User talk:Sharonnsylva/Chilcotin River
External Review
editHello Sharonnsylva - My name is Jolie, and I'm the Project Coordinator for the WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography team. Your external review for your article on the Chilcotin River has been posted below. If you have any questions about your review, or would like to clarify anything, please feel free to get in touch with me by leaving a message on my talk page, and I'll pass it along to your external reviewer. Thanks, and all the best as you wrap up your Wikipedia editing assignment!
EXTERNAL REVIEW - Hi Sharonnsylva, I’m a limnologist and did my PhD at Simon Fraser University, so I lived close to the Chilcotin basin and regularly visited the area for several years. Also, my PhD research was on the chemistry of large river ecosystems – so for both of these reasons, your article topic is really interesting to me!
You’ve done a great job on the Chilcotin River Wikipedia page! Your edits and additions have really improved the article and rounded it out with lots of relevant information. I particularly liked the way that you organized your article, and the sections that you added on the cultural significance and environmental concerns of the river. Both of these sections really flesh out your article from a physical description of a landform to a broader understanding of how the river fits in to and influences the communities living in its basin. I have some feedback and suggestions for you to consider as you wrap up your assignment, which I’ll outline section-by-section here:
Lead
- Updating this section is a really good idea, since the original version is rather short. I think with the information you’ve collected for your article you can do this easily, and it will make a big difference (lots of people don’t read past the lead!)
- It looks like you have a plan to add some relevant facts from the rest of your article to the lead – but one thing I think would be interesting would be to name some of the larger towns/cities in the basin (if there are any of note) and then provide links to the Wikipedia pages for each.
- I’m not certain how you intend to merge your new page with the existing one (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chilcotin_River&oldid=985794214), but I would definitely suggest keeping the “Course” section that immediately follows the lead on the existing page (although you may want to do a quick edit, or pull the Course section into your new section on the Natural Landscape & Setting). On a similar note, I would also recommend keeping the section on Major Tributaries, and just merging it into the rest of your article in an appropriate spot.
Natural Landscape & Setting
- This is a great addition to the page! One thing I’d recommend is to add links to other pages whenever possible. For example, Permian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian) and Cache Creek Terrain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache_Creek_Terrane) can link to other Wikipedia pages, while the Wineglass assemblage can link to something like this external paper (http://cmscontent.nrs.gov.bc.ca/geoscience/PublicationCatalogue/Paper/BCGS_P2013-01-05_Schiarizza.pdf). Cross-referencing by adding links to other pages is a really valuable feature of Wikipedia, so use it whenever possible! (there are places throughout most of the other sections where lots of links could be added as well)
- Would it be possible to expand this section a bit to address the landscape/setting beyond just the geological features? For example, maybe you could add some information about the local climate and weather (this information can be retrieved from the Environment and Climate Change Canada archive of meteorological data - https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/canadian-centre-climate-services/display-download.html - and the information can be shown in a “weather box” by following the directions here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Weather_box)
Ecology
- Good use of references in this section.
- Again, add links to other Wikipedia pages whenever possible (Fraser River, Bering Sea, the different salmon species at the end of the section, etc.).
- In the second sentence of the biogeoclimatic section – I don’t think it’s accurate to state that the river confluences with the Fraser – I think it would be better to state something like “…and the lowest reach where the Chilcotin flows into the Fraser River”
Cultural Significance
- This section is really well written and flows very well. Like the other sections, adding more links would be an improvement.
- At the end of this section, I think it would be more straightforward to say that fishing in the Chilcotin River has halted or stopped (rather than seized).
- Also in the last sentence, expand the acronym “COSEWIC” (I see that this acronym is written out in full in the following section, but it’s standard practice to fully write out the acronym the first time it’s used, and then use the acronym alone when it’s mentioned later on in the page)
Environmental Concerns
- In the subsection on sediment, the second sentence is a bit confusing as written and could be clarified. Do you mean that the increase in sediments may be due to higher erosion caused by higher streamflow? And if so, is it possible to tell whether this is internal (i.e., higher streamflow causing more scouring in the river channel) or external (i.e., more rainfall washing more sediment into the river, and also increasing streamflow)?
- For your section on the Mountain Pine Beetle – the following two references might be helpful:
- https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/tr/TR089.pdf
- https://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/publications?id=25053
Overall Comments
You’ve done a really great job on this article, and have made a number of really nice contributions and improvements! Your work is well-written and uses an appropriate tone for Wikipedia. My overarching recommendation is to make sure you use cross-links wherever appropriate so that you’re providing an easy way for readers to access other pages they might be interested in. Best wishes as you wrap up the rest of your Wikipedia assignment! I look forward to reading the final version of the page!