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Jade Henderson BIO 110 Week 2 Assignment 2/4/18

Article Evaluation

Article Title: Lichen
 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
 * This is a very extensive wikipedia article about Lichen. It provides a general overview and then goes into detail. Starts with general information like the origin of the word Lichen (pronunciation), then moves onto growth forms, physiology, ecology, reaction to water, growth rate, life span, response to environmental stress, taxonomy, evolution, etc. This is a broad overview, however if you were using this page for research, you would probably have to narrow down to one section. Nothing was really distracting in this article, as it is all factual and not opinion based.
 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Yes the article is neutral and reads simply. There are no claims or biased positions, however it would important to fact check as there is a plethora of information and its hard to discern where it all came from.
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * No, the entire article focuses on Lichens. There are no claims in the article that aren't supported by a source.
 * Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?
 * Yes the links work. Source takes you to secondary sites where additional reading can provide more information.
 * Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
 * Sources are a mix of scientific journal articles and other websites. A few sources do not have obvious authors, which might be a source of concern for credibility. All sources have a link where you can check on the information on the actual source page itself.
 * I don't think you can get to biased about Lichen, it's either supported scientific fact/ theory, or unsupported and thus lacking credibility.
 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
 * This page was last edited Feb 3, 2018 - very recently edited. You can check the edit history, the sources were not changed. Unless you go through all sources used and check dates it would be really hard to tell if the information is out of date. You would have to focus on a specific thing you wanted to know about Lichen and then cross-check that fact based on the sources and your own research / knowledge. Perhaps new research or findings on Lichens have come out recently, this would be worth adding to a new section of this article.
 * Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * A suggestion found in the talk page is to use "more plain English"
 * Also there is a discussion on the plural form of Lichen
 * A discussion about picture arrangement on the page
 * Information correcting facts about Lichen rate of growth
 * There is also a discussion of missing information; how scientists found out lichen were composite organisms. A user provides a link to an external source they found new information on.
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * The article is listed as a level-4 vital article in Science, Biology.
 * Overall it has a C-class article rating.
 * The wiki project pages it belongs to are: Plants, Fungi and Algae (within these groups they are rated as B-class articles).
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
 * We haven't fully discussed this topic in class, we saw Lichen in lab and talked about what it was.
 * This article provides more extensive information and further reading on Lichen.