User:Alexis.Mathews./Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article:
 * Mutualism (biology)
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate:
 * I recently completed both the Microbial Ecology and Zoology Ecology courses. During these course, they both discussed the different types of symbiosis and how it effects the organisms in the symbiotic relationship and other organisms in the environment.

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation

 * The introductory sentence does state the definition of mutualism, however, it could have been more specific stating it is a type of symbiotic relationship rather than the general statement of 'ecological interaction'.
 * The Lead does include a brief description of most of the major point in the article but doesn't include a brief explanation for each point. An example of the this is the Mathematical modeling. The lead gives data and percentages but doesn't refer to how the items give are mathematically modeled.
 * The Lead does not include items or topics that aren't present later on in the article.
 * I believe the Lead is fairly concise and gives the reader a preview to the topic without going into too much detail.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Content evaluation

 * This article contains relevant information on topics and examples regarding mutualism.
 * I believe this article is fairly up-to-date, however, most of the sources used in the article are more than five years old. This article could benefit from updated studies/articles in the references.
 * This article talks mostly on the animal aspect on mutualism and the mathematical modeling of these relationships. The examples of this ecological interaction included mostly animal-plant or animal-animal relationships in addition to human mutualistic relationships with some microbial organisms. There are hardly any examples of bacterial, and other microbial organisms, mutualistic relationships with other bacteria, microbes, or Eukaryota.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


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

Tone and balance evaluation

 * Yes, I believe the contributing authors have managed to keep a neutral tone to the article.
 * I don't believe there were strong claims heavily biased in this article.
 * I believe there are good representation of definitions, mathematical equations, and some mutualism relationships. There needs improvement to expanding the different types of mutualistic relationships between the three domains of life: bacteria, archaea, eukarya.
 * No, the contributing authors have not written the article to persuade the reader in favor of single position, but they are limiting there example and how many types of mutualistic relationships do exist.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation

 * I believe the article has been written with reliable sources. There doesn't seems to be a place in the article that hasn't been cited.
 * From the sources examined, they do line up with the article and do contain material on mutualism.
 * Most of the references are over five years old and should be updated as needed. The information could be out-dated in the year 2019 which could impact the reliability of some of the sources used in the article. Additional sources could be used to include more examples of mutualism to make the article more well rounded.
 * Of the links that were tried in the article, and the references, all of them worked without any issues.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Organization evaluation

 * The article is fairly well-written and is easy to read.
 * I could not see any grammatical or spelling errors within the article.
 * The organization of the article flows okay from the Lead into the various topics. There could be some improvement as the material changes in between topics.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Images and media evaluation

 * The article does include a few images to help visualize different mutualism relationships.
 * The images are well-captioned for what is depicted and the organisms involved.
 * I believe all the images in the article do adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations.
 * Yes, the image placement doesn't impact the visual appeal of the article.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Talk page evaluation

 * The talk page is organized by revision topic. Various individuals have expressed their ideas to revise the article and others have expressed their disagreement in some of the mutualistic relationships and the referenced mathematics.
 * The article has been rated as a C-Class article on the quality scale and as High-Importance on the importance scale.
 * This article discusses more of the animal-plant and animal-animal mutualisms rather than the microbial mutualisms with other organisms. Due to our class being on microbial physiology, I don't believe the article aligns with how course material is discussed.

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * 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?

Overall evaluation

 * The article strengths would include the correct referencing and has been written well.
 * The article should be improved by finding up-dated 2014-2019 sources and should include all types of mutualistic relationships between all organisms, not just animal based.
 * I would say the article is semi-complete. It includes a decent background on mutualism, but I think it could use major improvement to make it a more well rounded article.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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