User talk:BioWiki4155/Meerkat/Kmerren Peer Review

Wikipedia Peer review BIOL 4155

Article you are reviewing: Meerkat

1.	First, what does the article do well? Is there anything from your review that impressed you? Any turn of phrase that described the subject in a clear way? This article does an incredible job at describing many aspects of a meerkats life. It provides information about its appearance, social behaviors, distribution, characteristics and even its conservation status.

2.	What changes would you suggest the author apply to the article? Why would those changes be an improvement? I suggest elaborating on some unique characteristics about the species

3.	What's the most important thing the author could do to improve the article? Elaborating on unique characteristics can give us insight on how this animal differs from others.

4.	Did you notice anything about the article you reviewed that could be applicable to your own article? If so, what? Yes, I noticed that this article goes into more depth about each subtopic and ensures to elaborate by giving detailed descriptions and explanations.

5.	Are the sections organized well, in a sensible order? Would they make more sense presented some other way (chronologically, for example)? Specifically, does the information they are adding to the article make sense where they are putting it? Yes, the sections are organized nicely and in a sensible order. My classmate does a great job of adding to the threats and conservation section. Their addition fits right in and efficiently elaborates on how increased temperatures could be playing a role in the threats towards meerkats.

6.	Is each section's length equal to its importance to the article's subject? Are there sections in the article that seem unnecessary? Is anything off-topic? The ecology and behavior section of this article is rightfully, the longest section. It effectively describes the meerkats social behavior, their diet, reproduction and their vocalizations in a clear manner. The last section, interactions with humans, has a random section about meerkats appearing in movies. I found it a bit random but it actually helps us to further understand the animal by listing some movies that we may have watched. 7.	Does the article draw conclusions or try to convince the reader to accept one particular point of view? No, the article simply states factual information to educate us on the species.

8.	Are there any words or phrases that don't feel neutral? For example, "the best idea," "most people," or negative associations, such as "While it's obvious that x, some insist that y." As previously mentioned, the article does not appear to be showing any signs of persuasion.

9.	Are most statements in the article connected to a reliable source, such as textbooks and journal articles? Or do they rely on blogs or self-published authors? Most of the references I took a look at were textbooks, peer reviewed journal articles and some articles from prestigious universities were noted.

10.	Are there a lot of statements attributed to one or two sources? If so, it may lead to an unbalanced article, or one that leans too heavily into a single point of view. Reference #3 was used a lot throughout the article, however it did not seem to be biased or one sided.

11.	Are there any unsourced statements in the article, or statements that you can't find stated in the references? Just because there is a source listed, doesn't mean it's presented accurately! There are over 50 sources in this article. From what I glanced over it seemed as though most of them were presented accurately.

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