User:LMC041/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.) Sulfur cycle - Wikipedia

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

The sulfur cycle is a topic explored in this biogeochemistry course, and one I was previously unfamiliar with. It matters because it is important to improve human understanding of biogeochemical processes, especially as climate change becomes an issue of growing urgency. Sulfur is also an element essential for life. Increased understanding of the sulfur cycle could bring us closer to understanding the potential risks and benefits of sulfur aerosol based efforts within the realm of bioengineering. My preliminary impression of this article is that it is written in a clear way with helpful explanations and breakdowns of different processes involving sulfur cycling.

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 is concise and meets the goal of identifying the topic in the first sentence. The first paragraph provides a helpful overview of the topic and doesn't include information that isn't present in the article. All of the content is relevant to the topic and is up to date. As with almost all articles, there is room for additional content. The article doesn't address Wikipedia's equity gaps or topics related to historically underrepresented people. Tone and balance within the article are satisfactory. The viewpoint is neutral and there are not any relevant controversies discussed within the article. Sources and references for the article are mostly good and from peer reviewed scientific journals, but the link to Reference 3 no longer works (404 Error). Of the random reference links I checked, there did not seem to be a hugely diverse spectrum of authors. The organization and writing quality of the article is mostly satisfactory. Overall it is concise and clear, but there are some minor grammatical errors. The existing sections reflect the major points of the topic, but additional sections may be worthwhile. Images included in this article generally enhance the understanding of the topic, but some sections are lacking images and diagrams that could be useful in improving understanding. Additionally, the images are all included at the beginning of the article while the sections near the bottom of the page have no images or media. The image captioned "Sulfur Cycle" included at the top of the page is difficult to read without clicking on the enlarged view. It would be helpful and more visually appealing to increase the image size. The image captioned "The Sulfur cycle (in general)" is alright but could be more organized and visually appealing. It is harder to follow than the "Sulfur Cycle" image. Since 2019, no new conversations have occurred on the talk page. Some sources for improving the article and particularly the "Biologically and thermochemically driven sulfate reduction" section have been suggested. Comments and suggestions for improving the global sulfur cycle figure were left back in 2019. A couple of external links were modified in 2018, and back in 2008, some minor vandalism was dealt with. This article is a part of both the Ecology and Soil WikiProjects and was rated a class C and high importance article by each. It was also part of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. There are some additional topics related to the sulfur cycle that are covered in our class that were not included or discussed as thoroughly in this article. For example, climate engineering efforts like solar radiation modification (SRM) via stratospheric aerosol intervention (SAI) were discussed in our class. An assigned reading paper, "Potential ecological impacts of climate intervention by reflecting sunlight to cool Earth" (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1921854118) could provide some additional information to strengthen this article, and the authors of this paper are from more diverse backgrounds. Similarly, the CLAW hypothesis WikiPage (CLAW hypothesis - Wikipedia) could be included under the "See also" section. Policy related to SOx scrubbers might also be a good thing to include under the "See also" section. Some of the sections like the "Human impact" section could be more developed, but overall, I think the article is strong in its efforts to be concise and clear to readers.