User:DanielleNabor/Lake 226/KirstenBiefeld Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

DanielleNabor


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DanielleNabor/Lake_226?veaction=edit&preload=Template%3ADashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * I couldn't find a fully published wiki page for Lake 226

Evaluate the drafted changes
The content itself is interesting and does well to keep the tone neutral. In general, I think you added great information, it just needs some further explanation. For future information to look into, I would suggest looking for basic info about the lake, such as the stratification regime of Lake 226, how deep it is, how it originally formed (naturally, manmade?) if possible. One other suggestion is to add some links to other related Wiki pages using Ctrl + K, such as for "eutrophication" or any of the experimental lakes.

Sources also seemed to be from reliable texts, links worked. Some were old (from the 70s), which I also have since it can be hard to find current papers when the research was conducted in the 70s. I would suggest seeing other, more contemporary papers that cite this one and see if they have more to add, especially if they tried to recreate experiments.

The following peer review seems long, but its mostly because I am directly pasting in sections of your report so you know specifically what I'm referencing. If I am directly pasting something from your report, it is italicized and in quotation marks. I will be going each paragraph one-by-one and underline the direct quote from your article to show what I am referring to.

-- Peer review start --

I think the first paragraph does well to provide a succinct introduction to the lake. If you can find basic info about the lake like what I mentioned above, I think that would make it only stronger, as well as if you can detail who exactly was running the experiments (was it a university, government-paid scientists, a random person?) and who funded them. Also, was each of them an experiment for a different thing? A brief overview of why there are so many experimental lakes, including Lake 226, made in the region would be useful.

For the second paragraph, I like how it poses the problem that lead into some of these experimental lakes. It just needs some further explanation. Like was the claim made by all soap and detergent companies, or only a few of them? Did they try to have any science to back the claim up, or did they expect people to take their word? Also, maybe some more information on ELA Lake 227, was that the primary experiment for Lake 227 and for all experimental lakes, like the first paragraph seems to insinuate? The last sentence to me makes it seem like Lake 226 was designed and created after the findings from Lake 227, so if this is correct, then there's nothing to change. I do not know how the numbering system works for this, I just thought it was odd if Lake 227 came before Lake 226.

For the third paragraph, I don't have many comments. I think it is a good methodology section, unless you can find further details like when they split it, if they continued to add any fertilizer after the initial time or just left it. I am a little confused by the last sentence: ''This caused the fertilized side with phosphorous to be classified as eutrophic, making this experiment a study of eutrophication. '' This makes it seem that the study only became an experiment of eutrophication after the lake became eutrophic through addition of P. At the send of the last paragraph, it seemed like Lake 226 was designed specifically to study eutrophication based on phosphorus as a limiting agent, so it seems to conflict info wise.

I also recommend to avoid saying starting a sentence with "This caused" or "This means" if you do not directly mention what you are referencing. It can be confusing for readers if they cannot easily tell what idea from your previous sentence you are further discussing. Like in the fourth paragraph, there are three sentences that start out like that:


 *  "This hypothesized that Lake 226 was able to pull nitrogen from the atmosphere to cause this algal production . This further supported the belief that the the input of nitrogen and carbon as fertilizer was not important because the biogeochemical mechanisms can regulate these elements closely with P . This highlighted that controlling the rate of P in the water is the crucial element ."

I am confused on what that first sentence is saying at the beginning, if it might have been an error that was supposed to say "this hypothesis" or "they hypothesized". Also if it is a hypothesis, how does it further support the belief in the second sentence there? And again, what exactly is highlighting the points in the third sentence?

In the fifth paragraph, the sentence starts out like this: "This study lead to the discovery that phosphorus was an essential nutrient in the formation of these algal blooms, and thus began the legislative change for the ELA to control the impact of phosphorus in lake ecosystems ." I suggest specifying what study you mean, if its the Lake 226 experiment overall or a specific study that you are citing to support what you're writing. I would also suggest how the discovery lead to legislative change. Was there a specific group that pushed for it?

Continuing with the rest of the fifth paragraph:

"Unfortunately, this agreement did not lead to the controlling of phosphorus from non-point sources . The state of our lakes are currently being threatened by phosphorus as agricultural phosphorus is not being controlled well enough ."

What is the agreement? Is that related to the first sentence that discussed how the discovery lead to legislative change? Also in the second sentence, I would avoid using "our" since Wikipedia has such a diverse audience, that may be confusing and have a very centrally "American" view. I would change it to "The state of the United States' lakes" or "Canada's lakes/Ontario's" or "The world's lakes" depending on what you were referring to directly.

And finally, the sixth paragraph. I'm sure you were already planning on adding more for the actual draft, but introducing this paragraph and how it connects to the rest of the article would help, and of course adding any other details you find on the subject would be interesting!

Overall the ideas you have in the article are great, and with more explanation and development of paragraphs like what you were probably planning to do for the next draft will make it better. I'm excited to learn more about this lake!