User:AdelineER

Welcome to my user page. I am a student in Washington, blessed by the opportunity to attend school. In my free time, I play guitar, listen to music, sing, write out my thoughts, see friends, or write short stories. Eight years ago I began training in the martial art of Kung Fu. Two years ago, I became an instructor there, and being around the children is one of the best parts of my day. I also spend time with my family, either talking, playing cards, or going for walks. Reading books has always been a part of my life, and I have high expectations for quality.

As a new Wikipedia user, I'm unsure of what I may spend my time writing. Based on what I know of myself, I may spend most of my time making grammatical corrections, fixing spelling errors, and altering sentence structures. I've got some favorite authors and singers that aren't too well known, so it could be neat to write short biographies of them.

Article Evaluation

After visiting the state of Arizona with my family several times within the last eight years, I became intrigued by the barrel cactus. They find their way from the hills and mountains all the way to your front yard. I visited the barrel cactus page on Wikipedia, and found three aspects of it worth commenting on: the lack of basic proper grammar, the lack of citations, and the lack of a complete description.

Proper Grammar

While the general concept of the page is acceptably understandable, it does not reach the grammatical level that a public encyclopedia should. Under the heading “Description,” there is a mid-sentence switch from singular to plural. In the final sentence, the word “them” ought to be added for the sake of clarity.

Citations

We are given facts about the size and growth of barrel cacti for two paragraphs, and not a single citation is provided. When you look more closely, only two citations are given, and they are for alternate names of the barrel cactus. I would suggest deleting the sections without citations, but as that would mean removing almost the entire article, sources should be found and added instead.

Complete Description

When reading through the “Description” section of the article, I notice the broad and general terms used such as “some,” “many,” and “usually.” This gives me no more knowledge than I had before, as I can’t give measured facts when recalling the article. We need to view these vague statements with a laser focus, and fill out the information to be something a person could repeat with confidence and understanding.

Summary

If I had never heard of barrel cacti before and decided to visit the Wikipedia page, I would come away from it having learned the general idea of the plant. The images are a great aspect of this article, and beneficial for comprehending the descriptions given. On the whole, I’d say this article is “below expectations.” There are a few grammar flaws, there is a severe deprivation of citations, and there are not enough specifics to educate a curious mind.

(Note: I have completed step 4 by making a minor edit to the barrel cactus page.) AdelineER (talk) 14:28, 29 April 2019 (UTC)Adeline