User talk:Coffeeandcats/sandbox

Cumulative Effects Review by Antonia Macris
Positive Feedback:

I really like the breakdown of subheadings in your article and the transition of sections that tell a narrative, starting with the definition of cumulative effects and discussing its history to set up the context before heading into explaining the different contribution types of cumulative effects. It allows for an easy read and keeps the audience engaged and attentive. I also like that after stating the contributors to cumulative effects and describing them, you dive into policy and add an environmental assessment layer to the article's subject matter. I find the challenges and solutions section a good idea, they are very beneficial and support and strengthen your article.

Constructive Criticism:

The sections of energy production and combustion, and logging, are not yet completed, but should be elaborated on as in depth as the pollution section, or even more. I think that each contributor should be described in depth, and that your description for road construction is too short. You could potentially expand on this section, and the other cumulative effects contributor topics similarly. In this area, you can provide more detail, description, and context examples. Lastly, although the challenges and solutions sections are not yet completed, I think that they are too long and that you should shorten these sections and keep only the stronger points you see fit to best support the factual summary of your topic.

Review by Nicolas

Hi Julie,

You picked a tough article to work on! This is such a vast topic! I liked the fact that you are planning on adding a "history" section, and the numerous examples. However, you only have four references for the whole page. Can you find some to document your statements? And could you find examples from outside the USA?

Here are some minor, specific comments about the page. Do not hesitate to send me an email if anything is unclear or appears irrelevant to you.

Regards,

Nicolas

"Cumulative Effects (Environment)" section

- I think you should specify explicitly that you are talking about cumulative environmental effects/impacts, because cumulative impacts can apply to a lot of different topics.

- I would suggest putting "but in combination with others" at the end of the sentence to making it more direct.

- Third sentence: replace "affect" by "effect"?

- Third paragraph: "There are many contributors to cumulative effects" => to be deleted, or grouped with other text?

- I am unsure what the following sentence means: "These effects may differ from the original, individual activities". Do you mean that is can be hard to predict the effects by looking at the individual activities?

- Could you add a few references for the last two paragraphs? Also, why do you focus on North America? It would be nice if you had a reference showing that it has really generated more cumulative impacts than the other parts of the world.

"Contributors and types" section

- Could you add a reference for your quote in the first paragraph?

"Effects on Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems" sub-section

- You generally have not used capital letters except at the beginning of headings.

- "and oil pollution, which if exposed to seabirds can kill them" => It might be a language thing, but this does not sound right. Maybe "and oil pollution, which if exposed to seabirds can die"? Or "and oil pollution, which can kill seabirds if they are exposed to them"?

- I would recommend adding one or two references in this section.

- Do not forget your section/paragraph/sentence on dams, or remove the word.

"Air pollution" sub-section

- I believe air pollution can be caused by other factors, such as fine particles.

- You need a reference for your quote.

"Global warming" sub-section

- I would recommend adding one or two references in this section.

"Waste management/production of goods?"

- Remove the question mark in the heading?

- This section sounds very general and it does not seem obvious that you can relate water pollution to global warming. Can you back this with references?

- I would recommend adding one or two references in this section.

"Policies" section

- I would reword this sentence: "Most development activities have individually minor impacts", since some development activities have very major impacts. Maybe replace with "although many"?

- I do not think that you need to link terms like "environmental impact assessment" if they were already introduced earlier. Also, the abbreviation should be presented the first time the term is introduced.

- Last paragraph: the two sentences appear disconnected. + "cannot" instead of "can not".

- You have not references in this section. You should try to add at least one or two if you can.

"Solutions" section

- I do not thing you have defined CI in your page.

- Add "the" before "United States"?

- Maybe number the ideas for improvement and the problems?

- There is a space missing in "oxideemissions".

- You have no references in this section.

- Could it be interesting to merge this section with the previous one on policies?

"Impacts and significance" section

- The first paragraph talks about EIA and not CIA. Can you make the link more obvious?

- Could we also say that the large scale at which cumulative impacts sometimes occur and the complex processes that they can involve makes it difficult (and expensive) to conceptualise them and study them?

"Cumulative Impact Paradox" section

- Do not need capital letters for each word in the section title? Is this a coined term?

- This section appears very long compared to the others. Could you make it shorter?

- Also, it is only applicable to the USA. Are there equivalent examples elsewhere?

- Why are the terms "routinely" and "incorrectly" equivalent?

- The text mentions a "downtown" example, apparently mentioned above. I am not sure what it refers to.

- You have no references in this section.

Hi Nicholas, thanks so much for the very detailed comments! I just thought I'd mention that a lot of this text is me attempting to re-work the existing article, which I must admit is very difficult. I'm trying not to change the existing work too much while also removing sections I don't think are pertinent. I plan on removing the section on paradoxes, and giving more detail on the contributors of cumulative environmental effects because I feel that section was lacking a lot before. Would you agree that the section on cumulative impact paradox is not entirely necessary? It's clear that whoever contributed to the article prior to me was from the US!

Woodjuliekat (talk) 18:50, 3 April 2019 (UTC)