User talk:Derickson309/sandbox

Article evaluation feedback
You did a very nice job with your evaluation of the "Edible Mushroom" article. I see you doing a particularly good job considering sources and the talk page activity for this article--some excellent observations here, and a thought process I hope you bring forward into the start- and stub-class articles you're looking at for your "Choose a topic" exercise work. As a side note, it's also great that you're practicing linking to articles and pages in your sandbox here! Nicoleccc (talk) 19:43, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Choose a topic assignment
You've done yourself a great favor by collecting these solid lists of sources at this stage, and you have a really good list of potential articles here!

The John Day River article does look like an excellent option. My only note on this one would be to be careful not to accidentally conflate sources about the *other* John Day River in Oregon (how confusing!). A quick look through several of your sources didn't give me any reason to think you are running into this issue at this time, but it's a good thing to be thinking about as you do research. There is definitely a lot that could potentially be added here, and some good organizational improvements as well.

Honestly, most of your other potential articles look like good ones as well--the motorcycle, Brooke Ramel, and Hagg Lake ones are all nicely specific and clearly anything added to those in good faith and sourced will improve them. Last words and time of occurrence are a little broader/more conceptual, so might be harder to find clear sources and structure around, but if one of those is where you have the most interest/momentum and you have a good source list for it, I think you can still make some good improvements.

As you've set this up, it looks like you have the best research and most interest in the John Day River article, which looks like a strong choice to me. You might find the very well developed article on the Columbia River to be a good place to get ideas for additions and organization of information. Nicoleccc (talk) 00:00, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Article draft feedback
I had forgotten how little information was in the existing article for this river! You've got the start of some good additions here, with strong organization and good use of sources (small note about this: it looks like some of the source information from the original article is different in your sandbox, with some links removed. If this is intentional because those links were dead ends or inaccurate, that's fine, but I wanted to mention it just in case that was not intentional...if it was, you'll do some careful small edits of those sentences minus the citations when you move it back. If it wasn't intentional, you'll want to be careful to not copy/paste those portions back into the article from your sandbox). Also, the image you've selected to add is an excellent one (and public domain is definitely good to use on Wikipedia). As you continue adding to and editing the material in this draft, some suggestions and things to keep in mind might be:


 * Some of the information currently in the lead section points to the possibility of a robust history section that could be added to the main article body. I'm not sure if you've encountered information that would help you create an initial version of that history section, but if you have that could be one good focus in the coming week as you continue to work on this
 * Possibilities for continuing to expand on sections you're already adding might be (assuming you can find this information): number of visitors annually, kinds of fishing that happen in the river (types of fish, small craft only or commercial, etc.), average cfm, any notable flood events...
 * Before publishing your edits in the main article, it would be good to give both your new material and the existing material a close proofread. A couple of examples of where this would be helpful are: "...which enters from the left." Is it possible to name a cardinal direction here rather than left/right, as left/right is subjective depending on the viewer's orientation? Another example spot is "...through most area of the river." This is a singular (area)/plural (most) bump. The last one I would point out is the casual "you" in the recreation section. A third-person noun, such as "visitors" or "users" would better fit the encyclopedia tone.

Let me know if you have any questions as you continue adding to and editing your article work, and I look forward to reading the polished version! Nicoleccc (talk) 19:34, 26 July 2019 (UTC)