User:Stephburns19/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: Agent Orange
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate: I have chosen to evaluate this article because it is the assigned article for my ecotoxicology project and I am interested in learning the impacts of Agent Orange.

Lead

 * Guiding questions

The lead includes an introductory describing the basics of what agent orange is and what it was used for during the Vietnam War. The lead doesn't exactly provide a brief description of the articles major sections, but it discusses them in minor detail. Some details about where agent orange was used in other places, such as Brazil, was only mentioned once and then never again in the rest of the article. The lead is concise and perfectly detailed.


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

 * Guiding questions

The content in the article is all relevant to the topic and describes all the policies, uses and, legal battles, and effects of agent orange, but doesn't go into too much detail for the ecological effects. The content is up to date based on the references in this wikipedia page. Similarly to what I said previously, there is a section for "use outside vietnam" in the article, but it does not include Brazil in this part, it was only briefly mentioned in the lead. The article has a brief section on how this chemical affected the Vietnamese people but has longer sections about how US veterans were affected, which is a way of underrepresenting this population.


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
 * Does the article deal with one of Wikipedia's equity gaps? Does it address topics related to historically underrepresented populations or topics?

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions

The article is neutral and addresses many of the problems with agent orange in an unbiased tone. Therefore, no claims seem heavily biased toward any particular people. Some possible viewpoints that may be underrepresented is the two sides that were fighting in the Vietnam war. The article does not attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position.


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions

There are 163 sources that are sited in this article as well as multiple references, books, goverment reports, news and videos. The sources do reflect available literature and are current. The sources do not seem to be very diverse, mostly from men in america. One source says "missing or empty". The links I checked seem to work.


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Are the sources written by a diverse spectrum of authors? Do they include historically marginalized individuals where possible?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization

 * Guiding questions

The article is concise, clear and easy to read and I didn't see any grammatical errors. It is also well-organized but should have much bigger ecological impacts and toxicology sections. It is also properly broken up into sections and topics.


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions

There are some images of sites with the agent orange, a helicopter spraying agent orange, and some informational pictures and well is pictures showing leaking agent orange barrels.There's also before and after pictures of the areas where agent orange were sprayed that capture the impact of this substance. The images are well captioned, although there is one image that does not show up at all, but there is a caption present. The images are appealing.


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions

On the talk page, the requests for the article are to remove some legal phrases in the lead paragraph, as well as requests for additonal information. Addition information that has been requested is the physical characteristics of agent orange, such as color, smell or taste. Another subject on the talk page has to do with the health affects of agent orange. The artucke is rated as a Natural Sciences good article as well as a level-5 vital article. It also lists me and Florence as Wiki Education educators. The topic differs from in class discussions because it goes much more into detail about legal issues and health affects of agent orange.


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions

The article was last reviewed on Marth 30, 2017. The status is good. The main strengths of the article are how it was used as a war tactic and the legal battles proceeding, as well as government battles between different countries. There are some sections that have only one sentence, so this could be improved. Another improvement should be with the ecotoxicology section. The article is mostly complete except for the issues I mentioned above. The article is well-developed, but could use some improvements.


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

with four tildes — ~


 * Link to feedback: