User:Zaharex

Bio

About me

I'm a college student who lives in the United States. I'm currently studying English, but I intend to major in biomedical science. Eventually, I hope to obtain a career somewhere in the medical field.

In high school, I was the president of the Interact Club. While there, I had several opportunities for community service. Through this club, I had the opportunity to research and create posters for National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month to display around the school. It was a project that made me take more of an interest in anti-bullying. Did you know, bystanders can make a huge difference when they intervene in bullying behavior? When bystanders defend and support bullied youth, the bullied youth are less anxious and depressed than those who are not supported by bystanders.

I enjoy reading fantasy and science fiction books with my favorite book being The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson. I also enjoy story-based video games. From time to time, I will attempt some creative writing or dabble in some worldbuilding.

Another hobby of mine is origami.

My Wikipedia Interests

If I decide to contribute to Wikipedia content in the long-term, I would be interested in making small edits to fix any grammar mistakes I find. I would also find interest in making sentences more coherent. Of course, I would love to work on any pages related to my hobbies. I may also contribute deeper to articles related to psychology and medical science by finding more research and citations to add.

Article Evaluation

A high school biology assignment has always stuck with me: Why do some white clovers contain a white stripe while others do not? After completing the assignment, I remember searching Wikipedia for the answer. Unfortunately, I could not find any information on these particular facts at the time. Thankfully, the article on trifolium repens, the white clover, has improved with time and contains pieces of information I remember learning. Despite this, when I revisited the trifolium repens article on Wikipedia, I found three aspects of it worth commenting on: Not every fact on the article is cited with a source, there are some broken and missing links, and the article still doesn't contain all the pieces of information I remember learning.

Citations

While there are several notable sources cited throughout the article, not every fact within the text is cited. The section titled "Name" has no citations within the text, though it has several wiki-links, especially links to Wikipedia's dictionary. Within the "Description" and "Culinary uses" sections, two facts have the "citation needed" tag, which is a clear indication of missing citations. There is still an abundance of scholarly resources, albeit one or two questionable sources, and relatively few citation errors. Surprisingly, Wikipedia still lists the article as being in the Start-Class in terms of quality within the plant articles category. It seems it was given this label in 2009. It is possible the article may need a reevaluation for quality.

Broken and Missing Links

When scrolling through the article, the red text within the "Ancestry" section immediately stands out to any viewer. The Wikipedia pages to "Trifolium pallescens" and "Trifolium uniflorum" do not exist. This marks an area of botany that could potentially be expanded on in Wikipedia's database. Furthermore, within the references section, some of the links no longer work. For example, the citation #14 link brings the viewer to an error 404 page. These are fairly minor issues that can be resolved by expanding the Wikipedia database and by using the Internet Archive resource to retrieve older website articles.

Missing Information

The one fact I found fascinating about white clovers was somewhat missing from the article. The article mentions in the "Distribution" section that cyanide content in the white clover acts as a deterrent to herbivores, which is important to know. However, it quickly glosses over the fact that freezing is related to the cyanide content. I know cold temperatures impact the distribution of different subspecies of white clover because the cyanide content can actually cause the plant to poison itself if the cells break due to the cold. The subspecies containing cyanide lives in areas that are relatively warmer, where there are more herbivory pressures still keeping the population in check. In this section of the article, the focus is mainly on the distribution of cyanide-producing white clovers in relation to rural and urban areas. The "Distribution" section of the article could certainly be expanded on.

Conclusion

In summary, this article on trifolium repens could be rated as decent. While it has obviously been improving since it was last given the "Start Class" label, it still has ways to go before being a "Good" article. The article could be improved on by citing uncited information, removing the few questionable sources which were cited, fixing the broken links, and further researching the white clover to expand on the information which is missing.