User talk:Yinghuang237/sandbox

Topic chosen: Bacterial circadian rhythms

Upon looking at the talk page for “Bacteria circadian rhythms”, the C-Class rating indicates that it is not a well-developed page and requires more information. Although it is included within the WikiProject Physiology, it has not been affiliated with a specific field within the category, and users could miss out this page when they are searching for related topics. The overview section displays a lack of citations; neither of the two paragraphs has a citation for its facts. Specifically, for the second paragraph in the overview, a citation for the discovery of circadian rhythms in cyanobacteria should be made. The remaining sections contain sufficient citations and references when relevant, but some of the headers of the sections are not as concise and straightforward as they can be. For example, the header of the first section could be refactored to “Discovery of prokaryotic circadian rhythmicity”, and the header of the sixth section could be shortened to “Structural biology of clock proteins”. The second section, “Relationship to cell division”, has much less content in comparison to the other sections, although it has equal significance to the topic. The use of the word “apparently” in the last sentence of this section isn’t suitable here and should be removed. The fourth section is also underrepresented; further explanation of how rhythmic changes in the topology of the chromosome can regulate gene expression should be specified. Overall, this page provides sufficient information that allows the user to gain a basic understanding of the topic.

Yinghuang237 (talk) 23:19, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

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I have chosen syntrophy as my article of critique. This article is of high notability, as upon searching for related research articles on google scholar, the term ‘syntrophy’ returned more than three thousand results. In these three thousand results, more than 5 pages were relevant to microbial syntrophy and microbial metabolic interactions. It is also explicitly indicated as an article of high-importance on the talk page of the article. Albeit being a well-researched topic, the Wikipedia article for syntrophy displays an insufficient definition of the terminology. Specifically, the article does not highlight the energy interactions behind this phenomenon in its starting paragraph. After skimming through the abstracts of related research articles, I have learned that syntrophy is a process which allows thermodynamically constrained metabolism to become energetically favoured through metabolic interactions between different microbial species, allowing the species involved in this process to mutually benefit from the result. The lack of partition for different subtopics in this article is particularly noticeable. There is a significant amount of room for improvement in separating the subtopics of this field, as the current article has combined the introductory section along with specific examples that are not relevant to this specific topic of microbial syntropy. Some of the examples shown currently have confused syntrophy with symbiosis, and no supporting citations for them shows insight on how they were not examined with sufficient background knowledge. As a method for metabolism, there should be an explanation for the chemical processes that drive this method. I would like to add a section to this article explaining these mechanisms, and improve on explaining how this form of metabolism is unique and is beneficial for the microbes that utilize this method as well as their surroundings. This attempt will help differentiate syntrophy as a metabolic process rather than just a synonym to symbiosis. Some other sections that also should be added in the future may include but are not limited to the history of research, notable microorganism case studies, and methods of research. Yinghuang237 (talk) 18:19, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

Ying Huang's Peer Review
The Metabolic mechanism section is well-placed and provides the article a better layout. Metabolism is important in syntrophy so it makes sense that this section is after the introduction. To improve, a Metabolism heading can be made and specific mechanisms can be under subheadings as there seems to be different compounds that are syntrophically degraded.

The edited content is well-focused, relevant, and reflects the most important concepts in the chosen mechanism. The mechanism is supported by all of the sources used and is written at an appropriate level of detail. The first sentence of the Metabolic mechanism section should be reworded for clarity as it is quite dense. The sentence after the two reactions is a run-on sentence. Also, links to Wiki pages on word like “metabolism” and an addition of an image of syntrophy (dung beetle) would greatly enrich the article.

The writing is unbiased, flows, and has a style appropriate for Wikipedia. However, you should not use the author’s name and “et al.” as the use of inline citation makes these redundant. To be consistent with other Wiki articles, the inline citations should be after the period and comma (.[6] and ,[7]).

All of the sources are articles in peer-reviewed journals and academic websites. The information taken from these sources is reflective of all the viewpoints of the different sources. There are no unsourced statements in the edits and all sources are used equally (no bias). Most of the articles are recent except for the 1967 and 1997 articles. Recent articles that have elaborated on those articles can be used instead. If you wish to still use the older sources, making an inline citation of a more recent one next to the older one will tell readers that the older source is still relevant and not outdated.