User:Jlmaier12/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
CrAssphage

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I choose to evaluate the crAssphage article because the crAssphage are of special interest to me due to their unique relationship with human gut bacteria. While phage typically maintain a predatory lifestyle, crAssphage have formed a long-term stable co-existence with their bacterial hosts. It is currently unclear how the crAssphage affect their bacterial (or human) hosts despite their near-ubiquitous present in human guts around the world. I was curious how well the crAssphage article conveyed the hypothesized significance of these viruses.

Lead Section
The lead section of the crAssphage article is fairly weak. It only briefly summarizes a few points and does not include the most important information in the article. Additionally, the section contains information that is not referenced elsewhere in the article.

Content
The crAssphage article seems to be up to date and contains information relevant to the topic. While all topics are covered equally, I feel the most important topics are not given as much attention as they deserve. The least important topics, like the use of crAssphage as a fecal marker, are given equal weight to the most important topics, like the crAssphages' near-ubiquity and abundance in humans,. Additionally, there is some information that is not mentioned in the article at all, like the crAssphages' co-evolution with humans and the presence of crAssphage in our primate relatives.

Tone and Balance
The crAssphage article does a good job of maintaining a neutral tone throughout the article. No opinions are provided and there is no use of persuasive writing.

Sources and References:
The sources and references used in the crAssphage article are okay. Some of the sources from academic journals are good and represent the information they reference well. Other sources are from magazines, like Forbes, and science communication websites, like EurekAlert!. I noticed the author of the Forbes article provided his own hypothesis to the role of crAssphage and used incorrect terminology. There are far better sources for crAssphage information from reputable, peer-reviewed journals that can be used in place of these sources from websites and magazines.

Organization and writing quality:
The organization of the crAssphage article is not great. There are only two sections- 'crAssphage' and 'crAss-like phages'- and there is no explanation as to what the difference between these two sections is. The writing quality is okay, in some places the writing is akward and the terminology used seems odd. After reviewing a couple of the references used, I noticed the author of the crAssphage Wiki article used parallel plagiarism in at least one case which made me skeptical of the writing throughout the entire article.

Images and Media:
There are two images used in the crAssphage article- a schematic image of a crAssphage particle and an illustration of the crAssphage RNA polymerase. The schematic image of a crAssphage is a useful image and provides information about the virus' morphology. The image of RNA polymerase is not useful in my opinion. The author mentions that the crAssphage RNA polymerase shares homology with RNA interference proteins that affect humans, but without an image of the 'RNA interference protein' for comparisons, the crAssphage RNA polymerase image alone is not useful. Additionally, the captions are not thorough and provide little context to the image they reference.

Talk Page Discussion:
There is some discussion on the talk page related to the mention in the article that the crAssphage genome is circular. A wiki user questions this fact and the writer responds with a citation from a peer-reviewed journal to back up their writing. All conversation is cordial and respectful. No recent comments have been added and that last comments were made in early 2021.

Overall impressions:
Overall, I think the crAssphage article has a good foundation and provides the majority of the key facts about crAssphage. That being said, I think more information and details could help convey the significance of crAssphage a little better than the article currently does. The article is also missing some important information regarding the relationship of crAssphage and humans. The organization of the article could use some work. Specifically, more subheadings would help direct readers to the most important topics. Additionally, the article could use better, more reliable sources.