User:Michael3468/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: Behavioral Ecology
 * Article Evaluation (S rating, 57 views per day)
 * Article Evaluation (S rating, 57 views per day)

Lead Section:
This article has a good lead section and with a clear introductory sentence defining the main topic at hand. Likewise, this section gives a brief overview of the beginnings of behavioral ecology. I believe that this section becomes slightly over detailed towards the end as it gives detailed information about natural selection and competition as it relates to behavioral ecology.

Content:
The article's content is relevant to the topic. The content is divided into sections that each describe a different behavior which affects the overall fitness of individuals in a population. Likewise, subsections are used to describe specific examples of the behaviors that are present in populations (ex. mating --> monogamy). Based on my prior knowledge of the subject, the information is up to date, but some of the sources used throughout the content portion of the article were published in the late 1900's. I would have to say that this section is missing direct connections of behavior to environmental changes. This additions would be the main framework upon which I believe edits can be made to this article.

Tone and Balance:
Since this is a ecological topic that has witnessed a substantial amount of research, there is very little to no controversy in the article. Each of the sections contains multiple scientific studies to support the information being delineated. The article does not try to persuade the reader to favoring a certain position, but rather just presents different scientific studies to delineate behavioral phenomenons in populations.

Sources and References:
A majority of the information in the article is backed up by scientific studies. Although, it should be stated that some of the sources date back to studies that were published in the late 1900's. The articles are from a diverse set of authors, each study focusing on a different type of behavior in nature.

Organization and Writing Quality:
This article is well written and I have not noticed any grammatical errors. Likewise, the article is clearly divided into sections that provide thorough explanations of the different behaviors exhibited by populations.

Images and Media:
The article does include images, but only a certain few expand upon the information that is presented in the section alongside the image. The images are well captioned and all follow the wikipedia guidelines.

Talk Page Discussion:
There are multiple different conversations occurring in the talk page of this article. Important discussions include possible merger of behavioral ecology with ethoecology, although there seems to be disapproval of this step. The other conversations are small topics that discuss the specific behaviors mentioned in the wikipedia article.
 * Sources

Option 2

 * Article title: Animal Sexual Behavior:
 * Article Evaluation (C rating, 432 views per day)

Lead Section:
The lead section of this article clearly introduces the topic of sexual behavior and defines the many forms in which it can be found (ie. monogamy, polygamy, etc.). Moreover, it presents a historical viewpoint of animal sexual behavior and delineates the most dominant form in which an individual female chooses from a wide array of males based on favored characteristics. Lastly, the lead section discusses how sexual behavior relates to the overall structure and nature of a population. This lead section I believe does not go into too much detail and presents all of the general topics that are later discussed throughout the article. If I were to edit this article, I would include a small amount in this section about how sexual behavior could be affected by the environment of different populations.

Content:
The article's content is relevant to the main topic and goes forth in detail to discuss the different forms of sexual behavior, as well as certain factors that might influence this behavior. Likewise, sexual behavior is also divided into different animal types, which allows for a detailed and careful analysis of how each animal type fits into the greater sexual behavior seen in large populations. I would add to this section a relationship between animal sexual behavior and environment, as well as how climate change may impact sexual behavior.

Tone and Balance:
Since this is a scientific article, the tone is largely neutral and each of the viewpoints/information presented is supported by research papers. As a result, the article does not try to persuade the reader, but rather gives them a general overview of the different types of animal sexual behaviors.

Sources and References:
All of the facts presented in the article are backed up by research papers. The information in the article is relatively up to date, with a large amount of sources dating to the 2010's. The papers are written by a diverse set of authors as each paper focuses on a certain type of animal sexual behavior.

Organization and Writing Quality:
The article is well written and the information is well organized. Each of the sections is further divided into specific examples that could be found for the type of sexual behavior or factor that affects sexual behavior.

Images and Media:
The images included alongside the article, most certainly expand upon and help delineate the topic being discussed next to it. Most of the images are used to show either different types of sexual behaviors or physical factors of animals that contribute to different types of sexual selection and behavior

Talk Page Discussion:
The talk page for this article does not have many discussions. The main topics addressed were specific animals with respect to their sexual behavior and in general questions about certain types of sexual behaviors.
 * Sources

Option 3

 * Article title: Adaptive Behavior (Ecology):
 * Article Evaluation (C rating, 9 views per day)

Lead Section:
The lead section of the article clearly defines the main topic and gives a brief overview of a few examples. Moreover, this section relates behavior to the overall concept of evolution and how it affects the evolutionary pathway of organisms. I would edit this section by adding a brief description of how adaptive behavior affects an organisms survival capabilities in respect to the environment.

Content:
The content of this article is very brief compared to the other two articles and only discusses certain aspects of behavior. There is a multitude of room to add information about adaptive behavior in different environments (possibly addressing specific biomes). Likewise, a section, discussing how climate change has affected organisms' adaptive behavior, should be added to the article.

Tone and Balance:
Since this is a scientific article, all of the information presented is based on prior scientific research. While this article does contain a "Controversy" section. The information for this part is also taken from a scientific journal where the nature of learning processes is discussed. Furthermore, the article does not try to persuade the reader in favoring one position.

Sources and References:
All of the information in the article is backed up by sources. Moreover, while some of the sources date back to the late 1900's. Most of the sources are much for up to date. I would say that there are recent studies in ecology that could most certainly be used to aid in the editing of this article.

Organization and Writing Quality:
While the article is well written, I believe the sections are slightly too general and can further be divided into more specific ideas as they relate to adaptive behavior.

Images and Media:
The article only has one image to depict a behavior that benefits population survival. I believe that images should be added to other parts to allow for a more visual depiction of the concepts being discussed.

Talk Page Discussion:
While this article is part of two WikiProjects, there has been no discussion on the talk page. This goes to show that this article needs attention and would most certainly benefit from editing.
 * Sources