User:Jagerismydogsname7151/Evaluate an Article

Viral Shedding
Viral shedding

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because it pertains to the field of science that I study and the research that I do within the field of biology. In fact, this is exactly what I am studying. It is important that I read this article to expand my background knowledge of viral shedding considering that is what I research. Prior to reading this article, my first impression was that it does not contain much information and most likely wont teach me anything new (although that is possible) due to the fact that the article is very short. My other thought is that there is no data which suggests that this may be secondary literature.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

The lead section does not include an introductory sentence that clearly describes what will be discussed in the article. The introductory sentence is relevant to the article, however, it is simply the definition of viral shedding. Although that needs to be included somewhere in the article, it should not be in the introductory sentence.

There is nothing in the lead section that refers to the article's main sections other than saying that viruses may leave the cell using several methods.

The lead does not include information that is not present in the article.

The lead is too concise. Although it is good to be concise, the lead section contains no truly important information, it only contains obvious information about viral shedding that is not necessary to have in the article.

Content

The article's content is somewhat relevant to the topic. For the most part it just talks about ways in which a virus can reproduce which is relevant in the sense that a virus must do so to infect new hosts and shed but it doesn't say anything about how a virus actually sheds.

This page was last edited on August 26th, 2023 so it is up to date.

There is a lot of content that is missing. I wouldn't say that any of the content that is included in the article is irrelevant but less emphasis should be put on it. The article contains no information regarding the transfer of virus from host to host which is was shedding is.

I wish I could say that this article addresses an equity gap or a historically underrepresented population or topic, but it does not. It only talks about the replication of virus within its host.

Tone and Balance

The article is neutral. It only states facts and does nothing to persuade the reader of anything nor does it state opinions.

There are no claims that appear to be heavily biased toward a particular position besides the fact that it talks about well proven theories on virus replication. Although this is technically an opinion (it is possible to disagree with science) it is so well proven that I will treat it as a fact. No viewpoints are overrepresented or underrepresented. All content is stated quite evenly throughout the article.

There are no minority or fringe viewpoints that are stated.

The author makes no attempt to persuade the reader to believe, think, or act on anything.

Sources and References

Some but not all facts are backed up by a secondary source and some of the secondary sources that are used I would consider to be outdated.

The sources that are listed are pretty thorough and contain relevant information to the article.

Most of the sources aren't current but there are two that are not that I know of (2002 and 1997).

Although the authors of the reference articles all study the same subject, they all seem to come from a diverse amount of backgrounds.

Yes, I am very confident that there are better sources available than all of the ones that this author cited. For example, they cited WebMD as a source, which I would not consider a reliable source.

Of the sources that do have a link, they all work. However, not all sources have a link.

Organization and Writing Quality

The article is not well written. The wording is confusing and the vocabulary is limited with the exception of a few big words. I would compare the writing to that of a ninth grader.

There are no spelling errors, however, there are dozens and dozens of grammatical errors.

The article is broken down into sections that contain only one topic at a time, which is good. However, the names of the sections are a bit questionable and not all sections are written in.

Images and Media

This article does a magnificent job of including relevant figures. One of which is a very helpful animation.

The figures are not well named. They are one sentence long at most and include no punctuation or capital letters. Nor do they describe anything about the image besides a simple statement of the process that the image is describing.

I do not believe that the images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations.

Yes, the images are very well laid out.

Talk Page Discussion

There are no conversations present on the talk page.

I am not sure that this article is rated, however it is a part of the Wikiproject Viruses and the Wikiproject Molecular Biology.

Wikipedia discusses these topics not with the perspective of a researcher but as someone would talk about being involbed in a club. It is almost as if Wikipedia wants people to join these Wikiprojects regardless of whether or not they are informed and educated biologists.

Overall Impressions

Overall, I would not recommend this article as a source to anyone. Out of ten, I would rate it a one.

The article's strengths are its figures. Although they are not properly cited nor do they have proper figure captions, they provide a good image as to what the article is talking about.

The first step in improving this article would be to add more sections to it. This means that it needs to include more about actual viral shedding and not just viral replication. It also needs to be checked for gramtical errors and the sources need to be cited in a more proper way,

This article is very poorly developed. It needs a lot more work. It is missing a lot of important information and needs to be intensely revised.