ways depending on the culture. The article includes a subhead called "Environmental Studies in the U.S. Universities." No other countries are mentioned regarding their Environmental studies programs in universities.

What else could be improved?

More images other than the earth could be useful to help distinguish the topic. For example, a person building a house in a forest or a person walking through grass. This is a better visual of the idea of environmental studies because it is an emphasis of humans interacting with the natural earth.

Additionally, the article could benefit from including why schools are promoting a "pro-environmental" future generation. It should be mentioned that this study is relevant now due to the impact of humans on the planet in the past decade and introduce that people must live differently to decelerate these human caused environmental impacts.

Evaluating tone:

Is this article neutral? Are there any claims that appear heavily biased towards a particular position?

I do think this article is neutral. There are no claims that are heavily biased toward a particular position. Facts are states and cited.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

The editor seems to favour American data which is overrepresented. Countries other than the United States that provide environmental science as a college-level courses are not mentioned. Therefore, other countries education systems seem to be underrepresented regarding environmental science courses and environmental studies undergraduate degrees.

Evaluating sources: Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

Yes, the links work and the sources do support the claims in the article.

Is each fact reference with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias notes?

Some of the references was to a website that is not a peer reviewed paper. It is not the most reliable reference. I would suggest straying away from sources that are not peer reviewed. Below are references that are not peer reviewed.

https://www.esf.edu/es/about.htm

https://apstudents.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-environmental-science

However, most the information came from papers. They are neutral sources.

Do the sources come from a diverse array of authors and publications?

Yes, the sources come from a diverse array of authors and publications. I appreciate that some sources are not American because there was a theme of over representing American data in the article. The book, "The Last Super Power" was from the University of Dhaka, Department of Japanese Studies.

The Collegeboard was referenced twice and is not peer reviewed. The information of the webpages did not seem very important either. They included some information about university majors and environmental science courses.

Checking the talk page

What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

The conversations don't have much content, someone said the article is very neutral and I agree.

How is the article rated? is it a part of any WikiProjects?

The article has been listed as a level-5 vital article in Science. The article is part as WikiProject Environment Environment, WikiProject Education, and WikiProject Higher education.

How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

The article discuses environment studies in a way that assumes the reader has no prior knowledge. In class, we are on 'Week 3' now and have completed a couple lectures and have some background knowledge. Therefore, students in ERTH 4303 do not require as much information to understand the gist of the topic.