User talk:Vmkeam/sandbox

Hey Molly!

Honestly, I could not pin point anything wrong with your draft. I think you did great because you actually mentioned specific species and wrote their scientific names in the proper fronts. I actually learned from your article and writing skills and hope to use some of your skills with writing my own article. You mentioned different studies and that added to the paper being unbiased. To me your wording was very good and much like how an encyclopedia article should be written. All of your references are reliable sources and can be found if someone wanted to use your paper as their own reference.

Ashley Darby

Draft Feedback
Molly, I like the two examples you chose to illustrate this ecology concept, and your writing here is very clear. I do have some minor suggestions.

First, you only need to refer to your source when you first start to discuss each study, if it is obvious that all of the information in that paragraph is from that source. For example, for your NM study, you only need to refer to this source in the first sentence of that paragraph. In your eastern hemlock paragraph, similarly, reference this study in the first sentence of that paragraph. Likewise for your 3rd reference - refer to it in the first sentence when you mention that study.

Second, use the common name of a species followed by scientific name in parentheses (e.g., eastern hemlock [tsuga canadensis]) at first mention; at subsequent mentions just use the common name. Here, adding the common name for those species in your first paragraph would really help with information interpretation.

Third, do check through your grammar once more as you work on your final draft - there are just a couple of minor errors.

Fourth, your discussion about the relationship between presence of foundation species and biodiversity is interesting, and it makes me wonder if that relationship holds true across a wider suite of taxa. Also, this information seems to be potentially at odds with some of what is said in the introduction for this article, and that makes me wonder if this pattern holds across different types of ecosystems. I suppose that "a strong role in structuring a community" is not the same thing as "facilitating a more diverse community," though. Along with this same topic, I wonder if you can more clearly state this relationship between presence of foundation species and biodiversity in the last several sentences of your first paragraph.

Last, are there any places where key words in your article could link to other Wikipedia articles, in case the reader is interested in investigating these topics in greater depth? Rhirshorn (talk) 01:39, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Response to peer reviews
Thank you Ashley! I appreciate your kind words and I'm glad you were able to learn from my article!

And thank you Professor Hirshorn! All of your feedback was very helpful. I will definitely incorporate all of your suggestions into my final draft. I agree that I only need to mention my sources once the first time they are used in the paragraph and I do also think that using common names for my species will make it easier for readers to follow along. I appreciate your suggestion for how to tie my findings together in a couple of sentences because I did find it odd that my research seemed to contradict the general introduction of foundation species but I wasn't sure how to address it at first. I will also be sure to link to key words throughout my article.

Vmkeam (talk) 03:28, 23 November 2016 (UTC)