User talk:Adam Mesa/sandbox

Assignment 2: Critique of Cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria is a topic with very high notability. It has almost 3,000 articles containing Cyanobacteria in the title available on Pubmed, with 1034 of those being journal articles published in the past 5 years. The article itself is rated as being high-importance to the Microbiology WikiProject and a level-4 vital article to Wikipedia. Furthermore, Cyanobacteria are of great interest due to their more recent involvement in eutrophic blooms and in their historical role of filling Earth's atmosphere with oxygen during the Great Oxygenation Event.

The cyanobacteria article's section on photosynthesis could be improved in a multitude of ways. It can be expanded to include cyanobacteria's closely linked respiration and photosynthetic pathways, include information on photosynthetic nitrate assimilation, include missing sources, and be more cohesively organized. The introductory sentence links cyanobacteria and chloroplasts, but does not add relevant value in its current form to this section and should be included in the body with the other text talking about cyanobacterial symbiont s. The electron transport subsection briefly mentions anoxygenic photosynthesis but fails to explain it beyond saying only photosystem I is capable of being used under anaerobic conditions. However, it is known that cyanobacteria can simultaneously carry out oxygenic and anoxygenic photosynthesis, which could be mentioned. Due to the complex nature of electron transport, I believe a subsection titled electron transport chain (ETC) should be added to better organize details on the electron pathway. This new section could include a diagram detailing the ETC specifically in cyanobacteria, such as z-scheme. A certain cyanobacteria cell type, Heterocyst s, are mentioned as being able to fix nitrogen earlier in the article, but the mechanism of photosynthetic nitrate assimilation is missing from the article, and should be described. Additionally, the paragraphs under metabolism and organelles contain a lot of really broad and uncategorized details and could be organized under more specific subheadings, and the subsection contains a lot of information without a citation. These details should be fact-checked and have corresponding citations added. - Adam Mesa (talk) 06:02, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Assignment 1: Critique of Bacterial Circadian Rhythms
Overall, many improvements could be made to the article through a few significant contributions. While most of the article has reliable citations to older sources, such as the reference to the journal science from 1997, recent advances in topic area are not included. In particular, the more recent information pertaining to circadian rhythms in non-photosynthetic bacteria is missing and should be included. The article takes a cyanobacteria-centric view which may be because there’s only been one major contributor to the page, and no real discussion on the talk page. Furthermore, there have only been six minor edits to the article in the past 5 years, meaning no other new information has been added to the article recently. This is unfortunate as the article has been ranked as mid-importance, but has been rated as C-Class quality by the Wikipedia community. Additionally, the first paragraph of the section on the history of prokaryotic circadian rhythms provides and expands on an assumption for why prokaryotic organisms were originally thought to not have circadian rhythms, but does not cite any sources. It instead says that the assumption is “intuitive”. This needs a citation, and I think that the problem posed by this assumption is important and should be briefly included in the article overview. I also recommend the complete revision of the article to take a less cyanobacteria-centric view on bacterial circadian rhythms with the inclusion of non-photosynthetic bacterial circadian rhythms and any other recent developments in the field. - Adam Mesa (talk) 05:52, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Reflection

Critiquing the article in this manner was a lot more difficult than I expected. Wikipedia expects a certain writing style that I am not used to made this task a lot more difficult than writing a "250-word" paragraph would seem. It was also hard to know what exactly you were looking for in a critique. I initially thought you wanted all of the questions answered in a fluid-sentence form, which seemed wrong. - Adam Mesa (talk) 05:52, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Peer Review.
Improvements Remove the first title of electron transport as the original header of Photosynthesis provide the proper header to the following paragraphs

When speaking about the pigmentation of the cyanobacteria specify that it is green colour is produced from the reflection of the light waves corresponding to green light. Just slightly unclear.

It would be great if you expanded on the difference between a single photosystem organism (green sulphur bacteria) and a dual photosystem organism.

Good The organization of the Respiration, Metabolism and Electron Transport Chain is very well thought out and provides great structure to the article.

Very well written entire respiration section, gives a well thought out summary.

Great flow to the metabolism section.

Overall great edited page, provides a methodical structure that flows very well. Makes the entire page easier to read.

Grobbin5 (talk) 05:28, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Peer Review
Structure Breaking down the original “metabolism and organelles” section into “metabolism” and “electron transport chain” makes it look cleaner and easier to read. It might flow better if you move the “respiration” subsection beside the “electron transport chain” subsection as you refer to the ETC often in your “respiration” subsection.

Content Most of the edits are related to the cyanobacteria article. It seems like some background information on respiration was added to supplement that fact that respiration and photosynthesis share some of the same compartments. However, it feels unnecessary to have the “respiration” subsection under the “photosynthesis” section. Could change the section to “carbon cycle” instead of “photosynthesis” with the mention of respiration.

Sources All sources are reliable sources or articles based off of reliable sources and seem to reflect the information in the Wikipedia article. There is a good spread of sources across all the subsections in the article. However, there are a couple citations that seem to lack a proper source. There may have been an error linking the source with the citation.

Writing The writing is concise and flows smoothly. Spelling and grammar seem good. The edits are written from a neutral point of view with no blatant bias. Kimwayne (talk) 03:13, 9 November 2017 (UTC)