User:WanderingAurora/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Apatite

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I chose to review the article on the mineral apatite since I am currently collecting data on apatite samples at work as apatite samples may have a significant presence of rare-earth elements (REEs), which are a part of Canada's critical minerals strategy plan. Critical minerals are important to Canada. Specifically in the case of REEs, they have many uses such as in "wind turbines, EV motors, and defense technologies." My first impression of the article was that the ore occurrences, geology, and uses sections were underdeveloped. Additionally, the article has a bare URL and link rot warning, suggesting that the author is not properly citing their information. The article is listed as a C-class article, with high importance in the Rocks and Minerals WikiProject, thus it is important to review such an article to ensure reliable information is being shared about this critical resource.

Evaluate the article
Regarding the lead section, the article clearly states what kind of mineral apatite is, however, there is a spelling error (should be ions plural) and could have been worded in a way that has a better flow of ideas. The lead does not include a description of the major sections, which makes it difficult for the reader to get a sufficient overview of the article. Overall, the lead section lacks detail and includes information that is not inherently important and should not be in the lead section. For instance, it is mentioned why the mineral was named the way it was, and what Greek word it was derived from. This is an interesting fact but not necessarily critical information that should be relayed to the reader in the lead section.

As for the content of the article, it includes relevant information such as sections on the Geology, Uses, Thermodynamics of apatite. However, the author decided to talk about the use of fluorine in water supplies in the Geology section, trying to connect it to fluorapatite. There was no reliable source for this correlation and it was not relevant to the Geology section of the article- it would be better suited in the Uses section. The citations heavily favor older articles which suggests a lack of up-to-date information. Additionally, a Wikipedian commented that the use of “asparagus stone” is not a common term for the stone as mentioned in the article, suggesting that it’s either and outdated term or factually incorrect. As previously mentioned, the article discusses fluorine use in city water supplies- which does not belong in the article. If there is a valid relation to fluorapatite, this information should be cited and developed under the uses section. Missing sections include mining and processing information and apatite's importance as a critical mineral. The sections that are included are underdeveloped. The geology, uses, gemology, and ore sections could all be expanded upon.

In terms of tone and balance, the article remains neutral and provides facts. One could argue that they are overrepresenting the importance of fluorapatite in dental care, especially since there is a lack of citations to back up the claims. Even though not all information is backed up by reliable sources, there is also a plethora of reliable sources such as the USGS and other articles from respectable journals. In the thermodynamics section, It is difficult to find which source they used for the information. Furthermore, there was a distinct change in the writing style that used a lot of scientific jargon- this could suggest possible plagiarism. The article reflects a range of available literature and has reliable sources that cover various topics related to apatite such as bio-leaching and lunar science. The author could have used more sources for these topics to be more well-rounded. To continue, the article has bare URLS - a lot of improperly cited claims which have the risk of URLs becoming inactive making it difficult to find the original source with no other information. However, the links were all currently working. The majority of the citations are outdated and are from before the 2000s, but included a diverse spectrum of authors from geologist to biologists.

Overall, the article was not clear to read. Scientific jargon was used with confusing complex sentence structures in some instances. The writing did not flow due to information being misplaced and better suited for other sections. There was one spelling error found in the lead section. In general the article was well-organized with distinct section topics and was visually appealing.

Images included in the article enhanced the understanding of the topic and were well-captioned, However, two of the images are of apatites from the apatite mine in Siilinjarvi Finland despite this mine not being discussed in the article.

The conversations on the talk paged pointed out outdated/uncommon terms being used in the article, however, these terms were not removed. Others agreed that the sections were underdeveloped with information being relayed in a confusing manner in some parts. Others updated the article with apatites increasing significance in lunar science. These discussions were from 2007-2010, suggesting an outdated article.

This article is rated C-Class in both "Geology" and "Rocks and Minerals" Wikiprojects with ratings of mid-importance and high-importance, respectively. It is rated a start-class article with low-importance in the Gemology WikiProject. Wikipedia discusses this topic differently than how we discuss resources in class- the article does not emphasize the importance of this mineral as a resource, it’s extraction processes, risks, grades/tonnage, resources and reserves in countries, etc.

In conclusion, the article provides a clear brief overview of the mineral apatite. Some strengths include good picture placement, includes a variety of citations with the majority being reliable sources, and maintaining a neutral tone. However, there is a lot of room for improvement. The writing can be altered to be more clear and accessible, sections should be rearranged to ensure a flow of ideas, URLs should be cited properly, irrelevant information should be removed or modified, and the lead section should be updated with the essential facts as well as a summary of the article. Moreover, as the article is poorly developed, the article should be updated with important facts such as the mineral’s mining processes with an emphasis on REE’s while remaining unbiased.