User:Sbec139/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
(Provide a link to the article here.)

Natural selection

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
(Briefly explain why you chose it, why it matters, and what your preliminary impression of it was.)

I chose this article because it is related to conservation biology or genetics. This article matters because it describes one of the main ideas of the evolution and driving traits of species and populations. Natural selection expands and is involved in factors such as genetic variance which explains survival and reproductive levels in species, as well as fitness, competition, speciation, genetic drift in species. This article also writes about pre-Darwinian theories, Charles Darwin's theory, and the modern synthesis. My impression on this article was that it was filled to a pretty good length, not too short or too long. The paragraphs provided information with many subheadings of different concepts providing many links and pictures.

Evaluate the article
(Compose a detailed evaluation of the article here, considering each of the key aspects listed above. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what a useful Wikipedia article evaluation looks like.)

Lead Section

The lead does start with a clear and simple first sentence explaining the article's term. The paragraph also mentions terms from the article's major sections such as evolution, heritable traits, Charles Darwin etc. All information included in the lead are also found in other parts of the article. The description of this section is clear and simple, mentioning important terms without using fancy wording that causes confusion.

Content

The article's content is relevant mentioning topics such as factors playing in natural selection, authors and their theories on natural selection, history, terminology, real world scenarios, etc. The content seems up-to-date looking at the talk section of edits made in 2023 and at the bottom of the article stating the last edit was made in January 14, 2023. I don't think there is content missing for now, but looking at the length of some topics it seems to be filled with a lot of information but I cannot really make that assumption without fully understanding everything they are explaining. I think the article does address topics that may be underrepresented especially under the historical development such as multiple philosophers and their theories.

Tone and Balance

The article is neutral, it is not trying to be persuasive about anything, it is just stating facts and providing information. Some viewpoints are more descriptive than others, but that might just be because there is more information found on them. Minor topics may not be as lengthy but seem to be filled with important information.

Sources and References

The article seems to be backed up by many sources which are provided at the end of each fact. They look relevant to the topics, but not always recent as there are sources dating 10 years or longer. The number of sources are abundant and diverse ranging from topics of natural selection in the wild, Charles Darwin, Origin of species, essay on the population etc. Although not all sources seem to be reliable, while there are peer-reviewed articles, there are also random websites of information as well as ones that are no longer available.

Organization and writing quality

The article does not have an spelling errors. The article is easy to read most of the time, but there are areas which are overly filled that make it hard to keep a readers attention. The article does look organized and clear with main ideas as subheadings and information in paragraphs.

Images and Media

The article includes many images covering most sections and have captions with good explanation. The images look like they follow regulations. The images also look organized and appealing with color and relevance to their topic.

Talk page discussion

Conversations in the talk page are about whether there was an influence of the scientist Jose de Acosta on the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, adding a citation for the evidence of Humboldt influencing Darwin in the historical development section. There was also a discussion on how to start the article and another listing ancient scientists who also relate to natural selection. The article is rated 3 level GA-class and is of interest to WikiProjects in biology, evolutionary biology, philosophy and ecology. The way Wikipedia discusses natural selection is not different from the way we learned in class, if anything it has added interesting additional information.

Overall impressions

The articles overall status is pretty good. The article's strengths are under its lead and mechanism sections describing important terms and definitions relating to natural selection such as heritable variation, environment, fitness etc. The article can be improved by avoiding having too much or too less information for example in the historical development, it lists many different authors and their theories and their influences on one another. The information for each author visually looks uneven and the descriptions seem a little complicated. Overall the article is well developed, not too long and overbearing like a textbook or too short and vague.