User:Ari. gg02/Evaluate an Article

User:Ari.gg 02/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)

Geobiology - Wikipedia

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I have chosen this article to evaluate as it is a combination of two important topics; one of which is related to the class (geology, earth sciences, and resources) and biology, which is my major and field of study I am most interested in learning more about. The article and topic are of importance because it is a more recent form of study, and it is important to recognize how the Earth relies on the biosphere and how biotic organisms have a dependence on the Earth. It is a relevant topic as of currently as it relates to the current climate crisis and is a good example of how different fields of science are interconnected. My initial impression of the article was that it was organized, relatively well-sourced, and covered a wide range of topics and sub-topics regarding the subject matter. The article has over 50 references, each of which were mostly impartial and neutral.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

This article provides an in-depth view and analysis of what the study of geobiology is, its origins and first findings, as well as other sub-topics including methods and equipment used during studies, an evolutionary perspective, and other subjects. In effect, it allowed for a broad overview with an adequate amount of detail, while also providing a good number of resources to refer to for more information. The leading sentence summarizes what the rest of the article went through, which is essential for the reader. The leading paragraph includes the necessary overview and mentions only the topics that are covered in the rest of the article, with links to those topics if the reader is interested. The article is clearly organized by sub-topic, beginning with the history and evolution of geobiology, effectively introducing the topic and respecting its origins, while leading into other fields of geobiology. It is well organized into different paragraphs to separate the change in topics and is well structured and not too heavily worded for each paragraph, allowing the reader not to be overwhelmed with too much information in one area.

The author contributed lots of details regarding the "-biology" aspect of geobiology, but the "geo-" aspect was less mentioned than biology, creating a slightly less neutral view on the importance of the components of geobiology. The article could have contained a more even distribution on the importance of geological components to the study of geobiology.

The article was very well sourced and provided footnotes referencing the specific resources. In general, the article was supported by a variety of different resources and authors. Most of the sources were updated and the pages could be found, with the exception of a few. In the Talk Page, few users mentioned potential plagiarism with regards to one site, as well as one reference not being updated; the source was potentially taken off of its page. Those sources should be addressed and updated for future readers to refer to if they require or desire more information. Although many phrases included references, some bold phrased sentences required a resource to back them up. For example, in the section "The Earth has Changed", the sentence stating that "the luminosity of the sun has increased over time", should have a source to support it. The use of neutral adjectives could have been more evenly distributed to establish a more neutral point of view for the readers. Regarding the topic of co-evolution, the sentence on adaptations and ecological niches (sentence 4 of Co-evolution of life and Earth) could have used a different word than " best" as it slightly takes the neutral view away from the point.

The page was well written and has very minimal spelling errors, allowing it to appear a more reliable source for those wanting to learn more about the topic of geobiology. One area that was misspelled is the city in Finland, "Helskinki" needs to remove the first "k". Apart from the minor spelling errors, it was also written in a way that included the necessary information, but did not include too much scientific jargon, making it easy for the public and those not in the scientific field to understand.

The images used in the article helped solidify the points of importance in geobiology and provided meaningful visual examples of where and what geobiological factors can be seen in the world, including the first image of Yellowstone National Park, depicting the microbial mats. The images used were not only examples of geobiology, but also helped enhance the understanding of sub-topics such as evolution and phylogeny.

Overall, this article was informative, well written, mostly neutral, accessible and comprehensible for all, and creatively written.