User:EthanIAm16/Oswald Avery/Srlg36 Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

EthanIAm16


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:EthanIAm16/Oswald_Avery?veaction=edit&preload=Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Oswald Avery

Evaluate the drafted changes
A lot of good information has been added to the original, particularly regarding Avery's education and work immediately after college. I'm not sure that the paragraph added about Avery's grandfather and his work with paper is entirely relevant to the topic, though. Otherwise, I think that the information added is pretty on topic. The source used isn't very new as it was published in 1976, but it seems like it is up to date for this topic specifically.

I don't find anything added to the article to be biased or overrepresenting/underrepresenting any specific viewpoints or topics. I believe that it is neutral and the topics presented are presented without bias.

As there are only the two sources presented and are is of a book that I do not own nor can I easily obtain just for this assignment and an article (not sure if that is what it is, I cannot find anything by searching the ISBN), I cannot investigate the sources very thoroughly. The book seems to be from a reputable source, since it was written by a famous microbiologist and that is the main scientific topic of the article. It is a bit old, but there may not be much that is recent about Avery as most of his work happened quite a while ago. The other source is likely also reputable as it was published by Rice University. Upon some light digging, it doesn't appear that there are a ton of other sources that can be found for this topic. So it is probably fair to say that this a good source for the topic. I cannot check links as there are not any for me to use. The author of this source does not aid in the representation of any historically marginalized individuals. It would be helpful to add the sources to the Bibliography.

I think that information added is pretty clear and concise overall. Some of the order of additions is a little funky, particularly how Avery going to college is mentioned. It is mentioned in two places that he went to Colgate University and that he graduated in 1900, once in the original article and once in the additions for each. I think that maybe the order of those couple of paragraphs could be refined to remove that issue. The same issue occurs later in the article regarding the serum from the horses. It is also inconsistent throughout the article if Oswald Avery is referred to as Oswald or Avery. Normally, in this context it would be just the last name that would be referred to throughout the article once the person is introduced. Alternating between first and last name is a little confusing. It seems like the "Retirement and Later Years" and "DNA as the basis for genes" sections should probably be switched, as the order they are in now isn't chronological. I did not find any grammatical errors, I believe there are a couple spacing issues underlined in red, though. I also wonder if it would be appropriate to make another subsection for his work at Hoagland, as it had many paragraphs on it's own.

The article is definitely more complete with these additions, the new information substantially lengthened the article with relevant content. The content added is overall pretty clear and detailed. I especially like the additions about Hoagland, as that wasn't mentioned in the original article and it adds a lot to the topic. I also like the additions of mentioning colleagues that he worked with at different points in his professional life.

To improve the content added, I think refining the organization and ordering of some of the content would help with clarity of the article and help it be easier to understand the chronological events of the article. Some more subsections/headers would also be helpful, particularly in the Early life and education section. Maybe even adding a section for his work post-university could be helpful (I am not sure if that would be appropriate given that he did work in between his different levels of education, and it could be confusing to separate those events into different sections). Fixing the instances of where something is mentioned both in the original article and the addition, resulting in the same things being mentioned twice at different points in the article, would also help with clarity of the article.

Peer Review Response
I agree that the sources are old, but we have not been able to find recent sources. These sources were written around Avery's time period and from reputable publishers, so they are the best that we currently have access to. We will be adding a bibliography shortly.

I think that the information on Avery’s grandfather helps us understand his religious background and therefore is relevant. In order to help the reader understand its relevance. I am going to add a family subsection about Avery’s father, grandfather, and brothers. I will also add information about the females in his life if I can find that information.

In concern to the graduating Colgate duplicate information, I removed the sentence from the original article and kept the addition. The sentence in the addition appeared to fit better with the other information being added. Therefore, it made more sense to keep that sentence than the original. I will look into editing the duplicate information about the horse serum to make it less confusing. I have already changed “Oswald” to “Avery” in every paragraph except the paragraph containing information about both Oswald and his brother. In the paragraph about Oswald and his brother, I felt it was best to use the first name Oswald, to distinguish between Oswald and his brother since both

The reason why the "Retirement and later years" and "DNA as a basis for genes" are not in chronological order are because the "DNA as a basis for genes" goes into detail on a specific experiment. I think I could make it more clear by briefly mentioning the DNA experiment in his life section where it would belong chronologically and then leave the "DNA as a basis for genes" section with more in depth details as a separate section after.

I created a separate subsection for working at Hoagland because I do agree that the current section was long, and splitting it in two would make it easier to digest the information. I may consider adding a post-university work subsection if I can find more relevant information about his retirement to make the retirement section longer.

In general, I will focus on improving organization through use of more subheadings and eliminating duplicate information. I will also look for more sources to strengthen the information already provided.

The section on Avery's grandfather has been cut down and formatted into the new early life section. New sources have been added, though more recent sources may still be in order to keep the article up to date. I agree that since most of his work happened 80 years ago, new sources are hard to come by. The current "Early Life and Education" section is far too large, so it has been split into two separate sections.

We have switched "Oswald" to "Avery" throughout the article except for in instances where his siblings and family members are mentioned. Reformatting with DNA as the Basis for Genes has been completed. In addition, clarification on when and where the Avery-McCarty experiment took place has been added to the section.