User:Gingerbmichigan/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Southeast Asian coral reefs

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it relates directly to my class Environment in Southeast Asia. The topic of coral reefs is incredibly important from economic, social, and ecological perspectives because of the sanctuary the reef provides to countless species of fish and the protection it offers the shoreline. My first impression of this Wikipedia page was that it is pretty complete, but the more I look at it the more I realize that certain topics could be written better and more concisely and there is also quite a bit of information missing.

Evaluate the article
The lead section could be improved in a variety of ways. The intro sentence should be changed to describe "what" coral reefs are rather than jumping straight into why they are important. The intro paragraph is written in repetitive and not particularly descriptive vocabulary. The lead section could be made much more concise while still delivering the same content. Overall the lead section has good, if a little imbalanced, content.

Most of the content in this article is helpful, relevant, and up to date. However, there is also much room for improvement. Descriptions of the coral reefs specific to the Philippines and Indonesia are provided while omitting the coral reefs found in other nations such as Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, and Vietnam. I also don't see trolling mentioned, how coral reefs protect coastlines from some storm events, or discussion of the other animals that rely on corals. In addition, some sentences are written with a bias undertone such as "The task of saving the coral reef in Southeast Asia must occur within the communities which depend upon them. The problem, of a community's abuse and overuse of a natural resource, as created through desperation, poverty and a lack of oversight, cannot be handled by a foreign, external organization or a well-intended NGO"

The article contains good quality information that is pretty well organized, but it could be written in a more descriptive and concise way. I also think a map of the range of corals in southeast Asia would be very helpful to users. The page is very text heavy in general and could use more descriptive images.

The Talk page discusses some of the issues I already mentioned such as the lack of sections for specific country's coral reefs. Someone also mentioned that some of the information about coral reefs was too specific for this page on southeast Asian coral reefs and should thus be moved to the general coral page. I had not thought of this but I agree.

Overall I think this page is pretty good quality but it has room for improvement in a number of areas. Gingerbmichigan (talk) 14:29, 16 February 2022 (UTC)