User:Laurynrh/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Coral reef

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose this article, because I feel that I have a relatively good understanding of coral reef dynamics. It has to do with my undergraduate research thesis and plays a great role in many coastal communities, marine biodiversity and global economies.

Evaluate the article
Lead section:

The lead of the article does concisely and clearly define what coral reefs are. It does briefly describe all aspects listed in the contents, does not include information not present in the article and is not too overly detailed.

Content:

The content of the article is relevant to the topic, describing the different types and roles of coral reefs. The article was updated at the beginning of January 2021, so it is up to date. The article is extremely thorough. However, I would not say that this relates to one of WIkipedia's equity gaps, as the reliance on coral reef fisheries in some lower income communities was not discussed, but rather the total economic revenue of continents.

Tone and Balance

The article is pretty straightforward and neutral, as would be expected from a scientific overview article. The only viewpoints that could be considered as bipartisan are those surrounding coral reef threats, just because discussions of climate change and conservation may sometimes be regarded as opinion pieces (even though they are based on scientific fact). I would not say that the piece is persuasive. (See overall notes for more on this section)

Sources and References

There are over 100 sources, but after a skim through the references list, it seems each source is relatively reliable. Some sources include NOAA, Nature magazine, textbook references, the EPA and other internationally credible sources. Obviously with such a large list of sources, the source type varies, but most are credible science journals, or university and government-based resources. Personally, I would have used similar source types if I were to author this article, since the weakest sources I noted were from magazines, and even those magazines are considered credible in the scientific community. The sources range from as early as Darwin's publishings to studies published in 2020, suggesting that the literature surrounding coral reefs has been thoroughly reviewed and updated. The links do work for the sources I checked, however access might not be publicly available for each one (i.e. the sources are available on a private database, etc.).

Organization and writing quality

The article is extremely well written. While it is lengthy, it goes over each type of coral reef, where they occur, the biology and anatomy of coral reefs, the history of their discovery, the biodiversity of their ecosystems, their threats, protection and restoration efforts with thorough analysis of each subtopic. I did not catch any spelling errors in my reading. Overall, I think the organization was excellent. I was thoroughly impressed.

Images and Media

The images used in the article are very effective in supplementing the subject areas. There are high quality photographed images, animated images, as well as labeled diagrams, world maps, and more. Ultimately each image I believe supplements the understanding of coral reefs very well. Each image is also well captioned, so no matter what section of the article you are reading through the purpose of the image is clear. Most of the images are cited and hyperlinked to their original source, it seemed there were a small fraction that slipped through the cracks, however upon further inspection I discovered that they are copyright-free images with links to their respective licensing. As a whole, the images are all appealing; with the exception of a couple of the animations (whose role in supplementing the content I think exceeds the poor quality/appearance of the images).

Talk page discussion

One of the conversations makes the comment that the greenhouse effect controversy is not discussed thoroughly in the article and suggested that a threats page be added (it was). There are also multiple comments on the nature of the writing (specifically-that it feels "copy-pasted") and a. group of editors appeared to have worked together to find the correct sources that were copied from, and fix the citations throughout the article (switched some of the footnoting). Another editor disagreed with one fact described in the article (depth of formation). The article is a part of 6 WikiProjects, including ecology, geography, marine life and more, and has been rated a B-class article for each one and an overall level 4-vital article. Notes in the description also account for the language dialects in which the article was edited

Overall impressions
I would say that overall, the article is extremely well developed. However, given the subject area and the speed of research coming out in regards to coral reefs, the subject article will need to be continuously updated to maintain accuracy. To improve the article, I would expand information on the ethics of protecting coral reefs from a humanitarian and ethical perspective in a neutral matter. I would add information about the reliance of small coastal communities on coral reefs as a resource and perhaps also expand on the discussion of traditional reef fishing practices, which is briefly discussed in the article but requires more information. I also strongly believe that the threats section of the article is very short. Considering the number of stressors recognized to cause significant damage to coral reefs, the threats should be more concisely described. Aside from that, I believe that the article provides a very good general understanding of coral reefs and synthesizes knowledge rather nicely.