User:Nightlymist/Carbon offset/LisaTruong3 Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

Nightlymist


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * Carbon offset draft


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Carbon offset Wikipedia article

Evaluate the drafted changes
Lead

There was no additional information or content added to the lead section (based on the student’s draft). Therefore, it can be assumed that the lead section is up-to-date, accurate, and provides a detailed description of the article’s major sections. To confirm, I went on the official Wikipedia page (carbon offset), where the lead section explains the societal, political (e.g., Kyoto Protocol), economical, and environmental aspects of the article. The lead section does include an introductory sentence which defines what carbon offset is and how carbon offset is measured.

Content

The content added was relevant to the topic and up-to-date; the majority of scientific articles used were published in the last 10 years. Furthermore, this draft addresses one of the concerns of the official “Carbon offset” Wikipedia article, which explains that “this article needs to be updated”. The student successfully fulfilled this concern. However, there is some content that is missing or is insufficient. For example, additional content that could have been added is under the “Agriculture” section, where the student mentions, “the soil in agriculture is now holding 50% to 66% less carbon in the soil and this is due to the many practices that farmers or scientists use.” The student could have further explained how soil is now holding significantly less carbon due to agriculture practices and scientists use. I have provided a link to a scientific article which discusses the importance of sustainable agriculture to improve organic matter in soil, which will allow more carbon to be sequestered into the Earth’s surface. Furthermore, more context could be added to “Tourism”. For example, the student wrote “the tourism industry is going to be called a "polluting industry" with the ways that it has been going”. More context and explanation could have been added to this sentence. For instance, how and what practices are causing the current tourism industry to be unsustainable and not assist in carbon offsetting?

Tone and Balance

The added content in this draft was neutral. There were no claims or statements that appeared heavily biased; the majority of information appeared to represent factual claims from the scientific articles chosen. The added content does not attempt to persuade the reader to favour one view/position over another.

Sources and References

All of the content is supported with reliable sources (i.e., peer-reviewed articles) and the content in the student’s draft accurately reflects what the cited source explains. A suggestion for future editing is to place the citation at the end of a sentence or at the end of a paragraph where the information has been obtained. For example, in the “Quality assurance Standard for Carbon Offsetting (QAS)” section, a citation (numbered as ‘5’ in the references section) was included for the first sentence, but not the second sentence, even though the information explained in the second sentence is discussed from the same source as the first sentence. Therefore, it is best to place the citation at the end of these two sentences to inform readers where the student has obtained the information and to avoid plagiarism. This same formatting (where citations are not added to the end of a paragraph) is seen in other sections, including the “Renewable energy”, “Agriculture” and “Tourism” section. Additionally, the links that are provided in the references section does work and are linked to the correct source. However, the draft does not display a diverse range of sources used; most sections (excluding “Renewable energy” section) retrieve information from one source. Additional sources would have been favourable to ensure that the stated information was accurate, valid, and verifies the cited source.

Organization

Majority of the content is well-written. For instance, the sentences in the “Agriculture” section are well-written and easy to comprehend. However, some sentences were awkwardly structured or could have been more concise. For example, under the “Quality assurance Standard for Carbon Offsetting (QAS)” section, the sentence in the draft states “an example of a government goal is Germany, their goal is to decrease the carbon emissions by 95% by 2050”. To improve this sentence, the student could have instead written “For example, Germany’s goal is to decrease carbon emission by 95% by 2050.” There are no spelling errors, but there are a couple of grammatical errors. For instance, under the “Renewable energy” section, one of the sentences states “This is done to reduce the levels of CO2 and this planned by the International Energy Agency (IEA) Energy Technology Perspectives.” The sentence sounds incomplete due to the absence of a verb between the word “this” and “planned”. To improve this sentence, the sentence could have been written as “This is done to reduce the levels of CO2, which was planned by the International Energy Agency (IEA) Energy Technology Perspectives.” Additionally, the content is well-organized; all of the added information is relevant and placed under the related headings.

Images and Media

In the draft, no images or media were included. However, this is understandable as Wikipedia's standard for uploading images and media from external sources is strict and can be considered as plagiarism if the images/media are not altered in some form.

Talk Page Discussion

Previously, there were no messages on the “Talk Page” of the draft. However, I recently placed a message in the talk page (not feedback related as this evaluation provided an in-depth review on the student draft). A point that I would like to further discuss regarding the draft is the “Tourism” section. I would have appreciated if more context and information was added to this section. For example, is there a possible alternative or solution to reduce pollution in the tourism industry, and whether there is a precise, numerical value (percentage or parts per million) of harmful gases in the atmosphere instead of writing “a lot of pollution”.

Overall Impressions

To conclude, the additional content in this draft somewhat improves the overall quality of the article; the student used relevant and up-to-date information, which will further contribute to the completion of the official Wikipedia article. Suggestions for improvement are to include more information and citations to your draft (limited content was added), improve sentence structure with punctuation and being more concise, and further elaboration on some of the points, which I have mentioned above. If possible, add new images and/or media to the draft as there were only two images on the official Wikipedia article. Some of the strengths of the content added is that the information was unbiased, all of the information originated from peer-reviewed articles, “Renewable energy” section is well-written, and the content provided greater depth to certain topics that were briefly mentioned in the official Wikipedia article.