User talk:Awilson0/sandbox

Article Critique
The Wikipedia article on Phototrophs has quite a few issues. The most blatant issue is plagiarism, which is made apparent by the absence of citations in the lead section. The sources that have been cited are neutral, but some of them are not very relevant to the content of this article. It is hard to know for sure, since the sources are mostly in print, but much of the non-cited material reads like a textbook, suggesting that it may be close paraphrasing or non-cited plagiarism from other sources. These plagiarism issues could be fixed by the original author adding citations to what they wrote, but it is probably best for most of the article to be rewritten. There are also some issues with content. One of the criteria for a good Wiki article is balance, and in this article there are some sections that are much shorter than others despite being no less important. More could be written about photoheterotrophs, even though photoheterotrophy has its own page, and the History section only has one sentence that doesn't really provide any useful information, so it could be deleted. There is a small amount of discussion on the talk page, but the most recent comment (from 2014) suggests scrapping the whole article and rewriting it all. – Awilson0 (talk) 02:44, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Assignment 2
The article on Lignin is pretty long, so I’m going to focus on the Biodegradation section. The article itself stresses the importance of lignin biodegradation in the production of biofuels, which is also mentioned in its own section, Economic significance, so this section is quite an important part of the overall article. There a quite a few sources cited in this section, however, none of them mention bacterial lignin degradation, even though this topic is briefly mentioned in the article. There is also quite little discussion of actual mechanisms of degradation, which seem like an important part of a “Biodegradation” section. The organization of the section is also a bit cumbersome, jumping from a very general introduction to a discussion of some delignifying enzymes, and then back to a general statement about some of the enzymes that were mentioned earlier. It reads like it was written by two people who didn’t read the other person’s work. In order to improve the biodegradation section of the Lignin article, I plan to expand on the topic of bacterial lignin degradation, reorganize the section so that it makes more sense to readers, and include a few sentences on proposed mechanisms of lignin biodegradation. Someone on the Talk page also suggested adding a discussion of Rhodococcus jostii RHA1, so I may include that in my discussion of bacterial lignin degradation. – Awilson0 (talk) 03:31, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

Shirley's Peer Review
The placement of the edits, after the biosynthesis section of lignin, is reasonable because both involve biological processes. The separation into subsections is great because it makes the article more organized and easier to read and find information. The subsections also serve the purpose of pointing out important topics related to lignin.

The edited section itself flows well, going from introduction of general lignin biodegradation to more specific and targeted processes. There is sufficient information on the structures and characteristics of lignin (e.g. recalcitrant, phenolic and non-phenolic, etc.) to relate to the enzymes that are mentioned, providing more in-depth knowledge than merely a list of enzymes. In addition to the extensive focus on enzymes, I suggest a clearer implication that lignin protects against pathogens (as mentioned distinctly in the original section), and further expand on it by providing examples.

Another improvement would be to make sure to explain all abbreviations (specifically, “LiP”). They may be obvious terms for those with a microbial ecology background, but not others that may be interested in the topic. The last sentence under “Lignin Biodegradation in Bacteria” seems to be inaccurate. Its reference says “thermotolerant LMCO in bacteria…have not been industrially-explored,” which directly contradicts the edits.

The style of writing is concise. The tone is neutral and does not try to convince readers to draw certain conclusions. The number of references is sufficient, and they are reliable (peer reviewed), but each reference could be used more times in closer proximity to ensure proper referencing. For example, under “Lignin Degradation in Fungi,” reference #6 is used once at the end of the paragraph. This could lead readers to mistakenly think that only the last sentence is referenced. Most statements should be clearly connected to a reliable reference. Additionally, reference #2 under “References” is missing its descriptions. Shirley.Chen.27 (talk) 06:35, 6 November 2017 (UTC)