User:Ohster12/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Climate change and food security in Africa

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because food security is an important factor of environmental justice. It is important that information on this easily accessible and current. My preliminary thoughts on the article are that it is not written like a Wikipedia article but in the form of an argumentative paper. It is lacking in citations, regional as well as casual complexity, and is in need of organizational improvements.

Evaluate the article
I believe this article has the ability to provide information about an important and worsening issue. However, there are multiple glaring issues that need to be addressed.


 * Beginning with the issues described in warning banner above the article:
 * The article is written like an essay that presents personal reflections or arguments on the topic. Because of this, the article is not concise, dense with extractable information, or easy to read and navigate.
 * The majority of claims in this article are uncited, and ambiguous statements as well as broad generalizations in the article make verification of information difficult.
 * The lead is overly detailed, does not provide a concise easy to understand introduction to the topic, is somewhat sloppy and repetitive, and does not provide a clear description of the main sections of the article.
 * Content about the effects of climate change on food security in the different geographical regions of Africa is lacking, I would suggest adding subsections to the article that discuss the food security issues in separate regions or countries of Africa.
 * These subcategories would give credence to the size of the continent of Africa, as well as the complexity of it's climate and geography. It also presents an opportunity to include contemporary food security issues in Africa, which this article is lacking.
 * The section on adaptation strategies is in need of elaboration and expansion. It lists adaptation strategies being currently developed by "individuals, groups, and institutions" but does not say which individuals, groups, or institutions those are. The section also does not provide information about the adaptation strategies, or comment on where in Africa these strategies are being used.
 * Again, I think this is a missed opportunity to educate people on the individual strategies, as well as any contemporary implementation of these strategies being documented. Subsections should be added to this section to explain these strategies and any recorded use in Africa.
 * I believe the organization and writing have to be changed dramatically as they currently do not reflect the style and informational standard of Wikipedia. The article needs a more comprehensive organization so that locating specific information is not difficult.
 * Suggested Organization:
 * Lead
 * Africa's Vulnerability to Climate Change
 * I believe this section would be a productive way to begin the article. Information on this topic is mentioned in the second paragraph of the "Effects of Climate Change on African Food Security" section, but I think it would be helpful to dedicate more thought towards it in the beginning of the article.
 * Effects of Climate Change on African Food Security by Region
 * Within this section and it's regional subsections, effort should be made to include information on contemporary food security issues in these areas, as well as the specific climate and environmental realities of the regions.
 * Central Africa
 * Eastern Africa
 * North Africa
 * West Africa and the Sahel
 * Southern Africa
 * African Food Security and Climate Change Adaptation Strategies
 * As previously suggested, individual adaptation strategies should be more thoroughly explained and accredited to the strategies developers.
 * Current Applications of Adaptation Strategies in Africa
 * This section provides an opportunity to improve the scope of the article and give the readers information on contemporary movements in Africa that are combatting food security issues caused by climate change.
 * The article could benefit from better use of media and images. Currently, the article includes only one image of a Ugandan farmer taken in 2009, and no other forms of media. Understanding the effects of climate change on the environment can be helped greatly by visual aid. An effort should be made to include media such as informational thematical maps that display the effects of climate change, and visual displays of climate and environmental data.
 * This would be especially helpful in the section explaining the effects of climate change on food security, visuals displaying deforestation, the spread of diseases, increasing temperatures, altered rainfall patterns, agricultural yields, droughts and floods, etc. could potentially all be used.

Overall, this article is successful in explaining the relationship between climate change and food security in Africa, but it is not written to the standards of a Wikipedia article. There Issues concerning the lack of a comprehensive organization and informational depth, and missed opportunities to expand the scope of the article to include current events and regional complexity. But currently, those are less important than the problems surrounding a lack of citations and verifiable information