User:Tstanley001/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article
Name of article: Phenotype

I chose to evaluate this article because understanding what a phenotype is and its relation to genes and genotype is extremely important in the field of genetics. Analyzing phenotypes and how they differ among progeny is important for researchers to draw conclusions about traits. Understanding phenotypes is necessary for success in the field and therefore requires an article that will give readers the knowledge they need to go forward in the field of genetics.

Lead
The Lead has a very detailed introductory sentence, but it seems overly detailed. There could be a simpler way to introduce what a phenotype is, and then go into more detail in the definition portion of the article. The Lead also has a very choppy flow to it. Instead of fully introducing what a phenotype is it seems to jump around and explain other terms that are not as important as introducing the topic in the best way possible. The Lead also fails to describe the major sections of the article, it instead jumps into defining the term in a way that is hard to follow. It contains mostly relevant information, but goes into detail about topics such as polymorphisms without mentioning anything about it in the actual body of the article. The Lead could be reorganized and presented in a less confusing manner. The Lead's purpose should be to introduce phenotype and all of the other terms relevant to understanding phenotype. Any other details and examples could be placed into the actual body of the article.

Content
Overall the actual content of the article is fairly up to date and relevant. There is some content that is missing. There could definitely be more information on the use of phenotype and how it is related to genotype and heredity. The section on phenome and phenomics touches on the importance of phenotype in the genetic field, but there could be more added to the section in order to stress the importance of understanding phenotype. Another section explaining the relationship between genes, genotype, phenotype and traits could be extremely useful in enhancing this article as a whole. It would also be really useful to explain how phenotypes can lead to conclusions being made about alleles (i.e. dominate vs recessive).

Tone and Balance
This article is definitely neutral. The article is mainly fact-based and does not offer any stances on any particular aspect of it that could be seen as trying to sway a reader to a certain position. There are not really any specific viewpoints in this article. No claims are made and there is not any attempt at getting the reader to form any opinion on the subject.

Sources and References
There are some facts in the article that are not currently cited. These facts state that a citation is needed. Most facts in this article are cited. Most of the citations are from reliable peer-reviewed sources. The sources are thorough and do reflect available literature on the topic and do not seem to be biased or offer any biased viewpoints toward their subjects. Most of the sources are from very old publications. Some updated sources could probably benefit the article by reassuring the reader that the information in the article is not outdated. All of the links appear to be working and useful.

Organization
I feel that the biggest issue with this article lies in its choppy intro and lack of organization. The Lead is very hard to follow because it attempts to throw in too many examples without thoroughly introducing the topic. It is fairly clear but is not that easy to read. There are parts where more information would be useful and informative but there are also other parts where the article begins to explain other topics without completing its first explanation. The sections could be reorganized and there could probably be more sections added that would give you not only a description about phenotype, but also how phenotype ties in to the rest of the genetic field.

Images and Media
The article does include meaningful images that help enhance understanding of the topic. The images are fairly well captioned, but there are some that seek to explain things that are not even explained in the article. For example there is an image where the caption explains the relationship between genotype and phenotype, but more about this explanation is not in the actual article itself. All images meet copyright regulations and are laid out in a way that not only makes sense, but is appealing as well.

Checking the talk page
Most of the conversations on the talk page have to do with the definition of phenotype. Other conversations are about what observable characteristics should be considered as a phenotype. For example there are conversations about including phenotypic variation based on race and conversations discussing whether or not learned behavior can be considered a phenotype. This article is rated as a C-Class article. The article is also considered to be a Level-5 vital article. This article is part of WikiProject Genetics which rated it as mid-importance, and it is also a part of WikiProject Cell and Molecular Biology which rated it as being of top-importance. Wikipedia discusses this topic in much more detail than we do in class. In class we defined it and immediately discussed how essential phenotype is in learning about genes, heredity, and expression patterns. On Wikipedia the discussions tend to be based on what is considered a phenotype beyond the basic definition.

Overall impressions
Overall the article seems very underdeveloped and incomplete. The main weaknesses of the article lie in its organization and lack of details. A lot of the sections seem like they could be expanded on further and that the expansion would lead to greater understanding of the importance of phenotype to the reader. The article could be improved by fixing the organization and adding more supporting details to the sections. The Lead seems to need the most work as it currently tries to do too much without adequately introducing the topic. The article has a good base of information that just does not seem to be developed enough some reorganization and added information would greatly improve the quality of this article.