User:Katiejill127/Choose an Article

Article Selection
Please list articles that you're considering for your Wikipedia assignment below. Begin to critique these articles and find relevant sources.

Option 1

 * Article title: Geographic information system
 * Article Evaluation: At a quick glance, I see many gap areas in this Wikipedia page. The introductory paragraphs don't describe what GIS is very well, neither technically or for the audience of a lay-person, and state incorrectly that the term "GIScience" is more common than the term "GIS". The first image is ridiculously inadequate and the second is a hand-drawn map. The "History and development" section doesn't note President Regan deciding to make satellite data available for civilian use in 1983 or any specifics of technology advancements past 1986. A separate section titled "GIS Software" sort of attempts to continue with the historical documentation but contains inaccurate information (GIS company ESRI is listed as a software alongside several of their platforms, there are no dates provided so the timeline is confusing). Geospatial Data Management section is a mess (ironically), there might be salvageable content but it needs cleanup and consolidation. Citations are missing for sentences which seem out of place. I don't know why anyone even tried to attempt "Spatial analysis with GIS", since it's a tool that can allow infinite different kinds of data processing and analytics, but of course this is a mess with tons of great content too. There's a sub-topic in here called "Web mapping" that's only 6 sentences long, followed by a main section just titled "Apps". Yikes. More yikes: the section called "Implications of GIS on society", which paints GIS methods as potentially dangerous and offers two incredibly narrow positive use-cases for GIS helping sectors of our society.
 * This would be a good choice, but it's overwhelmingly in need of help.
 * Sources
 * Why the Military Released GPS to the Public, Popularmechanics.com
 * What is a geographic information system (GIS)? usgs.gov
 * What is GIS? esri.com
 * What is GIS? gislounge.com
 * GIS (Geographic Information System), nationalgeographic.org
 * The Application of Geographic Information Science in Earth Sciences, gis.usc.edu
 * More sources would arise in the process. Also, I would rewrite poorly written sections so they make more sense to laypeople.
 * GIS (Geographic Information System), nationalgeographic.org
 * The Application of Geographic Information Science in Earth Sciences, gis.usc.edu
 * More sources would arise in the process. Also, I would rewrite poorly written sections so they make more sense to laypeople.

Option 2

 * Article title: California Office of the State Fire Marshal (it doesn't exist yet!), and to appropriately link to and polish up California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection that is a bit weak now too.
 * Article Evaluation: The California Office of the State Fire Marshal will be celebrating 100 years of service next year in 2023. This is my unit at the State of California within CAL FIRE (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection), but OSFM has only been housed within CAL FIRE for the last decade. OSFM has a separate history that's worth documenting in a brief Wikipedia page and linking to the CAL FIRE page. I would also need to help clean up the CAL FIRE page, starting with the incorrect info and lack of citations in the introductory section. Some of the information disputed in the talk page I cannot speak to, and possibly shouldn't be here anyway. I would recommend to slim the page down to entirely useful, public-friendly topics that direct readers to fire.ca.gov. There is only one valid source (fire.ca.gov) for this topic, but the site offers many subpages with different kinds of information. I will also need some guidance from Dr. Fulton or others on how to fully end a debate in the talk section; I know the answer and the original question/suggestion is incorrect.
 * Sources:
 * In this case, many subpages at https://www.fire.ca.gov/ would be the only appropriate source. Subpages such as https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/, https://bof.fire.ca.gov/, https://frap.fire.ca.gov/, https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/communications/, https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/fire-protection/, and many others. I may also link to public-facing resources and statistics.
 * Sources:
 * In this case, many subpages at https://www.fire.ca.gov/ would be the only appropriate source. Subpages such as https://osfm.fire.ca.gov/, https://bof.fire.ca.gov/, https://frap.fire.ca.gov/, https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/communications/, https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/fire-protection/, and many others. I may also link to public-facing resources and statistics.

