User:KyleMadden24/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
History of biotechnology

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article because biotechnology and the advancements we have made in biotechnology have played a key role in combatting the Covid-19 pandemic, and will likely only continue to play an even greater role in the world even post pandemic. Learning the history of how it came to be can be important for understanding the steps biotechnology might take in the future. Over all the article seems well written and rather well gone over and edited based on the how it reads and the edit history. I know this is about the history of biotechnology but it could use some information on more recent especially since the most recent year I saw it mention was 2014 I believe, and even then it was only a small amount of information included.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

-The lead section of this article does do a good job of informing the reader what the article will be about, but not in quite as concise a form as the instructions say. The lead section is broken up into two and a half/quarter paragraphs rather than simply into one. Given there is a lot of different topics to cover in this article it may be difficult to shrink it down into one without it sounding too much like listing off things, but it could probably be shortened a little bit at least into two paragraphs rather than three if not one.

-The content seems fair and balanced but it isn't really the kind of topic that is able to cover underrepresented populations or demographics since it's an article focused on the history of biotechnology and not so much people involved outside of those with important quotes or who helped develop major breakthroughs. Although this is an article about history, I believe recent events such as the start of the pandemic and the rush for a vaccine could also be included in this article in showing the huge boosts in funding some of these companies got or noting the speed with which the vaccines had been created for the Covid-19 virus through certain major biotech companies. These could be added to the Global Trends section of the article.

-There aren't really positions to take so much on this topic other than is biotechnology "good or bad" so to speak, but the writer covered the arguments of both sides in a way that they were just reporting what they were rather than trying to prove one side right or wrong. Later on it did say that it has become mainstream and accepted that biotechnologies aren't dangerous the way they had been claimed to be and have more or less become integrated with society.

-The sources all look to come from reliable publications and back up the facts that are stated in the article, and since many of the facts are more about certain processes, diseases, or scientific studies or projects, finding sources from underrepresented individuals doesn't really apply here. There are several areas where facts are stated without citation and have been flagged with the (needs citation) mark at the end. For example the "BVK" production fact in the article could use a reference that helps back it up. A source explaining it in more depth or the process the Soviets were using to make it could be a useful source (assuming it can be found).

-The article is broken up rather neatly into the sections outlined by the Lead Section and the table of contents under it. As far as I could tell they were able to keep the relative information to the set sections and had little to no overlap into other sections.

-The four small pictures on the article are all captioned in a way that explains them well and makes them more interesting and pleasing to the reader. They all meet the requirements of being added to a Wikipedia article. Adding another picture may crowd the page a little since there is a lot of information, but a picture of something like the "Flavr Savr tomato" might be an interesting one to add to show that something can be genetically altered but still look the same.

-This article is part of four projects and has a B ranking in two and a C class ranking in another. The only discussion was a question about biotechnology and what it covered but it was explained and settled and the original definition was kept.

-Overall the article is in good shape and is well written. However like I have said and others clearly have marked there are some citations still needed in areas, possible another picture to add some more color and break up the text a little bit more, adding more recent information and updates about biotech companies and the pandemic and lastly to maybe try and shorten the Lead Section a little.