User:NovaKK/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Which article are you evaluating?

Pollution of the Hudson River (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_of_the_Hudson_River)

Why have you chosen this article to evaluate?

I chose this article because I think it is a relevant article to our class since we are discussing water and the damages of pollution to our environment.

Evaluate the article

Lead section

'''A good lead section defines the topic and provides a concise overview. A reader who just wants to identify the topic can read the first sentence. A reader who wants a very brief overview of the most important things about it can read the first paragraph. A reader who wants a quick overview can read the whole lead section.'''


 * Does the lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?

Yes


 * Does the lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?

No, the whole lead section does not talk about the effects that these contaminations have on people, and the wildlife. Also, the first paragraph does not talk about one of the major sections in this article which is what was done to combat this pollution and clean it up. This was only talked about in the second paragraph of the lead section.


 * Does the lead include information that is not present in the article? (It shouldn't.)

No


 * Is the lead concise or is it overly detailed?

The beginning paragraph is concise, but the second paragraph is not only because it focuses just on the clean-up projects which would be okay, but there are only three short paragraphs in the lead section, so I do not think it is concise to make one of those paragraphs just on one topic.

Content

A good Wikipedia article should cover all the important aspects of a topic, without putting too much weight on one part while neglecting another.


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?

Yes


 * Is the content up to date?

No, the most recent statistic I saw with a date attached was for 2016.


 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Sort of, there is nothing that does not belong, but there is only a small paragraph on the water improvement after these clean ups and an even smaller paragraph on the opposition to these programs that were cleaning up the river. I would have liked to seen both of these elaborated on.


 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps?

No. I would have liked for it to talk about the different effects on people with different incomes, but it did not even really give the different effects on ages or other factors either.


 * Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

No

Tone and Balance

Wikipedia articles should be written from a neutral point of view; if there are substantial differences of interpretation or controversies among published, reliable sources, those views should be described as fairly as possible.


 * Is the article from a neutral point of view?

Yes, all throughout the article there is no opinion given only facts, but there is only a short paragraph on the companies that did not want the Hudson River clean-up and their reasons.


 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

No


 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

Yes, as I mentioned from the environmental side there was a lot, but not a lot from the business side, or what the people really thought of it.


 * Are minority or fringe viewpoints accurately described as such?

No


 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Maybe, I would say no because I thought there was only facts presented, but there are sides that are lacking and no viewpoint of underrepresented populations, so in that way I would say yes.

Sources and References

'''A Wikipedia article should be based on the best sources available for the topic at hand. When possible, this means academic and peer-reviewed publications or scholarly books.'''


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?

Yes


 * Are the sources thorough - i.e., Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?

Yes


 * Are the sources current?

Some are which is confusing to me because the article itself seems as if it has not been updated since 2016 because that is the last dated statistic, and some of the stuff it talks about talks about 2021 as the future. However, as I look through the sources, it says that some were retrieved in 2021.


 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?

No


 * Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)

Yes, a couple of the articles used are from New York Times which is not a peer-reviewed article or not always just based on facts, so I think that these could be replaced with some more published and peer-reviewed works.


 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Almost all of these do, but there are a few that do not work and that might just be outdated because this topic goes back to 1947, but still concerning. Especially there is one link inside the article that talks about the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant, but the link instead takes us to a link about the Riverbank State Park.

Organization and writing quality

The writing should be clear and professional, the content should be organized sensibly into sections.


 * Is the article well-written - i.e., Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?

Yes


 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?

There are sometimes where there were grammatical errors. I saw this with commas in the wrong places and run-on sentences.


 * Is the article well-organized - i.e., broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Yes

Images and Media


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?

No, the article gives us two images: one just of the Hudson River and the other of the dredging in the Hudson River which did enhance my understanding, but I felt as if there could have been more images provided.


 * Are images well-captioned?

Yes


 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?

Yes


 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Yes, and their placement makes sense with what the article is talking about.

Talk page discussion

The article's talk page — and any discussions among other Wikipedia editors that have been taking place there — can be a useful window into the state of an article and might help you focus on important aspects that you didn't think of.


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

I know we said that we should be respectful when making edits and adding to articles, but that was not really the talk page on this article. I can see why the things I critiqued the article on happened because the people are not working cohesively together and are sometimes attacking each other in their comments. Someone brought up the white washing of the article and others brought up not very reliable sources. Overall, I think the talk page of this article was not serving the purpose I would think Wikipedia wants.


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

The article is rated C-class, Mid-Importance. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: WikiProject Rivers, WikiProject New York (state), WikiProject Environment, and WikiProject Water.


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

We have talked about pollution in class with the video on plastic pollution, but this topic focuses specifically on the Hudson River pollution. Also, this article talks about the companies that are dumping chemicals into the river, instead of what we discussed in class which is plastic and how everyone is contributing to the pollution.

Overall impressions


 * What is the article's overall status?

I think overall it is good, but the article was given a C-class rating which means that there is room for improvement which I do agree with.


 * What are the article's strengths?

The strengths of this article are that it is concise and very factual. I also think it does a good job at organizing the sections and giving information only based on what the section is about. Also, it does not use elaborate or confusing words so that readers can easily understand what it is talking about and any new information that a reader would not know, it either gives a link to learn more or describes it in the article.


 * How can the article be improved?

The article could work on more viewpoints. I think that the article does a good job in giving us facts, but the viewpoints of those facts seem to be limited. More sources on what the opposition believes could be helpful only so we can see why some people would be against the clean ups of the Hudson River, and if there were explanations from these companies on why they dumped into the Hudson River that would contribute to the article. Also, I think they could have given perspectives from underrepresented groups and sources, but instead, it seemed to be only main-streamed facts and sources.


 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e., Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

I believe the article is underdeveloped because there are studies that have been done more recently that I think could contribute to this topic and viewpoints that should be included, but it is still a well-thought-out article with lots of sources and facts on the topic that are important.

NovaKK (talk) 21:11, 12 September 2021 (UTC)