User talk:Gsavage1/sandbox

Article Critique: Chlorosome

The first problem I noticed about this article was its lack of references. While the references provided are reliable, unbiased sources, there are only 4 references used for the whole article and certain sections of the article do not contain any citations, such as the “Structure” and “An alternative energy source” sections. The fact that this article is only drawing from a few sources means important information from other sources is being excluded, making the article incomplete. I suggest to first add citations into the sections of the articles lacking them. Then, to further improve this article, it would be worthwhile looking into more scientific journal articles to make sure all important information is being included.

Another issue is that certain topics of this article are not well balanced. There seems to be quite an emphasis on the “Organization of the light harvesting pigments” section while the “Structure” section seems to be lacking, despite it being, I would argue, an important section. With a quick search on chlorosome structure, I was able to find a three different scientific journal articles relating to the topic, each from a different author. By using information from these sources, the “Structure” section could be expanded and the chance of bias would decrease because information on the topic would be coming from several different sources. The article by Jakub Pšenčík also provides a variety of images that depict chlorosome structure and adding one to this article could improve the “Structure” section.

Choose your Wikipedia Article: Picoplankton

I have chosen to edit the article on picoplankton because they are a huge part of marine and freshwater ecosytems, making up most of these ecosystems biomass. According to the ‘talk’ page of this article, it is rated of high-importance in the Biology and Ecology Wikiprojects but is rated a “stub” article due to the fact that there is not much written on it. Since discovered in the 1970s, lots of research has gone into picoplankton and their role in marine and freshwater ecosystems. With a quick search, I was able to find many scientific articles on picoplankton, their role in marine ecosystems and their diversity. This demonstrates that this topic has significant coverage and reliable sources, making it a topic of high notability.

This article also needs significant work due to the fact that there are only two references for the whole article and the introduction section contains no references at all. The introduction is only a few sentences at most and therefore, does not provide a complete overview of the topic. The fact that there are very little references, means valuable information could be missing, especially in this overview section. Additionally, the article focuses only on the classification and measurement of picoplankton, which while essential, I think the article is lacking detail on the ecological role and presence of picoplankton, especially in marine environments.

I would like to add a section on the role of picoplankton in marine and freshwater ecosystems. The article’s introduction briefly mentions that they are prevalent in these ecosystems but I do not think it emphasizes the role these picoplankton play in this type of oligotrophic environment. I would like to add onto the fact that they contribute largely to the biomass of open ocean and lake environments, as well as discuss how they are also responsible for the majority of carbon production in these environments and have a significant role in the ecosystem’s microbial loop. This is an important section to add considering there are quite a few scientific articles on this topic and many articles on picoplankton have a section on this.

Gsavage1 (talk) 23:59, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Peer Review
The article clearly conveyed the importance of picoplankton’s role in marine and freshwater ecosystems by stating the large amounts of carbon production that those organisms do as primary producers. I would argue that the content was balanced correctly and written with a neutral context, placing emphasis on the picoplankton carbon production before writing about their role in the microbial loop. The sentences written are short and simple, easily allowing readers, who either do not understand or do not have a strong background in biology, to understand the information that is written. Some sentences however, are redundant and could improve the article if removed or by integrating new information into it. For example, looking at the final paragraph, we can find that both the 3rd and 1st sentence in that paragraph state very similar things; both state that picoplankton are important to the microbial loop, the only different being that one explains that picoplankton provide energy to higher trophic levels. Clarification of specific sentences and updating some information with newer sources is another way I believe this article could be improved. One sentence stated, “Algal picoplankton is responsible for up to 90 percent of the total carbon production daily and annually”. Confirming with the source, the number is correct, but I think the sentence is misleading in its current state and could be clarified. The sentence right now misleads the readers into thinking that 90% of the ocean carbon production is due to picoplankton when those numbers are directed at oligotrophic ecosystems. Other observations with the sources led me to notice that most of the sources are quite dated; the newest source utilized in the article was from 1995. There also seems to be an error in citing for the 2nd source because it does not seem to cite its publication date.

--Kenny Hui 06:48, 9 November 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SpaghettiPunch (talk • contribs)