ChaosCheese201

Bio

Thank you for visiting my page. My name is Jaydin, I am a student editor in the Pacific North Westr. I enjoy playing video games, particularly, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Smash, PUBG, Civilization V, and Town of Salem. I am also an amateur photographer, learning about the camera and how to set up your shots. I am into politics, and love a good, civil debate. Another thing I enjoy is cooking and eating food, which, lucky for me, go hand in hand. My aunt is always giving cooking lessons to me on how to prepare and eat easy delicious meals. I am a freshman in college and look forward to earning an AA degree in General Engineering!

I hope to contribute to Wikipedia things that I find interesting. One topic I enjoy learning and researching is animals, this will be one way I can contribute to Wikipedia. Another way I may contribute is writing about any of my favorite hobbies I have listed previously. Lastly, as I am in English Composition, I will be writing about any topics required of me.

Article Critique

Wikipedia has many great articles to read. It is an easy way to gather quick information. I have a critique for one of the articles I visited, and I will show how sometimes Wikipedia isn't always the best source.I was looking at speed limit information the other day on Wikipedia and the article I visited was The Speed limits in the United States page on Wikipedia, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: confusing information, bad structure, and lack of citing.

Confusing information

One major confusing part of the article is that it states that Washington has a maximum posted speed limit of 70, but on the graph they provide it shows 75 as the highest speed. This is explained later in the article, however it should be consistent with the rest of the article. It would be much more clear if the article states what it's graphics are showing. The opening paragraphs are another point of confusing information. It does not provide the basic who, what, when, where, why, and how. Instead it talks about random facts better suited for the different section in the article. There is a particular sentence in the opening paragraph that bothered me. It breaks speeds down into sections, while not defining what those sections are. It claims speed is 70 on the West Coast and inland Eastern states, but does not draw a boundary. Lastly, the article has a confusing and controversial sentence. It talks about a speed trap, saying it's entire purpose is to generate revenue. The link to the speed trap Wikipedia explains that the purpose is to "increase driver compliance with speed limits." It also states that the authority is "appropriate." The link provided completely contradict what the Speed Limits in the United States article says. Their statement was bias, and does not belong on the article.

Bad structure

The article has sub-par structure. It includes repetitive information such as in the first paragraphs, talking about who sets the speed limits. The article states that the limits are set by the state, it continues on to state the same thing in the last sentence but adding a part about counties being able to also set lower speed limits. I do not see a reason why these two sentences couldn't be combined into one. Combining these two parts should improve article structure. Another part of the bad structure is sentences and paragraphs not belonging to where they are set. For instance the article has a sentence that includes a certain time frame when the government withheld funds for speed limits over 55. This was placed in the last sentence of the introduction segment, as a one-sentence paragraph. This seemed very out of place, as it is not essential for the reader to know in the opening paragraph. This should not be included in the introduction, but should be included in the section titled "history." This would make much more sense. I was dismayed to find a section titled, "examples of related laws." It takes a few states, and talks about some laws made on the topic of speeding. However this does not make sense since they only include a few states on this short list. This would belong in it's own Wikipedia article. I felt like I was reading a snip-it from another Wikipedia article that was copy pasted into this article. The solution would be to create an article for speeding laws in different states, or just cut it out entirely. One last minor detail, would be a sentence at the end of the history section. It talks about states having speeds of 70 or higher. This information can be found on the speed chart the article provides. While this is a useful, and convenient piece of information, I would add a section after the chart, explaining a breakdown of the information.

Citations

There is a distinct lack of citing in this article. It need so many more citations. There are way too many examples of missing citations to fit in a paragraph. Two notable ones would be the lack of citations for the maximum speed limits of each state. Some of these have citation, but there are too many without. It seems simple to pull up the states website to view it's speed laws. Another notable missing citation is the night speed limit section. This section has no citations within it, and in fact, has a warning banner as a result. There should be citations in that section, just as every other section. There are much much more missing citations, but to point them all out would make this section too long.

Summery

Overall I would rate this page bad. It as too many problems with it. The article has confusing information, being bias and providing contradictory information. The article has bad structure by putting sentences in the wrong places. Lastly, the article has a distinct lack of citations, ignoring several un-cited facts, and leaving several state speed limits without citation. Fixing these points would improve this article greatly.