User:Anonymous microbe/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Abiotic stress

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because abiotic stress is a topic that was covered extensively in my ecology class. Factors of abiotic stress are of utmost importance to understand interactions within and between populations, geographic distributions of species, and ecological patterns and cycles, among others. Upon first glance, the article seems fairly descriptive and well-organized, although some sections are less descriptive, and the graphics are lacking.

Evaluate the article
The lead gives a good overview of the topic in general, and nothing is mentioned that is not further described in the article. However, it could be more descriptive of the major topics, specifically the benefits and detriments of abiotic stressors as well as their effects on endangered species, which is not mentioned at all in the lead. The content is overall fairly complete and up-to-date, but some sections are not as complete as others. For example, the "detriments" section only discusses effects of abiotic stressors on farming. I think this could be fixed by some slight reorganization. In addition, while all topics are mentioned in the article content, there is not nearly enough detail about some abiotic factors, such as pH. The tone of the article is neutral, and there does not seem to be any attempt of persuasion or overrepresentation of a certain viewpoint. The sources mostly seem to be peer-reviewed articles, and some original research articles. However, in some places, the article has more information than is present in the source, so I wonder if there were more sources used that are not cited. There is a good range of sources in terms of topics, causes, effects, and solutions. In general, the article is well-organized, clear, and easy to follow, but there are some content issues which I think could be resolved by better organization of the sections (described above). There are hardly any images, and the topic does not necessarily lend itself to graphics, but adding a few would definitely be helpful in terms of visually showing the effects that abiotic stressors can have on the environment. The talk pages are not extensive, but some questions posted are similar to the ones I was left with while reading the article; for example, "What effects do abiotic stressors have on ecosystem dynamics"? This article is part of WikiProjects in Ecology, Biology, Molecular Biology, and Physiology, and it is rated C-class in all of these areas. I would say the article is incomplete, but not poor; it could benefit from better organization, more extensive research, and more in-depth research and multi-layered analysis of the different ecological factors at play.