User:BrightPe/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Article on Weathering

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I thought that weathering would be a good thing to read a little more about, and in searching around this article seemed like a good choice as far as length and content goes. Weathering plays a huge role in the biogeochemical exchange of the planet and has already been mentioned several times in the lecture alone, so it is relevant. It also is a part of the series of articles on the solid earth, so I figured it would have good references and be a well reviewed article.

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Evaluate the article

 * The lead of this article is well put together I thought. Although not exactly concise, the lead provides a starting point and a guide to the topic and article. The major sections or parts of the article that will be covered are gathered to be chemical, physical, and biological weathering and their effects on soil and rock formation. Biological weathering is listed however as more a part of chemical weathering, and I would recommend leaving the introduction of biological weathering to the article body, or make biological weathering its own section for cohesive purposes.
 * The article breaks down the content in an easy to understand way, the flow seems logical to me and helps with understanding of the later concepts by covering the larger ideas first.
 * The sections on weathering of buildings and the ocean floor seem almost unfinished. Although both of those could be articles of their own, I would suggest either keeping them short and combining the content under a section heading like "weathering across the world" or breaking each section up again into chemical, physical, and biological weathering sections as is done with general weathering to begin the article.
 * For an example, in the publisher summary of a chapter of this Oceanography Book, chemical, physical, and biological weathering components are mentioned in respect to weathering on the ocean floor. Another few paragraphs simply about the organismal impacts, physical aspects like seawater circulation, and chemical components of ocean weathering would add a lot to the middle section of the article.
 * The tone and balance of this article is very neutral. No large claims or biases, as most of the content does not make claims to be the only or the best explanation for something. In fact, in the section about the weathering of different bonds within minerals, the first sentence after warns the reader that the table doesn't explain the observed order of weathering perfectly.
 * There are over 60 sources listed on the article. Many of them are scientific literature ranging from 1927 up to 2021. However going through the citations list, several of the ISBN numbers don't seem to lead anywhere anymore, such as the book listed for citation 4. Otherwise, a large range of scientific literature is represented here from ecology to architecture to geomorphology. That is nice to see, and can be another affirmation for the quality of the articles perspective.
 * The article is clear and really easy to read I thought. There are certain turnarounds that happen between terms, like "frost wedging not being the principle form of frost weathering," however that is not about the way the article is written. There are a few grammatical errors, such as "Frost wedging is most effective where there are daily cycles of melting and freezing of water-saturated rock, so it unlikely to be significant in the tropics, in polar regions, or in arid climates." Otherwise the breakdown of the article is conducive to easy reading, the sections seem fairly concise but also include a lot of good information on the topic.
 * Images for this topic are very useful. The visuals of weathering, particularly what weathering that led to cracks and fissures looks like helped build understanding of the topic. Many of the example images in the gallery at the end are sandstone however, it would have been nice to see a variety of minerals and rocks there. The picture of the acid rain statue I think should go into the section of building weathering, and perhaps a quick section on the affects of acid rain on buildings could go there as well.
 * The talk page has a lot of activity going on. There are discussions going about everything down to the definitions of weathering, and I see it was changed in 2006 to include the line on "in-situ" processes being the big distinction between erosion and weathering. There is also a reference violation correction at the top.
 * The article is a C-Class article, and it is part of a geology WikiProject, which aims to create a user friendly and not overly complicated guide to geology, which is great. In a large way, I think that the article reflects the way we talk about geology in class pretty closely, as not all of us (including myself) are geology whizzes. However, there are some points that are left a little underscored here, where they would be defined more in class. But overall the tone is quite similar.
 * The article's status is good, it is actually rated as of "top importance" in the C-Class articles on the WikiProject. I thought that the articles strength was in its concision, as it doesn't have a large breadth of ground to cover, although it could stretch itself wider, as I suggested above. In the same way, there are some points that could be elaborated on that would strengthen the overall basis of the article a lot I think. The media is another strongpoint, though a slight bit of organization could provide a visual learning aspect that currently isn't as strong as it could be.
 * Overall, the article is practically done and well developed. The pieces that are still being worked over are the links and references, which you can see in the edit history tab. The last entry in the talk page was from 2006.