User:Stephaniepeak/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Marine microbial symbiosis

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 to evaluate this article because marine microbial symbioses are my main research interest. Marine microbial symbioses are essential for a significant portion of productivity in the ocean as well as survival of many marine organisms. My preliminary impression was that the lead section was weak and didn't give a good summary of the entire article. Also, it is missing a lot of information and could be organized much better.

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 section does not include an introductory sentence that concisely describes the article's topic. This section also doesn't include brief descriptions of the article's major sections. There is some information in the introductory section that is not elaborated on later in the article. Overall, I feel like this article is very unorganized, especially the lead. It is overly detailed and doesn't summarize the article well.

Content:The article's content is relevant to the topic and is up-to-date. There definitely is content that is missing, but there are a lot of marine microbial symbiosis, so it's fair to have some missing content in this context (but maybe not in a book about marine microbial symbiosis). It does not deal with any equity gaps or underrepresented populations/topics.

Tone and balance:

The article is neutral with no heavy biases. Nothing is overrepresented, but there definitely is not enough emphasis on mechanisms of symbiosis and there are only a few examples of microbial symbioses - there should be many more. The article is not persuasive.

Sources and references:

Some facts are lacking a citation. The references that are present are thorough. Some sources are current, but many are outdated. The sources are from a diverse spectrum of authors, but there is not a significant presence of historically marginalized individuals. All sources are of high quality, but as previously mentioned, are a bit outdated and might be able to be replaced with more updated literature. All source links are functional.

Organization and writing quality:

The article is well-written in terms of grammar, sentence structure, and academic language, but it is not the most organized.

Images and Media:The article does include some cool images that enhance understanding. This was what I enjoyed most about the article, actually. The images that were placed in the sections of specific marine microbial symbioses could have been better, though. They are fairly well-captioned. Most images are cited, but there are a few that are not. It is unclear where the images came from because there is no credit given. All images are placed on the far right side of the article, which is ok, but I think it would be more aesthetically pleasing if the pictures had a more staggered, asymmetrical layout.

Talk page discussion:

There currently are no discussions on the talk page. It is part of WikiProject Microbiology and Wikiproject Marine Life. In both projects it is rated a c-class for quality (I would agree) and low-mid importance. The way the article discusses this topic is actually very similar to how we talk about it in class.

Overall impressions:

Overall, I think this article really needs some work. Its strengths definitely are the visuals. It also gives a good amount of examples (although there are definitely many more that should be added). This article would benefit from reorganization, a better lead section, and more examples of marine microbial symbiosis. I believe this article is underdeveloped.