User:Salliejohnson99/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Option 1

 * Article title
 * "Sustainability in Construction"


 * Article Evaluation
 * The lead is lacking an introductory sentence that provides a neutral and overarching explanation of what sustainable construction encompasses- instead it goes straight into differences in the definitions proposed by different countries. It also does not mention what sections the article is going to cover. This article discusses first the definitions of sustainable construction, then it's evolution, benefits, and relevant strategies. One immediate concern I notice with the content is that the first two sections are very repetitive, since the overview gives different definitions of sustainable construction and the second section simply repeats these definitions. I also think the section "Evolution Path" could be renamed to history and developed significantly. In general, none of the sections go into much detail, and are poorly organized.
 * Wikipedia flags the article as being written in the style of a personal reflection or argumentative essay since it reveals the author's feelings towards the topic, so it could be improved in the tone used and the style of language. This is especially apparent in the section titled "Why encourage sustainable construction," which reveals the author is biased toward the implementation of sustainable construction practices. Overall, the article could be more concise and easier to read. There are a few typos and grammatical errors that need to be cleaned up, and the organization is not very intuitive. The section titled "Evolution Path" is not well thought out, and misses important points.
 * Finally, the article does not contain any images. I believe images would be very helpful for the reader's understanding of the topic, especially for the strategies section where images could display examples of the strategies being used in real life. In general, images would be helpful in showing examples of sustainable construction and the various phases of the process.


 * Sources
 * Du Plessis, Chrisna. "Agenda 21 for sustainable construction in developing countries." CSIR Report BOU E 204 (2002).
 * Du Plessis, Chrisna. "A strategic framework for sustainable construction in developing countries." Construction management and economics 25.1 (2007): 67-76.
 * Hill, Richard C., and Paul A. Bowen. "Sustainable construction: principles and a framework for attainment." Construction Management & Economics 15.3 (1997): 223-239.

Option 2

 * Article title
 * "Rural Poverty"


 * Article Evaluation
 * This article is already fairly developed, and I like that it includes case studies for several sections in order to emphasize the topics discussed. The section I would focus on is lack of infrastructure under contributing factors. My immediate concern with this section of the article is a lack of citations (only one citation at the end of the section), despite the fact that it is fairly long. The source cited discusses the impact of roads on security and social delivery. As a result, most of this section focuses on road infrastructure, and there are many other important forms of infrastructure development that is relevant to rural poverty.


 * Sources
 * Oosterveer, Peter, and Gert Spaargaren. "Meeting social challenges in developing sustainable environmental infrastructures in East African cities." Social perspectives on the sanitation challenge. Springer, Dordrecht, 2010. 11-30.

Option 3

 * Article title
 * "Rural Development"


 * Article Evaluation
 * This article is very underdeveloped- it only includes a lead section, one titled "Development Actions," and two sections "The components of rural development" and "Rural development agencies" which only contain links to other articles. The lead section first defines rural development, and then gives a brief overview of the evolution of rural development from primarily agriculture natural-resource based initiatives to a diversification of industry to include tourism, recreation, etc. In general, this section is strong and gives the reader a good sense of what the term means, despite one or two spelling/grammatical errors in the lead.
 * The following section, "Development actions," is not as strong as the lead, but it still provides some valuable information. For example, it discussed the history of top-down approaches to rural development and mentioned the importance of participation, and the importance of participation strategies such as Participatory Rural Appraisal, Rapid Rural Appraisal, etc. This section could benefit from reorganization, potentially splitting into top-down approaches and bottom-down approaches sub sections, and should probably be retitled "Approaches to Rural Development." I also think this section would be a great place to include some case studies of different approaches, since an initiative to increase in participation in China is briefly mentioned but not really explained. I could potentially add a case-study of Uganda to this section. It might also be helpful to include a separate section discussing rural development in developed countries and one discussing rural development in developing countries.
 * Finally, the article includes one image, which shows a picture of the Vivekananda Institute for Rural Development studies, which is not very relevant to the discussion. It would be better to include images of rural development practices, such as diversification of industry, improved infrastructure, etc.


 * Sources
 * Kakumba, Umar, and S. Nsingo. "Citizen participation in local government and the process of rural development: the rhetoric and reality in Uganda." Journal of public administration 43.2 (2008): 107-123.
 * Kakumba, Umar. "Local government citizen participation and rural development: reflections on Uganda’s decentralization system." International Review of Administrative Sciences 76.1 (2010): 171-186.
 * Patrick, Mbyemeire, et al. "Community participation and rural development in Bushenyi District, Western Uganda." Journal of Asian Development 2.2 (2018): 21-32.