User:Jy865/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Microbiology

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
It matters because it provides a brief overview on Microbiology, including its history, branches and applications. My preliminary impression of it is that all sections seem to be relatively balanced in length except for Branches being on the shorter side, and that all references at a glance seem to be from reliable literary sources (e.g. journal articles).

Lead section
The lead section begins with a concise definition of microbiology as a term and the fields it involves. It ends with a paragraph briefly mentioning key figures and contributions to the field which it further elaborates on in following sections. The lead also includes further definitions of relevant terminology, such as eukaryotic organisms, prions, and viruses and their general relation to the topic. No information in the lead is not included in the article. The lead is overall quite concise.

Content
The article seems to provide a relatively comprehensive overview of microbiology. Specifically it includes its definition, history, key discoveries, branches and applications; descriptions in each section additionally pertain to a wide variety of aspects of microbiology, from food preservation to disease. All information presented is relevant to the topic, and progressively introduces the topic's significance and applications in a logically sequential order (e.g. broad to specific). In addition the article seems to be current as of the last update in March 2024. In terms of equity gaps, the historical section and list of noted figures is quite short given that the field was stated to be considered relatively young in the 19th century, but from the scientists/cultures stated the article seems relatively inclusive as it includes some contributions beyond traditional Western scientific literature.

Tone and Balance
The article appears to generally maintain a neutral tone throughout. It discusses various scientific advancements and contributions to microbiology without promoting one viewpoint over another. There seems to be a relatively balanced representation of different subfields within microbiology as previously mentioned (they are generally noted or briefly described in contributions or to provide a sense of the wide scope of disciplines which microbiology is relevant to). The article does not delve very deep into these subfields as there is a main page dedicated specifically to branches of microbiology. The article does not explicitly describe minority or fringe viewpoints as such. The article does not attempt to persuade the reader to one viewpoint or another, it also provides generally fair arguments (e.g. it acknowledges counter viewpoints such as the fear of microbes).

Sources and References
There are a total of 38 sources cited for this article to back each of the facts stated in the article, all from a variety of reputable and reliable sources including university news, journal articles, and textbooks. Most sources seem to either be historical or relevant to prebiotics, which might not fully reflect the available literature for microbiology given its vast applications. Most sources are from within the last 20 years, with some exceptions in the late 1990s and some historical reference for early mentions of microbiology-related speculation dating back as early as the 16th century. Sources include texts written in a variety of languages and pertaining to a variety of cultures, although mostly for those relating to religious reference in early speculations of microbiology origins. Recent sources appear to tend to include more Western sources. A couple links are broken but most work otherwise.

Organization and Writing Quality
The article is overall quite concise, uses good grammar, and is organized into respective sections that increase in level of detail. It starts with broad definitions, explains the history of the field, the creation of a subdiscipline of the field, mentions some other relevant branches, and ends with the applications of the field. All sections provide a relatively general overview; for any topics that the reader may be curious to learn further information about the article provides links to (e.g. Branches of microbiology, bacteriology).

Images and Media
The article mainly includes images of notable figures in microbiology history and some microbiology study environments, and 1 image of an agar plate. All images are well-captioned and any image with a notable figure has a link to more information about that individual. All images appear to adhere to Wikipedia copyright regulations. Images are formatted in a somewhat appealing way as they alternate sides, providing some visual interest; however there are 1 or 2 parts where some of these alternating sides are too close to each other, resulting in the text appearing too condensed.

Talk Page Discussion
The talk page conversations are quite short and extends back to 2014. The most recent is January 2024. Most recent comments question the verification of certain statements and the reliability of their sources. A couple are suggestions for revisions of the article's structure (e.g. history section heading structure) as well as critiques on the inclusion of certain content (e.g. inclusion of branches, relevance of religious beliefs to history of microbiology). This article is noted to be a part of WikiProjects, and is a C-Class article. The article's discussion on this topic differs somewhat from the way we've discussed it in class in the sense that it makes more explicit reference to historical figures in the origins of microbiology, even including religious references. There is a significant emphasis on historical context (likely given the article is an overview of microbiology) and broader mentions of microbiology applications, whereas class discussions seem largely revolve more around current and specific applications of microbiology (as relevant to college settings).

Overall Impressions
The article's overall status is that it is a C-Class article. Its strengths seem to largely be its relatively extensive emphasis on the history of microbiology which includes possible ancient religious origins/predictions of microbiology, as well as generally covers a wide variety of current applications. While the article makes mention of the wide variety of disciplines microbiology is involved in, and has a dedicated page to Branches of microbiology, it could be helpful to provide a slightly more extensive list and basic definitions to those similar to the way it did with eukaryotes and viruses in the leading section, or to merge it with the applications section as a means to list the different relevant fields and examples from the applications section under. The references could potentially be a little more balanced as well as many were relevant at first glance to early history of the field or its applications with pro and pre-biotics. In this sense I think the article is semi-well-developed. In addition, I think the flow of the article could be somewhat improved. For example in the leading section the transition between the definition of microbiology to the definitions for eukaryotes and viruses could be improved as it was a slightly abrupt and confusing flow in terms of why the latter information was included.