User:Spbio2245/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

Complete your article evaluation below. Here are the key aspects to consider:

Lead section

A 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.

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? (It shouldn't.)
Is the lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Content

A good Wikipedia article should cover all the important aspects of a topic, without putting too much weight on one part while neglecting another.

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

Wikipedia 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.

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

Sources and References

A 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.

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?
Are there better sources available, such as peer-reviewed articles in place of news coverage or random websites? (You may need to do some digging to answer this.)
Check a few links. Do they work?

Organization and writing quality

The writing should be clear and professional, the content should be organized sensibly into sections.

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

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?

Talk page discussion

The 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.

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

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?

Examples of good feedback

A 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.

Peer review of this article about a famous painting

Which article are you evaluating?

Abiotic stress

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?

This article is relevant to the course content. This article was also part of/ the subject of multiple other course assignments, giving me the ability to see how other students have interacted with the page. My preliminary impression is that it does a good job of remaining concise in the lead section while including enough relevant information to remain descriptive. However, it seems as if some sections are written with subjective language and unnecessary bits of imagery that don't benefit the entry.

Evaluate the article

Overall I think this article does a decent job of providing an overview of the topic and includes a few good supporting examples. However, I also think that at times it struggles to remain objective in its wording (examples below), and sprinkles in a few sentences that contain unnecessary imagery. I think it would benefit the article to refocus on purely factual information and eliminate any subjective claims. Perhaps the most pressing issues with this entry are its citations. There are instances of direct plagiarism (word-for-word copies) paired with a citation that attributes the claim to the wrong source. There are also claims being made that don't include a citation, but are not necessarily common knowledge and therefore should be cited. In summary, despite it containing solid information and providing a good introduction to the topic, this article needs a lot of work to clean it up and, in some sections, should be completely rewritten to avoid plagiarism.

Some specific recommendations are:

Regarding the first paragraph in the "Benefits" subsection:
- I think this paragraph touches on an important point regarding how stress is not always a negative influence on an ecosystem. However, I don't think it does enough to support the idea of fires being beneficial to forests. It devotes almost as much space to talking about the negative impacts on humans, trees and birds as it does to the benefits to the forest. I think there are a few different effects that could be mentioned while maintaining brevity. For example, the effects of small-scale fires on the overall ecosystem's resilience against larger fires, or even a link to the the entry for secondary succession could help support the scientific basis for this example.
"Lastly, abiotic stress has enabled species to grow, develop, and evolve, furthering natural selection as it picks out the weakest of a group of organisms"
- I would consider changing the phrasing of this sentence. Describing natural selection as something which "picks out the weakest" is incorrect and almost describes natural selection as some conscious choice by nature. An organism can be extremely effective in areas unrelated to abiotic stress tolerance and the fact that these stressors decrease its chance of survival don't necessarily have anything to do with overall weakness. I may say something along the lines of "Abiotic stress has contributed to species evolution by increasing selection for specific genetic traits which benefit an organism's survival under these stressed conditions." This eliminates any comparisons of strong vs. weak and focuses on the mechanism by which natural selection actually occurs.

"The most obvious detriment concerning abiotic stress involves farming."
- Again this uses subjectivity where it is unnecessary and indicates some level of bias. While it may be the most obvious to the writer or some of the readers of this page, this cannot be said for everyone. For example, someone reading the page to find out the impacts of abiotic stress on forest ecosystems may not see the impacts on farming as the most obvious. I would use phrasing like "An economically significant detriment concerning abiotic stress" or even " Abiotic stress can have a detrimental impact on farming".

The "Impact on food production" subsection would benefit from data to substantiate claims about various crops importance and how detrimental their loss is. Is the plant culturally significant? Is it a major part of the diet of certain regions? Is it an economically significant crop? I don't think standalone claims like "Chickpeas are one of the most important foods in the world" provide enough information to illustrate the impact of losing these crops to abiotic stress. Also, the source describes it as the "third most significant food legume" and seems to be referring to its significance as far as land use and crop production. The initial source includes some important qualifiers and I think it would be better to present the claim as the author did and avoiding extrapolating.

"A plant's first line of defense against abiotic stress is in its roots. If the soil holding the plant is healthy and biologically diverse, the plant will have a higher chance of surviving stressful conditions."
- This is both plagiarized and attributed to the wrong source (maybe an error in citation linking that needs to be fixed). The first sentence is a word-for-word copy of a sentence in paragraph 3 of the introduction in source 20. The sentence that follows is an extremely close paraphrasing of the next sentence in the source. Additionally, the claims made in this paragraph are attributed to a different source (10), despite the clear similarities to Gull et. al. This section should be rewritten to eliminate plagiarism and close paraphrasing, and then attributed to the correct source.

Again, the line "One of the primary responses to abiotic stress such as high salinity is the disruption of the Na+/K+ ratio in the cytoplasm of the plant cell." is directly copied from Gull et. al. It should be reworded and then attributed to the proper source.Spbio2245 (talk) 18:39, 1 February 2025 (UTC)