User talk:Aryag469/sandbox

Please note that I recently realized that I had written my assignment in the wrong sandbox, and so I just transferred it to my own sandbox's talk page.

Assignment 1: Phototroph
After reading the article " Phototroph", many questions arise; starting with "where are the sources the authors used?" At least 50-60% of the article is not cited; examples include but are not limited to the whole introduction, the second paragraph of "Photoautotroph" and the first paragraph of "Ecology". When discussing photolithoautotroph, no citation or hyperline was used when there is reputable information found on the Oragon state university’s website. While for parts of the article that are cited, no paraphrasing is seen, same thing cannot be said about other parts that are left with no citations. The possibility that the authors might have paraphrased or plagiarized from another text cannot be ruled out since there are no citations to compare the article against. The article seems unbiased; yet, it lacks information at places such as "History" where less than a line of information is presented that concludes to nothing. We are only left with more questions such as "what was the original meaning?"

Another issue is that the authors slightly underrepresented the topic of "Photoheterotroph"; a bit more information about the ecological role of Photoheterotroph would make it easier for a general comparison with Photoautotrophs and helps with consistency and flow of the article. Nevertheless, there are good points that can be attributed to this articles such as the use of hyperlinks. Also,the references used, though not enough, are up to date.

—Aryag469 (talk) 17:06, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Assignment 2: Acetogens
The topic of Acetogens is a notable subject since they are a very diverse group and are found on many environments  such as soil, lakes, and oceans and even in the GI tract of animals and termites and they play a important role in each of those environments. Based on the keyword search in literature databases, there are over 4500 publications, indicating the high significance of these bacteria and the crucial role they play in the enviournment they reside in.

The article gives a very basic description of acetogens and their respiration mechanism and despite the vast information available about the acetogens, the Wikipedia page contains little to no information regarding the roles they play in different habitats. Therefore, to improve this page, a subsection named “metabolic roles” will be added which will include 4 main topics. Firstly, the role of acetogens as “Hydrogen gas sinks” indicate that they enhance biodegradative capacity in anaerobic environments by using up hydrogen gases; further discussion will be their role as nutrient providers in the human digestive system and  their benefits  for the host and its inhabiting microbiota. Secondly, the ability to use vast number of different substrates such as alcohols, lactates and fatty acids instead of just carbon dioxide and hydrogen, makes acetogens an important contributer to the food chain by the following examples: taking over functions of primary fermenters and or converting the substrates such as lactate or alchohols that are otherwise restricted to syntrophs. Thirdly, acetogens have shown to cooperate with methanogens in oceans, in a way that methanogens removes acetate in favor of acetogens while the acetogen releases hydrogen gas for methanogens to use. Lastly, the study of metabolic roles of acetogens have pointed to corrosion of steel such as the ones in water pipelines. They provide the carbon source of SRB of the genus Desulfovibrio, by means of producing acetate.

These additions expand on the significant roles of acetogens in the enviournemnts they reside in and help the readers obtain a bigger understanding of how important they are.

—Aryag469 (talk) 17:06, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Talia Ang's Peer Review (of "Acetogens" edited by Arya)
The additional paragraph titled "Metabolic Roles" in the Wikipedia article "Acetogens" was well written and is a good fit for the article. Structure, placement, and organization of the additional paragraph made the ideas easy to follow and no further improvements are needed. Paragraph placement was appropriate, being right after the introduction, and is only subheading in the article. It covers information that elaborates the ideas in the introductory paragraph. The content was well chosen, covering different substrates used and products made during acetogen metabolism. Level of detail is appropriate as a sentence or two explains the importance of each metabolic role, and also several metabolic pathways (good breadth) were covered. An improvement could be elaborating what “WLP” stands for, what it is, or make the word clickable since readers might be unfamiliar with the term. Otherwise, content was done well. All information came from reliable sources such as Frontiers in Microbiology, and other high quality peer-reviewed scientific journals. Each idea was referenced with a footnote, making it easy to find the original article. However, footnote 7’s article was retracted due to similar content from other published articles (listed on article webpage) so this link should be replaced. Regarding writing style, a neutral point of view with an appropriate tone for a Wikipedia page was used. However, spelling and grammar mistakes impacted the paragraph’s overall flow. For instance, "termites" was twice accidentally spelled as "thermites,” and "utilize" and “acetogenesis” were misspelled. The sentences "acetogens can use....primary fermenters" and "acetogens can work... WLP" are run-on sentences, and are better separated into two. Spelling inconsistencies were present as "favored" and "favoured" were both used and only one should be chosen. The writing style, especially the sentence structure, sometimes made the content a little bit more difficult to process, despite the good content.

Talia Ada Ang (talk) 04:49, 9 November 2017 (UTC)