User:Paul1204/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Noise pollution

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.)

I chose this article because the topic interests me and it is something we have been discussing in class. Since coming to college, I have noticed a lot more noise pollution since campus is in the cities and back home the environment is pretty quiet compared to here. My impression of the article was that it primarily focused on how noise pollution impacts organisms physiologically, and does not go into detail about the theory we discuss in class.

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.)

Lead Section

I think that the first sentence does a nice job of summing up the topic as a whole, but not the article itself. So much of the article is dedicated to how noise pollution impacts health and specifically invertebrates/ocean life, which is not touched upon until the third paragraph. I think the lead section dedicates too much content to research on noise pollution in regards to marine life, and I think this article could flow better if that section was moved to the content area. It seems too detailed to be in the lead section and the main point could instead just be given in a sentence or two.

Content

The content appears to be relevant to the topic of noise pollution and up to date. The noise control section seems like it could be added to, as it is very short compared to the rest of the sections. There are large sections of the article dedicated to how noise pollution impacts communication, development, and ecosystems but mainly seems to focus on invertebrates/ocean life and could benefit from having how humans are impacted by these areas added to those sections as well.

Tone and Balance

The article appears to be mostly neutral, but at times feels biased against the topic of noise pollution overall. The article seems to be focused on the negative impacts of noise pollution, and not the neutral impacts or the some of the other reasons behind noise pollution. The viewpoint of it having a negative impact on marine life I think is overrepresented and could be cut down to be more concise to make room for how it impacts human society and culture.

Sources and References

The sources all appear to be credible, the links work, and are current. However there are a lot more sources on the "concrete" information on noise pollution (data, scientific research, health guidelines, etc.) than there are on more "abstract" information and theory. For instance there are only 2 sources in this category and both are dedicated to Schafer out of almost 100 sources total. This section needs improvement on reflecting the available literature on the topic of noise pollution.

Organization and Writing Quality

The writing quality of this article is good. There were no noticeable grammar mistakes and the writing had an academic tone while still being easy to understand. The organization however could use some improvement. Once again I feel there was too much dedicated to the impacts of noise pollution on marine life and not enough on humans/society and these topics need to be balanced. There was also too much detail on the impacts on marine life in the introductory paragraphs that could be saved for the content area.

Images and Media

The images and media used in this article did a good job of demonstrating what was being explained in the article and appear to be cited correctly. They were also well-captioned to the point that they could stand alone even without the context of the article and were laid out in a visually appealing manner.

Talk Page Discussion

The talk page seemed to suggest a lot of the edits that I suggested in my review. There is a section dedicated to clarity edits and multiple sections dedicated to deleting information that strays too far from the main topic of the article. There was also a push for less emphasis on the impact noise pollution had on marine life and more on humans, which I still feel is lacking. There are also a number of edits that work to make the article more neutral and makes sure it backs up any blanket statements made in the text. The article has been rated as C-class in most categories but in the medicine WikiProject it was rated as Start-class. It is a part of a number of WikiProjects, including Engineering, Professional sound production, Physics/Fluid Dynamics/Acoustics, Environment, Medicine, and South Africa/PSP SA. It is different from how we have discussed noise pollution in class in that it focuses more on the biological effects on marine life for instance, than the theory and more abstract ideas behind noise pollution.

Overall Impressions

Overall, the article feels a bit on the under-developed side in terms of encompassing the entire idea of noise pollution. I think there is a lot of room to talk about how noise pollution in the context we have been discussing it in class. The article's strengths are definitely in the data it presents and the scientific importance.