User:Rosemary Guo/Lake Tai/KirstenBiefeld Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

Rosemary Guo


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rosemary%20Guo/Lake_Tai?veaction=edit&preload=Template%3ADashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Lake Tai

Evaluate the drafted changes
Looking over your article draft, your sources are linked properly and are fairly recently published, which is great. The paragraphs however, seem to be separated oddly based on the studies you looked at, instead of intermixing the different sources if relevant information helped to explain some of the science better. It is okay to use many different sources in the same paragraph to get your point across. The tone does seem to be fairly neutral throughout which is good, but the flow and organization of the paragraphs does need work for the next draft. There also doesn't seem to be a separate Lead/introduction and Content sections. I will explain what I mean in further detail below, but I suggest you look over the information you want to use and create an outline for different sections and what main point you want the reader to get from each, so that you can add in relevant sources as needed. I also suggest reading your paragraphs out loud to help with grammar and to see if the information flows together in a way that a reader could easily understand. When writing research-heavy topics, it can be easy to get lost putting in facts and information about lakes, but it has to be broken down in an understandable manner for the basic reader.

Another very important note: It looks like you copy and pasted the first paragraph directly from the Wikipedia article. I am not sure if you did this as a place holder in order to get your thoughts together, but make sure that the paragraph is thoroughly edited beyond this, because even if it is cited, it is plagiarism. Along with that, I would suggest to avoid using Wikipedia articles as citations in general, especially if you are citing the article this section will go in. Wikipedia is still a great source, but you can look into the sources that the current Lake Tai article uses to have stronger citations.

I'm not sure if it is important or not, but typically those citation numbers go at the end of a sentence instead of at the beginning of one. Otherwise it might look like a citation for the sentence before it, if that makes sense? I also suggest using citation markers every other sentence if an entire paragraph is based on that citation, so that the reader understands that you are getting all of that information from the same source. Otherwise you are only citing the first line of each paragraph, and the reader does not know for sure if the rest of that paragraph is getting information only from that one citation or if you are using others, and it does not make you seem as credible.

In paragraph two, you have this sentence that looks like it is quoted:


 * Through the monitoring of climates and nutrients elements in Lake Tai from 1995 to 2007, researchers got the data about the "interannual and seasonal variations in the phytoplankton biomass and composition".

Wikipedia articles do not use direct quotes typically, and this should be paraphrased some how. Either way, it also needs a citation if you are getting information from another source.

Also for paragraph two, I suggest that you provide further detail about how the climate and nutrient elements were monitored, and why the data is significant. How does this connect to the eutrophication of the lake? what is the significance of diatoms, cryptophytes and cyanobacteria being a large amount of the biomass of the lake? I feel this is answered more specifically in the beginning of paragraph 3, so that one should be moved up to be before paragraph 2. Overall, to me it seems like paragraph 2 and 3 have similar themes and only seem separated because they use information from two different sources. I would suggest mixing relevant information from the different sources together if it helps the reader understand the process and the scientific information of these paragraphs.

For further information to look into, I suggest getting some more basic information about the lake. What is it stratification regime, how was it formed? Does it experience freezing, what type of climate is it in? Is the lake used by surrounding communities for a drinking source and/or for irrigation for agriculture? Why is Lake Tai being researched? Adding pictures of the lake and of its eutrophication would also help the reader understand how serious the eutrophication might be as well!

These are just some suggestions, but I think with some reorganization and further detailing, the article will come along! It is a very interesting lake.