User:ScienceEditsUAB/Evaluate an Article
 | Evaluate an article
Complete your article evaluation below. Here are the key aspects to consider: Lead sectionA good lead section defines the topic and provides a concise overview. A reader who just wants to identify the topic can read the first sentence. A reader who wants a very brief overview of the most important things about it can read the first paragraph. A reader who wants a quick overview can read the whole lead section.
ContentA good Wikipedia article should cover all the important aspects of a topic, without putting too much weight on one part while neglecting another.
Tone and BalanceWikipedia articles should be written from a neutral point of view; if there are substantial differences of interpretation or controversies among published, reliable sources, those views should be described as fairly as possible.
Sources and ReferencesA Wikipedia article should be based on the best sources available for the topic at hand. When possible, this means academic and peer-reviewed publications or scholarly books.
Organization and writing qualityThe writing should be clear and professional, the content should be organized sensibly into sections.
Images and Media
Talk page discussionThe article's talk page — and any discussions among other Wikipedia editors that have been taking place there — can be a useful window into the state of an article, and might help you focus on important aspects that you didn't think of.
Overall impressions
Examples of good feedbackA good article evaluation can take a number of forms. The most essential things are to clearly identify the biggest shortcomings, and provide specific guidance on how the article can be improved. |
Which article are you evaluating?
[edit]Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
[edit]This article was chosen because it is related to phenotypic plasticity. The article has a wide variety of information, more than what was expected. The article is well developed with easy to follow sub-sections. Ecotype is related to phenotypic plasticity, speciation, and to geographic origins of phenotypic characters. The article also has images, a lengthy references section, and links to other helpful wikipedia pages. Overall, the article looks well established and has good readability.
Evaluate the article
[edit]Lead Section - The article gives a brief definition of what an ecotype is before going into better detail. The leading statement correctly describes what the article will breakdown. In this case, it suggests that the article will provide information on how ecotypes come about through environmental factors relating to geography. Then, it connects speciation to the topic as a whole. Everything that was in the article is perfectly, shortly described in this section.
Content - The articles content is all relevant to the topic. Most sections seem to be equally developed besides the Ecotype and Speciation heading that appears to have more information than the others. The information is up to date because the wikipedia article is not written on a topic that has experienced any recent scientific breakthroughs. The Terminology section is mostly useful, but does seem to include information that would better be suited to another or its own subheading. Specifically the part mentioning the distinction between local ecotypes and genetic polymorphisms. The article helpfully suggests examples of specific ecotypes in nature which allows the audience to interact with the material on a more easily understood basis. However, the article can become wordy and hard to understand for an audience that is not particularly involved in the scientific community.
Tone and Balance - The tone of the piece is neutral and accurately describes an ecotypes relationship with speciation without trying to prove that speciation always comes from varying ecotypes. There are no varying viewpoints to consider in this article, as it is an article describing a common environment based biological process.
Sources and References - Upon reviewing the references section, the sources are quite abundant and there are many in text citations to provide context for the content in each of the sections. The references provide information on all organisms that exhibit ecotypes (plants and animals) and appear to give a broad understanding of the topic from many angles. Sources are credible, like those from Harvard Press and other Biological journals. The sources also include reviews and excerpts from books, which are all valuable sources to utilize. All links work correctly and lead you directly to journal interfaces such as Science Direct. Lastly, many of the sources were retrieved within the last year, which suggests that the article is edited and up to date.
Organization and Writing Quality - The article is user friendly, with the content becoming more detailed as the piece progresses. However, it can be challenging to read at times, with such dense pockets of scientific terminology. This is partially ameliorated by the terminology section of the article, but it doesn't necessarily give easy to understand content on the terminology itself. This may be a slightly challenging read for audience members with little to no scientific background. Despite that, the article is still concise, for the most part, and is organized well.
Images and Media - The images included are properly captioned and do relate to the topics where they are placed. An example of this would be the image depicting the geographic distribution of certain ecotypes. This photo accurately displays what was talked about in the text to the left of it. All pictures are relevant, though the article could benefit from more imagery because the topic is one that is mostly observed through observation (ecotypes deal with the phenotypic and physical characteristics of something). The pictures all are described as being publicly available.
Talk Page Discussion - Within the talk page editors ask for reviews of the edits they have made and deletions of content were explained. However, the talk page is not very active for this article, suggesting that edits are not continuously being made. The article is rated as Start-Class meaning that it is still incomplete and could benefit from further edits. The article was part of a Wiki Education project.
Overall Impressions - The article has presented a good baseline for discussion on ecotypes. It has a lot of credible references but is hard to understand and could benefit from layman's terms. This article presents a lot of information but is still unfinished. The article could use more collaboration from interested people. It could also benefit from sections on inner-ecotype interactions and the effect of adaptation or natural selection on ecotypes.