Talk:American Farm Bureau

First (instructor) evaluation comments

Hi Mike,

Here are some suggestions for further improvements to your encyclopedia entry draft:

• Don't forget to include an introductory overview, replace the Microsoft stuff in the infobox with information about the Farm Bureau, and fill out the related articles and bibliography subpages.
• The "History" section contains a lot of good information, but would benefit from more careful organization. You might put the "founding" subsection first and then create additional subsections that chronicle the AFBF's development since 1919. In addition, you might work on making the section more reader-friendly by spelling out things like the significance of the Morrill and Hatch acts for the AFBF's founding.
• The information in the "Current objectives and activities" and "Organizational Structure" sections should be in paragraph rather than list form.
• The "Achievements" section is off to a good start with its discussion of the Farm Bureau's insurance company; you might develop it further with similar discussions of other achievements (including especially legislative victories)
• The discussion of the public opinion about public perceptions of farmers in the "Public perceptions and controversies" section is very interesting; however, you should cite your source and provide a little more context regarding the significance of this research in your own words. You might also consider including some discussion of the the politics surrounding agricultural subsidies and other policy debates in which the AFBF has played a leading role.

Shamira Gelbman 20:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Second (peer) evaluation comments

-There is a lot of good information and the long history of AFB makes it difficult, but organization is the main problem with this article. Discuss the founding before general history. Discuss the original mission statement before mentioning the 2nd statement. The article starts very abruptly. -Change the introduction. Delete intro instructions and add the introductory sentence. Change the Microsoft logo and general info for Microsoft. -Change the structure of the article to paragraph form rather than a list of facts. Elaborate on the events you have clearly researched. -This article needs to be proofread. For instance, the beginning of the Achievements section says "...not only just covers"-Revise this. -The Public Perception section is interesting but you should try to add information about controversy. For instance, I read an article about the AFB's support for tax incentives on corn growth for ethanol production. There is debate over whether to abolish this tax. The debate could represent a controversy for farmers involved with AFB who support the tax. -Overall, the article just needs to be reread and put into a more coherent form that flows better from event to event. -Doris Weil