User:RuleBreakingMoth/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Carol A. Johnston

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I was previously unfamiliar with Carol A. Johnston, and as female scientist I was eager to learn more about female wetland scientists. My initial impression is that while lacking in detail, the article does a good job summarizing the key aspects of her professional endeavors.

Evaluate the article
Lead Section

While the first sentence does introduce Carol A. Johnston in the context of her professional endeavors, it does not clearly introduce the reader to the topic of the article. The article is not focused solely on her role as a professor at SDSU, rather it is an overview of her scientific career and research efforts. The second sentence of the lead section would be a better introductory sentence for this article. The lead section also fails to describe the article's major sections. However, the lead section is concise.

Content

The article's content is on-topic and relevant to Dr. Johnston's professional endeavors; however, it could be improved. Notably, the "Awards and honors" section does not list Johnston's Distinguished Landscape Ecologist Award from 2022. Additionally, the "Selected publications" section does not include any of her three most-cited articles. Similarly, of her publications from the past decade, none of the top four most-cited articles are listed in the "Selected publications" section. Further, the "Career and research" section could be expanded to include additional information about past job positions (information available in several of the citations already included) as well as more detail about her research efforts and findings. This article is helping to address the gap in recognition of female scientists, especially in the field of wetland ecology.

Tone/Balance

The article does a good job maintaining a neutral tone. The information provided is factual, and the article does not attempt to persuade the reader of a specific viewpoint.

Sources

Aside from the notes made in the Content section above, the citations are up-to-date and reliable. The citation links are active, and the sources used are the best available references for the information. The facts and information presented in this article are all substantiated by appropriate sources.

Organization

The information in the article is presented in a logical order and appropriately organized into sections. The writing is concise and easy to understand. The only notable grammatical error is the omission of the word the before "Clean Water Rule" in the last sentence of the "Career and research" section. The only organizational edits I suggest are to the "Selected publications" section. I would add sub-headers to denote publication type (e.g., Books, Journal Articles), and within each sub-section I would list the publications in reverse chronological order as was done with the listed awards.

Images

There are no images.

Talk Page

There is minimal discussion on the talk page. It simply contains a single external review of the article with no response from the article's author. The article is rated Start-class, and it is included in the WikiProjects: Articles for creation, Biography / Science and Academia, Ecology, United States, and Women scientists.

The following suggestions from the External Reviewer remain unaddressed:


 * Add graduation years
 * Add thesis/dissertation titles
 * Add a brief summary of key research findings
 * Add years for listed career positions (or at least start dates)
 * Add a tally of citations
 * Add DOIs to text of citations in "Selected publications" section
 * Add an infobox
 * Add an "External links" section with a link to Dr. Johnston's website

Overall

This article is a great start to summarizing Dr. Johnston's professional efforts, but currently, it is underdeveloped. With the exception of an infobox, the key areas of a scientist's biography page have been included, and the tone is appropriate. However, to fully summarize Johnston's contributions to wetland science, additional information needs to be added. The external reviewer's comments should be addressed, and the awards and publications should be updated with recent information.