User:Jessicaniezwicki/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Ideonella sakaiensis

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article on Ideonella Sakaiensis because last semester in my microbial biotechnology class we touched on bacteria and their importance in todays environment, our bodies, etc. I was very intrigued to learn there were bacterium out there that were able to degrade plastics. I feel this Wikipedia article is important and matters because its possible this little bacteria is able to possibly rid the planet of one of the largest issues that face us today: plastic pollution. My impression of the article I chose was a bit underwhelming, it was a very short article and I'm unsure if this is due to minimal research on this bacteria, or it not being updated much.

Evaluate the article
To evaluate this article I first want to begin answering the guided questions above: To begin the article does introduce the bacterium and its class fairly well, it talks about what the bacterium can do and where it was found all basic information to open up with. Going on the lead information is incredibly brief it is not long, and does have a list of what the rest of the article will entail. I feel the lead section is pretty well written, there could be a bit more information to catch the readers attention, but it was nice and simple. Next moving on to content this article provides is recent but not completely up to date. The papers this article pulled from range from late 1900s to 2016. I feel in this sense the article could be updated seeing as I'm sure there are current papers or projects out there surrounding this bacterium in the past 2 years. I'm sure that means there is content that is missing or could be added. In terms of tone and balance the article does seem neutral, no one is saying the bacteria is dumb, or advocating for it to be the greatest thing on earth, it provides a straight forward educational tone, in terms of viewpoints there is not really one someone can take. I think its interesting the article does mention there being projects using this bacteria for causes such as plastic pollution and no one is on this article saying plastic pollution and the projects are stupid, its neutral on the article side of things. In terms of sources all the facts within this article were mainly based in peer-reviewed articles, but the last few were news websites and those are not as reliable. I feel overall the articles organized well, the grammar and clarity could be edited a bit to come across as more mature. The only thing I did notice that I was disappointed about is the article had no images provided to enhance a readers experience while reading, images being added would defiantly help. The talk page I looked over seemed to have been a project surrounding another microbiology class, the conversation is very minimal but the users are talking about bacteria rotting plastic away being a science fiction idea, and talks of creating a seperate page for the enzyme (PETase) this bacteria uses to breakdown plastics. Overall I think the status of this page is fair, it provides an organized educational point of view on this bacteria with a neutral standpoint which are its strengthens, but the article is very short and could use some detail here and there in writing and images to make it better and that's why I would rate it average.