User:SiewswerdnA/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Asteroid mining

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have always been fascinated by space, and I think the idea of mining asteroids for supplies and transporting it back to earth is a cool idea.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

This article starts off with a concise clear statement that describes the topic well. As the first sentence of the article, it does a good job at setting everything up. From what I can see, this introductory section does not include any information that is not present in the main body of the article, and is not overly detailed. It has a general description of each of the article’s major sections, with hyperlinks that take us directly to the specific section once clicked. This lead section does exactly what it is supposed to, give me the reader a quick general overview. I do think a longer explanation of the term “asteroid mining” would be beneficial though.

Content

Skimming through the article, it looks like all main sections do pertain to the topic of asteroid mining, including topics I would not have even thought of like the financial side and the environmental impact. This article also includes where the idea of asteroid mining first came up, like in fiction stories and video games, which I thought was pretty cool. The content is also up to date, with many of the sources cited having information from 1016-2020. This article is composed of 13 main topics, with some having a number of subtopics as well. Going through the table of contents, it does not seem like there is any information missing. Clicking through the table of contents, it does seem like each topic is throughly researched and has enough information to be considered a legitimate article overall.

Tone and Balance

I do believe that this article is written from a neutral point of view. The article does seem to be a little biased in the sense that most of the content consists of the positive side and logistics of mining, and does not really have a main section for the “negatives” of asteroid mining. They briefly mention some negatives throughout the article, but overall it is just facts and positives. However, this could also mean that there really is no negative side to asteroid mining. The topics of environmental impacts and financials are a little underrepresented in this article, as those sections are noticeably shorter than the other sections. Also, this article was written about asteroid mining by someone who is obviously very interested in the subject, so I do think the purpose is to persuade the reader in favor of this future endeavor. However, all the facts are listed plainly without a saturation of descriptor words, so I would consider it neutral.

Sources and References

Every sentence of information in this article is followed by a cite. The authors of this article have included over 100 different sources, as well as a separate source section for external links like videos and texts that are related as well, so there is definitely a diverse spectrum of authors and information mediums. After scrolling through the works cited, I would say 90% of the sources listed are current, with dates from 2017-2020. All 114 sources seem to be legitimate as well; I scrolled through and clicked on a number of them at random, and they all pulled up relevant information.

Organization and Writing Quality

The writing is concise and easy to read. Some sections of this article might be… overexploited and too wordy, but even then it is still very easy to follow along. This article is definitely not for someone without a little bit of science knowledge though, as many scientific terms are used throughout the article. No grammatical issues noticed. This article has been edited by many authors in the past so I am assuming if there was any spelling errors, it was edited out a while ago. The article is also well organized, with main topics broken down int sections and subsections.

Images and Media

I do this this article is severely lacking images and media. There are two images placed at the top of the article, but their quality is poor and their captions are lacking. For a topic as complex as asteroid mining, a number of pictures or drawings would have been nice to illustrate some of the processes they discussed.

Talk Page Discussion

There are many different discussions on this article, including the history, questions on environmental impacts and financials, and legal frameworks. Many people also posted links to pictures and videos on this topic, as the article itself is void of actual media. On the “Quality Scale” this article has been rated as a C-Class project, and on the “Importance scale it was rated as a “High Importance”. This article is also within the “WikiProject Spaceflight” which is a collaborative effort to improve coverage of spaceflight on Wikipedia.

Overall Impressions

I think this article overall is well developed and has the right amount of information to be considered a legitimate source on asteroid mining. Some strengths include the amount of detail put into the article and the number of credible sources used. The article can be improved by adding detail on topics like the environmental impact and financial side of mining, and also making some of the bigger sections in this article more concise. Also, adding pictures to make the concepts listed more easily visualized and easier to follow along for those who are not familiar with the science behind it.