User:NateHolliday/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Concentrated animal feeding operation

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I've chosen this article because it is something that I'm very interested in and know quite a lot about. I thought it would be interesting to see what Wikipedia authors say about them compared to what I know about them. This article matters because it is a very controversial topic in the world of environmental studies and the ethics of the meat industry. My first impression of the article was that it gave the necessary information, while also adding information that was relevant, but also more interesting. It applied CAFOs to the real world and talked about their positive and negative benefits.

Evaluate the article
I thought this article was a very informational, unbiased approach to what CAFOs are. However, I think a few things could be fixed.

First, I felt like the pictures of steak and the picture of Arizona were irrelevant to the topic and did not add much to the article itself. On that same idea, I felt that most of the pictures were aimed against CAFOs without any pictures that were advocating for CAFOs. To me, the pictures were the only biased part of the article.

Secondly, I felt there could be more information on the environmental impacts that CAFOs have, both positive and negative. It felt that the first quarter of the article was talking about the effects of CAFOs, but as the article went on, it became more about the legislature and zoning regulations surrounding CAFOs. I would appreciate to see more information directed towards environmental impacts because that is what the everyday person looking up information of CAFOs would be looking for rather than the history of EPA rulings.

Third, many of the links, including the first, 16th, and 62nd (of the very few I checked) did not work or could not physically be opened. This leads me to believe that some of the data is out of date or inaccurate as some of the websites have been deleted or automatically crash.

Overall, this article feels very strong on the legal aspects surrounding CAFOs and the rulings that the EPA has put in. I think that this is important to understand the history of environmental regulations and to understand the rules that farms with CAFOs have to follow. I think that this article is not too dense to read for the reader and gives a decent oversight on the effects of CAFOs. As mentioned before, I would love to see more information surrounding environmental and health effects of CAFOs. I would also maybe like to see more statistics on the economic benefits of having CAFOs, specifically on the stimulation of jobs in an area around the CAFO that was mentioned. Finally, I'd like to see the sources be touched up on and more updated information to be put in place.

Nate