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Paleoceanography Article Review

Each fact is not referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference. In fact, in the first paragraph, there are no citations at all, just bold definitions with no reference. There are also often cases throughout the article where a couple sentences of facts will be given, followed by a citation after the last sentence, which I believe is okay, but then another sentence will be tossed on the end of the paragraph and not referenced. Therefore, is the last sentence meant to be included in the preceding citation, or is it new un-cited information, perhaps from the editor?

In terms of relevance, everything in the article seemed to be very related and important. Eventually with all of the scientific jargon everything started to blend together, but I did notice that all of the unfamiliar terms were linked to their own individual article. This was well done as it allowed readers to gain the information necessary to fully digest the article, but does not crowd out the original topic.

The article seems to be very neutral, it simply states information about paleoceanography and doesn’t even discuss any potential discrepancies in its use, if there are any. If there are any disputes about its accuracy or usefulness, however, they are left out. In terms of viewpoints, if there is skeptics of paleoceanography, those viewpoints are completely underrepresented. If there are not, then the article is well-balanced.

The information comes from a variety of primary and secondary sources, though as the maintenance header at the top of the article notes, it relies a little too heavily on primary sources. Many of the sources are articles documenting the author’s experimentation involving paleoceanography, though I believe more secondary sources may have been added since the maintenance header was put up as there are now multiple articles being cited that are reviewing and assimilating primary sources.

All of the citations that I clicked on led me to the appropriate reference at the bottom of the article and all of the references that were not hard copy works led to the correct website. After skimming the referenced articles themselves, I did not notice any plagiarism or close-paraphrasing. Sources appeared to be very scientific and not biased, again, unless there are scientific-based opinions that offer evidence against paleoceanography’s usefulness.

The page is not locked. What’s good about this policy is that it prevents unnecessary, excessive, and confusing arguments over hot-button issues on what is supposed to be a neutral and purely informative platform. However, this could be abused if those with the authority to lock pages favored one side over the other and locked the information such that it supported a certain side, thereby blocking information pertinent to the opposite side of the issue.

The information seems up-to-date, however, there are a couple of missing sections that I think could be of interest and good use. For example, it would be very informative and intriguing to have pictures of some of the actual references cores. Also, I think it would be beneficial to add a section that gives information about where paleoceanographic data is currently being collected and from where, ie what oceans and seas and what parts of each. Finally, I think that a section about the history of paleoceanography would be very useful and appropriate, detailing perhaps early methods, when and where it was first used and by whom.