Option 3

 * Article title: Mono Lake
 * Article Evaluation: I realize that this is the article that I previously reviewed in my Article Evaluation assignment, but it would be a good candidate for a bit of help. This is well-written article about one of my favorite lakes, but is missing critical sections on hydrology and the history of research at Mono Lake. There are thorough sections about the lake's geology, limnology, ecology, climate, history, and even a section about Mono Lake in popular culture. There is extensive information presented about Mono Lake and the climate and lake level reconstruction possible with modern research, but the page possibly suffers from too much specificity, as two highly technical contributors have slightly conflicting dates and information. The article's live with a flag/tag that says, "This article may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details. (February 2021)". The article is strong in the topics it does cover, but is missing information regarding lake hydrology and it's possible that the environmental historical research summarized is both too technical and inconsistent. The most famous researchers of Mono Lake are not listed as sources, but I'm not sure if that's a mistake that needs fixing as their research is now rather old and more modern hydro/meteorological methods have prevailed. I guess I'd say that if a section specific to the hydrology of Mono Lake existed, or if evaporation or climate were elaborated upon in the article, some of the most notable researchers in Mono Lake history would be referenced. It's also possible that so much hydro/meteorological research has been conducted there, that a "research history of Mono Lake" section would also suffice. This article is nearly complete but remains poorly developed in a couple of areas. 90% of the article is well-composed, well-developed, and well-representative of Mono Lake.
 * *note: maybe I would also make a page for the Vorster Center for Mono Basin Hydrology*, as I noticed it doesn't have one either.
 * Sources:
 * Numerous subpages on The Mono Lake Committee Website, monolake.org, including the Vorster Center for Mono Basin Hydrology, the State of the Lake, Geology, Water Chemistry, Published Research, and others.
 * MONO BASIN GEOLOGY AND HYDROLOGY, LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT OF WATER AND POWER AQUEDUCT DIVISION - HYDROLOGY SECTION, 1987
 * Geological Gems of California State Parks, CGS Special Report 230
 * Long Valley Caldera Field Guide - Mono Lake, usgs.gov
 * I'd probably also need to do my best to track down the research papers with differing geologic timelines. I guess I have a BS of Geology and nearly a MS in Civil Eng., so I might be the right person to help clean this up, unless it's way too messy and the proxies from different papers overlap.
 * Long Valley Caldera Field Guide - Mono Lake, usgs.gov
 * I'd probably also need to do my best to track down the research papers with differing geologic timelines. I guess I have a BS of Geology and nearly a MS in Civil Eng., so I might be the right person to help clean this up, unless it's way too messy and the proxies from different papers overlap.

Option 4

 * Article title: Chézy formula
 * Article Evaluation: This is a civil engineering formula method for calculating the velocity in open channel flow situations. It's on a list posted by the Civil engineering WikiProject asking for help, and I can certainly provide some more information and sources for this method. It's a very old formula, very straight-forward and could be an easy first article to edit. It's a solid method but required an empirical constant, so it was built upon by and improved by the Manning equation which simplified the calculation of that constant.
 * I came across this stub when I noticed that the Civil engineering WikiProject needs a lot of help - and this topic is familiar for me while others are not. I actually signed my name as a member to the WikiProject today, committing to helping somehow. The article civil engineering also needs a lot of help but it was written in a way I would not have recommended, starting with a list of all the sub-disciplines and careers that civil engineers have. If I jump in there to help, I would recommend making that way more brief and noting that CEs can fill many cross-disciplinary engineering needs.
 * Sources:
 * My Fluid Mechanics textbook: Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics, By Munson, Okiishi, Gyebscg, 8th Edition, Wiley & Sons, Inc., covers the Chezy and Manning Equations in section 10.4.2.
 * Dimensionally Homogeneous Form of the Chezy and Manning Equations, hydroreview.com
 * Why is Manning’s formula more often used than Chezy formula in open channel flows?, engineeringcivil.com
 * Chezy's formula, Oxford Reference
 * Why is Manning’s formula more often used than Chezy formula in open channel flows?, engineeringcivil.com
 * Chezy's formula, Oxford Reference

Option 5

 * Article title: Evapotranspiration
 * Article Evaluation: This article seems to be off to a really great start. ET is one of my favorite topics. At a quick glance the article looks great, but there is a lot of drama in the talk page that I could help massage out, and I suppose if I were nit-picky there's a lot to know about ET and the article is pretty brief. I notice that the main section, "Estimating evapotranspiration" describes major ET topics with just a couple of sentences each, so I could definitely provide these methods more substance. I'm obsessed with the Earth's Surface Energy Balance, which deserves a much better description (and doesn't have a WikiPedia page?!). Also, the Penman equation is groundbreaking and forms that built upon it, such as the globally currently dominant Penman-Monteith equation, deserve more description than they get too. There are also very popular methods more commonly used outside of the US (where insolation data is more scarce), such as the hargreaves-samani method which uses extraterrestrial radiation instead (and also doesn't have a Wikipedia page!). I might discuss limitations on regional suitability for using any method or model, especially those used here, and that extreme climates may find other methods more suitable than Penman or P-M. I might also add a quick plug for the CIMIS Penman method developed at UC Davis.
 * Most importantly, the distinction between ET and reference ET (ETo) is not discussed. I suggest to add a sub-section on the importance of reference ET (ETo) for estimating regional water demands, and describe what reference ET is to lay-people.
 * Sources: My Evapotranspiration textbook (Jensen and Allen, 2016) has no business being as comprehensive or interesting as it is. This will cover the info gaps, Chapters 4 and 8-10 might help the most, and Appendix K lists about 40 different globally popular methods for estimating ET or ETo. There's really no need to go beyond this book or the literature referenced within it, but I would also like to link to some prominent research.
 * "CIMIS Penman" equation, Penman-Monteith Equation, CIMIS site, and Description from CIMIS resource site
 * Chapter 2 - FAO Penman-Monteith equation, fao.org
 * "CIMIS Penman" equation, Penman-Monteith Equation, CIMIS site, and Description from CIMIS resource site
 * Chapter 2 - FAO Penman-Monteith equation, fao.org