User:Hayeonc/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Beta barrel

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 chose this article about beta barrel for this evaluation assignment because it was relevant to my course. I just learned about beta barrel as a type of transmembrane proteins, and porins and aquaporins are what we have just learned in the membrane transport unit. Beta barrel has a biological significance in the perspective that it allows small hydrophilic molecules to diffuse along the inward-facing hydrophilic side chains through the hydrophobic lipid bilayer of cells. In my brief first sight of the article, it seemed short overall; it could be considered as concise for those who want a quick information, but I assume it may need more information.

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.)

The introductory sentence gives a concise one-sentence overview of the structure of beta barrel, which I think what most people will be curious about first. The introduction briefly mentions the examples and shear number which the article discusses in the following sections. I think the article could be improved if there was a separate section for the structure of beta barrel. Currently, the articles only describes the structure of beta barrel in one short paragraph in the lead section. The structure of beta barrel is what makes it unique and its understanding is critical to comprehend its biological importance.

What the article currently contains—types, examples, and shear number— is relevant to the topic. Yet, more can be added. As I mentioned, a detailed description of the structure can be added. The history of how beta barrel structure was discovered and have been understood would be an important aspect of the topic as well. The lead section mentions there are hundreds of proteins that have beta barrel structure, but the article only mentions three with one paragraph for each. I am sure viewers would be curious of those other proteins. Lastly, the section for shear number was comparatively longer than the other sections. As this was something I did not know about before, I appreciated the detailed explanation, it probably is an appropriate length. But, because it is the longest section, it seems shear number is the most important information of beta barrel, which I would argue it is not. Instead of shortening this section, I would add other sections, for example, about the structure of the similar or longer length.

The tone of the article was neutral overall. It mainly states the scientific facts about beta barrel. As mentioned, if other sections are added, the "shear number" section would alleviate its seemingly bias.

The article contains a good number of citations, considering the length of the article. The linked that I checked worked, and the sources were Nature, PubMed, and various journals which should be reliable. Many of the articles have "structure" in their titles, so I assume it was one of their major focuses. But, the article itself only briefly mentions it. There are some sources from the 20th century and only one source published after 2010 (in 2017 to be exact). Also, this reference states on the first page that this version could have differences from the published version. the published version may be more credible thus more appropriate to be cited. The article may explore more recent sources to include the latest discoveries of beta barrel if there is any.

I think the article was well-written overall as I could read it smoothly from the beginning to the end. I liked the division of the subsections as the intention was clear. One part that made me stop reading was linking the "shear number" to the use of the term "shear" in geology. The author(s) probably wanted to make a connection with another discipline to aid understanding, but it seemed random to me as a viewer.

The images used are well-captioned, cited, spaced out in the article except the table in "shear number" section. It does not have a citation, and I wonder if the author(s) of the article created themselves. Also, the caption of the table needs a little more detail. To enhance understanding of viewers who are visual learners, I would add pictures of the "examples" of beta barrel. It could be hard to imagine without diagrams or pictures especially when it talks about the structure.