User:Hbrewer002/sandbox

Work Log
September 27- Chose "Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve" article. (30 minutes)

September 28- Evaluated article & found sources that can be used to make changes. (1 hour)

September 29- Wrote in the Talk page of my article. (30 minutes)

October 5- Copied and pasted part of article and made notes of improvements. I am focusing on the lead section and first heading that includes a description of the reserve. (2 hours)

October 6- Made edits to some portions of the article and added a section for Recreational and Educational Activities that I found sources for. I am looking for sources for replacement of the older ones, and I will work on writing more of this article in my own words by removing any plagiarism. (1 hour)

October 13- I added Wikilinks for related words in the article and found an image using Wikimedia Commons. (2 hours)

October 22- Edited new references that are up to date and added new information from sources. (3 hours)

October 26- I worked on formatting my article to fix the tone so it sounds more like an article on Wikipedia rather than an advertisement. (1 hour)

October 31- (from Heather:) Looks good! Move to main space article by this Sunday 11/3.

October 31- Found a new image to use for the article and moved all of my edits to the main article. (30 minutes)

Article Edits
The Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve is a nature reserve that is located at 1700 Elkhorn Road in Watsonville, California. The reserve encompasses the central shore of Monterey Bay and is approximately 100 mi south of San Francisco, California. The Elkhorn Slough is established as a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and is being managed as the Elkhorn Slough Ecological Reserve through the California Department of Fish and Game.

Description
The mission of the 1700 acre Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve is to promote the environmental education, research, and protection of ecosystems found in Elkhorn Slough salt marsh along with the surrounding watershed. There are programs hosted that work towards conserving and protecting the wildlife and habitats in Elkhorn Slough, as part of the National Estaurine Research Reserve system.

Recreational and Educational Activities
The visitor center features exhibits and five miles (8 km) of trails that offer a diverse variety of plants and animals to see. This reserve also serves as a spot for kayaking and birding as well, where visitors can be surrounded by seals, fish, sea otters, and marshes. The Elkhorn Slough also contains various species of leopard sharks, birds, and fish that are considered to be threatened habitats. Visitors can observe these forms of wildlife in the watershed while learning more about these rare estaurine communities.

Notes for Improvement
This section of the article sounds a bit repetitive and can use much more information to describe the reserve in a way that is straight to the point. I think it would be helpful to have a sub-section of activities for visitors. Additionally, through research I found that much of this section is copied and pasted from the Elkhorn Slough website, so I want to focus on rewriting this and attributing the proper source. Also, there is a citation needed after one of the factual claims and some of the references are not functioning.

Article Evaluation
When I first looked at the article, "Elkhorn Slough National Estaurine Research Reserve", I noticed there is a note stating that the article needs citations for verification, so I would like to add citations to reliable sources to initially improve this article. Also, I plan to contribute more information regarding the purpose of the research reserve. There is only a brief description of the Elkhorn Slough National Estaurine Research Reserve, but I hope to provide a lot more input into why the reserve is necessary and why it came about, while also improving the overall quality as well. I want to specifically mention the management plan for the Elkhorn Reserve.