User:RandomSTAY/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.) Agriculture in the United States

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 the article on Agriculture in the United States because I wanted to add to the history section. The history of agriculture in the United States matters because many of the practices we have today came from other countries. My preliminary impression was that the article can definitely be updated to include more information on the impact black people had on agriculture.

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.)


 * The introductory sentence for the lead is not as clear as it should be, since it fails to describe what agriculture is. The main topic is not brought up; instead, the article starts off by listing the expanse of American agriculture in terms of production and land usage. The lead does include a brief description of the crops that vary by location, but not all of the major sections are mentioned. The lead also includes a description of the technology that allowed for American agriculture to flourish, but that information was not brought up again later in the article. Overall, the lead included too many specific facts and statistics, and not enough of a general overview on agriculture.
 * The content of the article was relevant to the topic, but it was not up to date. There are recent examples that could be used instead of the old censuses of agriculture. As mentioned before, content on technology was missing in the body of the article. Machines like the cotton gin were only brought up in the lead, and left that way. Although the article does include an under-represented population, which is female farmers, it fails to include the full role of the African peoples, another under-represented group, in developing agricultural techniques.
 * Despite the lack of inclusion, the article is not too biased. The writing is informative and straight to the point, with no opinions inserted. The only bias in the text is the history aspect of agriculture, which is told through the lens that white Americans created the systems of agriculture we know today. The viewpoint that African peoples contributed more than just labor- they contributed ideas- is not included.
 * The articles don't include various viewpoints, but the sources used are reliable and thorough. They relate to the topic. Even though the sources are reliable, they are on the older side, and they do not include marginalized points of view, such as that of non-white Americans. In relation to the topic, the sources used are the best fitting. For example, USDA studies are cited on several occasions, which makes sense since the USDA is a credible group when is comes to agriculture. The links to relevant articles and go the sources used all work.
 * The article is easy to read because of the lack of grammatical or spelling errors, but it could be organized in a more efficient format. The topics in the article are arranged randomly, when certain topics relate and could easily be put next to each other.
 * The inclusion of pictures also seems random. Out of the 6 pictures used, the only two that serve a purpose are the infographics. The rest of the pictures are labeled, but they simply do not contribute to the article. The images used do follow Wikipedia '' s copyright laws, since most of them come from websites managed by the government. Visually, the images are formatted nicely.
 * The article is rated start class, high importance, and it is part of the WikiProject United States, WikiProject Agriculture, and WikiProject Occupational Safety and Health.
 * A conversation in the Talk page that stood out was the mention of Native American exclusion in relation to crops. A user mentioned how Natives are excluded, yet they had a great impact on agriculture, and another user responded saying that out of the top 10 crops, only 2 trace back to native origins. Overall, the article differs from what he have discussed in class because the role of Africans and natives is downplayed. In class, we acknowledge the importance these groups has on agriculture both in terms of technology developed and labor-wise, while Wikipedia gives all the credit to Americans.
 * The article seems to have a strong foundation, but it has plenty of room for improvement. New information, as well as divergent viewpoints, can help strengthen the article. Although the concept of American agriculture is decently developed, the history section is underdeveloped. Status-wise, I would say this article is a work in progress.RandomSTAY (talk) 04:46, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Instructor Feedback on Article Evaluation
Nice work! I agree that the history section could be improved to show the contributions people other than the European colonists. The first link goes to New World Crops, which is good, but it could also usefully point to crops from Africa that we've read about. If you choose to develop this article, see not just Judith Carney's Black Rice (the whole thing, not just the excerpt we read), but also her other book on other African crops. For farmer demographics, you can get information on Latinx farmers in the book and articles by Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern. The section on Land Ownership Laws could also usefully reference different forms of racism in the history of land-ownership laws, or perhaps be usefully rethought to cover Land Ownership, in general, rather than Land Ownership Laws. There are lots of forms of racism and sexism that have affected land ownership that haven't necessarily been codified in law. Linking to existing articles on Wikipedia that cover relevant social equity issues in agriculture will be an important contribution, such as

Black land loss in the United States

Pigford v. Glickman (Saguaro23 (talk) 18:42, 6 September 2021 (UTC))