User:Raquel Gilliland/Planktivore/BrightPe Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

Jordamal, Lingcod8, Meyergr, Raquel Gilliland


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * User:Raquel Gilliland/Planktivore - Wikipedia


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Planktivore - Wikipedia

Lead

 * Good first few sentences! It seems to me that it still needs to be updated with all the added extras, for example now there is a section on climate change, the impact on other trophic levels of food webs in different areas, etcetera. A sentence about each major section would add a lot to the Lead.

Tone/Balance

 * The tone throughout the article is consistently neutral. There are a few cases where some descriptor words used spin more of a biased narrative, and perhaps making simple adjustments to find a different way to express the idea would be beneficial. For example, the sentence: "Zooplankton can control phytoplankton seasonal dynamics as they exert the largest predatory pressure on phytoplankton; they also modify their predatory strategies depending on environmental conditions, leading to seasonal change." is a great example of a neutral description of large impacts or effects. Whereas: "...the lowest from December to April. This backs up the point that planktivory reaches its height in the summer months. " could potentially be changed to "...the lowest from December to April, consistent with the theory that planktivory reaches its height in the summer months."
 * The introduction of the climate change section is fairly heavy, and although science agrees that so many things are being changed, there seemed to me a biased tone there. Perhaps find some facts (numbers or statistics to support how it effects "everything") to add in to make the tone a little more directed at the actual affects, rather than just stating that things are changing.

Reference List

 * On inspection of a few different links, everything worked, the articles that I was brought to appeared to be the correct ones.
 * The majority of sources sited are from peer-reviewed journals, and the others seem to be from respected sources like NOAA, so it's likely that all the information contained in this article has been reviewed thoroughly.
 * There seems to be discrepancy on some of the formatting with the date fields on sources, as automatically noted by the page. Go through your sources and delete the month (i.e., auto-cite usually gives the source date in 00-1900 format with the month included), and that should fix the error messages.
 * There are a wide variety of sources included in the works cited, from ocean acidification focused papers to papers focused specifically on one organism and its place in the food web. I can't make a direct comment about representing all the literature available, but there is a wide variety of perspectives here.
 * Review the Climate Change section and be sure to get the citations into the proper format.

Organization

 * The article is well written, but with several different unique styles. A brief conglomeration of everyone's styles would make the writing come across fluidly and perhaps eliminate some repeated information as well. Understandably, that is almost the last step of the process, so I think this article is on the right track!
 * There were a few grammar mistakes, noticeably in the first section on Forms of Planktivory. There is an extra comma on the top line in the "Basking Shark" hyperlink, and the top line on the next paragraph could be reviewed as well.
 * The article seems to be logically organized, although there are some things that are repeated. For example, I think the section titled "Mechanics of Planktivory" sounded a lot like some of the writing in the "forms of Planktivory" section, and the two sections could be combined. The same occurs with the Gizzard Shad, it is mentioned many times across the article, with varying levels of background on the fish. Perhaps a brief intro (seems like an important regulator and mover of plankton) somewhere and then just naming the fish would make the flow of the information better.

Images

 * There are no images, as understandably we are all probably sorting out how to add them. I think some images could greatly benefit the article however, plankton are cool to look at, or maybe include a picture of a planktivore (the Gizzard Shad maybe?).

Overall Impressions

 * Great article, it is coming along nicely! I think there is plenty of information as of now, and that part of the process is almost complete (perhaps a few of the smaller sections are still being edited).
 * There is imbalance between the information on the areas/different ecosystems where planktivores are and the other sections of the article, but this is likely intentional. However, it may add to the article if some of the planktivory across different ecosystems information was made more concise, or maybe the structure of the article grouped major areas together (i.e. temperate zones, arctic zones, ect...) just to decrease the feeling of a giant block of dense information in the middle of the article. This may also be benefitted with the addition of a few images too. This comment is largely preference based, so just an outside perspective to consider.
 * To "shore-up" this article, I think the priority should be on organization and making the whole thing flow in a consistent tone of voice, with the addition of pictures.
 * This group added so much information to the original article! The new article has thorough information and contains leads to papers and sources that discuss this topic in depth, whereas the old article simply briefs the topic.