Area vs. Perimeter for the Geometry Dummy

Once again the little elves over at Leaf Group have decided to "freshen" their content with a rewrite; once again the update isn't much (if any) of an improvement over the original. Our "dead link" intern learned while checking on an older Charlotte Johnson post that rewrite staffer Lisa Maloney had attempted to bring an aging Sciencing.com post, "How to Calculate Square Feet From the Perimeter," up to snuff. Unfortunately, all she did was reword the post with little or no improvement of its actual content.

We originally took Johnson to task for narrow thinking, opining that,

"Rather than explaining that you can calculate the area of any regular polygon from the perimeter if you are willing to perform the necessary geometric, algebraic and trigonometric calisthenics, Charlotte simply says you can calculate the area of a square or circle."

Lo and behold, Maloney took precisely the same tack in her rewrite. All she did was recast the instructions for calculating the area of a square (she says A = (P/4)² ) and the area of a circle from the circumference (A = C²/4π ). Big whoop. Before we harangue you about the fact that there are a lot more shapes than just circles and squares and it is definitely possible (although tedious) to calculate the area of any polygon of any shape, let's see whether Lisa is the sort of fabulous wordsmith¹ Leaf Group employs for its rewrite team. Of course, one never knows whether the following examples of freelance bogosity are Maloney's or her content editor's...

• "Often, it's much easier to measure perimeter than area of real-world objects." – Let's get real, Lisa: with very few exceptions, it's impossible to measure area...
• "A square is the easiest shape for calculating area based on perimeter, between each of its sides is 1/4 the length of the perimeter." – Wait, what: "between" the sides???
• "...circumference refers only to round or ovoid objects..." – Not really, Lisa: "circumference" refers to the perimeter of a two-dimensional curved shape... an ovoid is a three-dimensional shape. Lisa should know that.

Sorry, Leaf-People, this is not an improvement. It's narrowly-focused and makes the sophomoric assumption that someone would only want to know the area of two of the myriad shapes in the world. Yes, Maloney got her two examples right – so, for that matter, did Charlotte in her version of the answer. Neither of them even mentioned that there is a general formula for the calculating the area of any regular polygon as well as a computational method for calculating the area of an irregular polygon.
No wonder Maloney, like Johnson before her, has picked up a Dumbass of the Day award.

¹ Her only qualification seems to be having once been a math tutor...

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