User:Rrwolff21/be bold

"Article Evaluation" -- Sacramento River
Evaluating Content


 * Yes, for the most part all of the information on the Sacramento River page looked to be relevant. The article touches on the ecology/geology of the area, the history, environmental challenges, California valley agriculture, green energy, and flooding; all of these elements are important to understanding the past and present state of the Sacramento River. There were no sections that felt disjointed or out of place. As a whole, the article functions together nicely and provides an abundance of information with plenty of resources included.
 * While everything in the article is up to date in terms of content, the article could use some updated figures, perhaps regarding rainfall to coincide with the section that discusses rainfall and drought. Additionally, a section on climate change and the effects on the river and local species could supplement this article well.
 * More maps might help in the layout of the page to help better illustrate the text and give readers who many not be familiar with the area some visuals to provide a better layout for visual learners.

Evaluating Tone


 * While not necessarily controversial in nature, this article does a good job of simply reporting the facts. There is no part of the article that appears to be bias and the information is presented clearly. More controversial parts of the article (discussing the natural history of the region and the conflict between Native tribes and settlers) present the information without inflicted emotion. The writing itself is straight and to the point - it is informative.
 * Again, this article is not overly controversial so it is quite easy to take a factual and distant approach. The article does not have too many times where it has to discuss both sides of the issue. One area where future editors come, perhaps do a better job is in presenting the view point of farmers. The end of the article discusses pollution in the region and its harmful impacts. While pollution is extremely harmful, the article does not discuss the importance of agriculture to the region and the difficulties farmers have in presenting runoff into rivers and waterways.

Sources


 * Yes, the links to several of the articles work. The sources are diverse, varied, and seem to support the general consensus presented in the article. Additionally, many of the pages present similar information as other sources, increasing the viability of these sources.
 * For the most part, all of the sources used look to be reliable and non-biases. A variety of sources (and a large number) are used as well. Some are newspaper articles from local papers, but others are from books, peer-reviewed research articles, and state/government websites. The authors include a large amount of information from the US Geological Survey and the California State Parks system. No site looks to be inappropriate. Some articles could use names and better identification, but it looks quite clear for the most part. Coming from these sources the information appears to be non-bias and strongly supported.

Talk


 * The talk page of this topic is very well-developed. The authors all collaborated together and used each other to verify information and obtain needed resources. The contributors worked through some data that others found confusing to correctly establish the correct values and compared ideas.
 * The page is apart of Wiki Project California, which explores the history and past of California. The article is a rated "B" and "Top Importance".
 * I think that this article is concerned less about the environmental impacts of the area and is concerned more with providing the reader with a general overview of the topic. It does discuss the ecology of the region and some components of pollution, however, it is more a natural history approach than discussing the actually challenges and solutions that Sacramento Ecosystems face.

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1) Desert Riparian

 * Yes, this article's content is related to the topic; the content discusses the specific biome, its geography, and its biotic elements.
 * The article is written neutrally, but it is way too short - about only 10 sentences.
 * Yes, each claim does have a citation, although, they all come from the same source.
 * The article only has one listed citation, however there are many more books and articles about this topic. The listed book looks to be reliable, but is not correctly cited.
 * Not enough information

2) Biological Globalization

 * Yes, this article's content is related to the topic; the content discusses how global content introduced biotic to non-native locations.
 * The article seems as if it might have some false information in it; some information provided by the author contradicts the cited statements.
 * No, each claim does not have a citation, and some of the information seems to be guesses of misconceptions by the author; there is information that is unsupported.
 * The article only has three listed citations. One citation does not provide enough identifying information, the other is a dictionary definition, and the third a peer-reviewed article.
 * A little too broad -- would need to narrow

3) Woodruff v. North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company

 * Currently no page for this court case --- Important because it involves CA's first environmental lawsuit following the Gold Rush
 * Lots of available sources - books, journal articles, state park information -- well documented and scholarly research
 * Addresses ecosystem destruction, the role of industry, tragedy of the commons, ethics, environmental law
 * Strong connections to course themes
 * Able to write a well-supported page