User:Kaylan.ginther/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.


 * Name of article: Animal Nutrition
 * Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.

Animal nutrition is becoming of more importance and more research needs to be done in this field. Nutrition plays a major role in the health status of an animal and is constantly undervalued by the general public so there needs to be more information and emphasis on the importance of it. There is also huge importance of the impact of microbes in the gastrointestinal tract of animals and how they are crucial to animal nutrition

Lead

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
 * Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
 * Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
 * Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?

Lead evaluation
The lead captures the general idea of animal nutrition but does include companion animals in its list and is very general to just constituents of a diet. Although the lead mentions the main nutrients needed in most animal diets there is no systematic review of differences between animals or even a main section for each nutrient. There is also a topic in the lead (water) that is not mentioned anywhere else in the article which is strange since it is arguably the most important nutrient and often under-appreciated. Of course, there is no information about the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract which is becoming more important in animal (especially ruminant) nutrition.

Content

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
 * Is the content up-to-date?
 * Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?

Content evaluation
Overall the content is too general. There is sufficient content about some topics and insufficient content about others. This page highlights the main nutrients of animal diets and describes some of them very well, but there is almost no indication of what these nutrients do in different animals or how there are major differences in nutrients required for some animals but not for others. It may be a problem that the content is simply not up to date and the page has not been reviewed and edited in a long time. There is way more information that scientists and animal nutritionists know about animal nutrition that could be outlined in this page. Again, there is no information on the bacteria and other microbes that live inside the animal and how they are related to and are important in animal nutrition.

Tone and Balance

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article neutral?
 * Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?

Tone and balance evaluation
The article seems to be neutral and does not indicate any personal views or advertising certain ideas. Nutrient requirement differences between animals or groups of animals are underrepresented and each nutrient itself is underrepresented. From this article it looks like protein is the most important nutrient while carbohydrates and fats are talked about together and do not have their own heading which makes them seem less important. There is a whole section dedicated to the intestinal flora, however there is only one sentence in this section. There could be much more information here and likely subheadings within.

Sources and References

 * Guiding questions


 * Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
 * Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
 * Are the sources current?
 * Check a few links. Do they work?

Sources and references evaluation
Not all of the facts in this article contain cited information of a secondary source. The sources that are cited are mainly biochemistry textbooks which are important in describing the nutrients but there is a lack of review articles or books referenced that are directly related to animal nutrition. This is probably due to the fact that the article itself is lacking more information about the animals themselves and how their nutrition is different between species. Not all of the links within the sources work.

Organization

 * Guiding questions


 * Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read?
 * Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
 * Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?

Organization evaluation
The first sentence has a grammatical error which does not reflect well for the rest of the article. The article is concise but is too general and lacking important pieces of information. The sections could be organized better and making sure the major categories of nutrients have their own sections. The addition of subheadings would make it easier to follow some of the detail they go into about the nutrients.

Images and Media

 * Guiding questions


 * Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
 * Are images well-captioned?
 * Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
 * Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?

Images and media evaluation
There are no images within this article.

Checking the talk page

 * Guiding questions


 * What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
 * How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
 * How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

Talk page evaluation
There is concern that many points in this article have been directly copied from the pages on nutrition or human nutrition. It seems that the person who wrote this did not have the whole picture or understanding of nutrition and therefore why there is concern of copying. Pictures that were inappropriate have been removed from this article which is why there are no longer pictures within the article. It is part of three WikiProjects: Food and drink, Animals, and Veterinary Medicine. This article does not suggest the importance of the normal bacteria within the gut which are an important part in animal nutrition. Knowing the normal bacterial environment is essential especially in cases where altering the nutrition of the animal can lead to illness through change in the the bacterial flora (example: streptococcus bovis and ruminal acidosis)

Overall impressions

 * Guiding questions


 * What is the article's overall status?
 * What are the article's strengths?
 * How can the article be improved?
 * How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?

Overall evaluation
This article needs more work done to complete the whole picture of animal nutrition. The strength of this article is that it describes some of the nutrients very well based on information from biochemistry textbooks. Improving the article can be done by providing more content directly related to animals, finding and providing more sources related directly to animal nutrition and organizing/adding sections to make it easier to understand and provide a more complete picture of animal nutrition as a whole.

Optional activity

 * Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

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