User:Coral.williams/Evaluate an Article

Evaluate an article

This is where you will complete your article evaluation. Please use the template below to evaluate your selected article.

• Name of article: (link) Streptococcus suis
• Briefly describe why you have chosen this article to evaluate.
  • I have chosen this article as through my summer experience I worked with Hylife and this was a common disease for sudden deaths on farm in post weanlings.
  • Lead

Guiding questions

• Does the Lead include an introductory sentence that concisely and clearly describes the article's topic?
  • Yes the lead introduces the topic although only mentions infection in swine where this bacterium can also infect other common mammals such as cattle, sheep and horses.
• Does the Lead include a brief description of the article's major sections?
  • The lead includes mentioning the zoonotic part of the disease along with some modes of transmission but does not mention or refer to ways that the disease is diagnosed or detected on farms or in individuals.
• Does the Lead include information that is not present in the article?
• refers to certain treatment options in the lead which are not later mentioned should have just stated that treatment options are available. In the lead they should have not listed antibiotic sources as the first mode of treatment as general husbandry and early detection are most important at combating and reducing disease transmission.
• Is the Lead concise or is it overly detailed?
• The lead is short and concise. the lead does contain specifics which should have been left in the main content. the lead should have eluded more to what the content body was going to specify and kept it general.

Content

Guiding questions

• Is the article's content relevant to the topic?
• Yes, all of the information is relevant to the topic.
• Is the content up-to-date?
• Most of the content is from 2006-2010 which is fairly up to date as this is not a new disease, although there is probably newer studies about control and treatment that could have been utilized.
• One I found instantly is Feng Y, Zhang H, Wu Z, et al. Streptococcus suis infection: an emerging/reemerging challenge of bacterial infectious diseases?. Virulence. 2014;5(4):477-497. doi:10.4161/viru.28595
• Another option as they should have not been biased to antibiotic use and identified some of the cautions that should be taken when considering an antibiotic. A book that could have been cited is Seitz M., Valentin-Weigand P., Willenborg J. (2016) Use of Antibiotics and Antimicrobial Resistance in Veterinary Medicine as Exemplified by the Swine Pathogen Streptococcus suis. In: Stadler M., Dersch P. (eds) How to Overcome the Antibiotic Crisis. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology, vol 398. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/82_2016_506
• Is there content that is missing or content that does not belong?
• In the epidemiology and transmission they list direct contact, but do not go into more detail about what this includes.
• Under clinical signs they mention meningitis, although do not care to mention how this occurs as host inflammation plays a role in the bacterium making its way into the CNS. They also miss to mention how the respiratory tract is affected, which areas of the tract are common for colonization, how does the infection affect the joints (systemic infection causing septicaemia)
• Under treatment they leave biosecurity and the type of disinfectant open. where could have given some options for the reader like introducing naive animals through a quarantine barn or the use of iodine or hypochlorite as a disinfection method.

Tone and Balance

Guiding questions

• Is the article neutral?
• I think that the article is neutral on the topic but puts a lot of weight on antibiotic use. Since, antimicrobial resistance is a growing concern rapid detection and routine disinfection should be eluded to first.
• Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? Only claim would be towards specific antibiotics. The antibiotic class should have been listed as depending on the administration route, intramuscular by needle or needless system the type of antibiotics used vary. antibiotic that can be used also vary by farm due to susceptibility testing.
• Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
• I think that the zoonoses part is over presented as they discussed a few outbreaks that occurred in China and Cambodia, where even treatment and control they did not care to discuss or go into depth about control strategies. This would have been an area that should be enhanced in an effort to reduce possible species passover.
• Does the article attempt to persuade the reader in favor of one position or away from another?
• I fell like the article doesn't sway to favour a position but definitely favours the use of antimicrobials over other control and mitigation efforts.

Sources and References

Guiding questions

• Are all facts in the article backed up by a reliable secondary source of information?
• I think that one of the zoonotic stories should of had a better reference than CNN as news tends to over exaggerate without specific or correct facts to back statements.
• other references are from published journals or scientific articles.
• Are the sources thorough - i.e. Do they reflect the available literature on the topic?
• They could have gotten sources on the different serotypes, how the immune system is affected, how host inflammation is important in causing a systemic infection, how it is passed onto young through vaginal secretions and at nursing, and how the age of pigs affected in mainly 2-5 weeks post-weaning.
• Are the sources current?
• I think that more current sources especially on serotyping could have been used.Goyette-Desjardins G, Auger JP, Xu J, Segura M, Gottschalk M. Streptococcus suis, an important pig pathogen and emerging zoonotic agent-an update on the worldwide distribution based on serotyping and sequence typing. Emerg Microbes Infect. 2014;3(6):e45. doi:10.1038/emi.2014.45
• Here is a paper about the pathogenesis, epidemiology and antimicrobial resistance. Segura M, Aragon V, Brockmeier SL, et al. Update on Streptococcus suisResearch and Prevention in the Era of Antimicrobial Restriction: 4th International Workshop on S. suis. Pathogens. 2020;9(5):374. Published 2020 May 14. doi:10.3390/pathogens9050374
• Check a few links. Do they work?
  • Yes, the links all work.

Organization

Guiding questions

• Is the article well-written - i.e. Is it concise, clear, and easy to read
• Yes, the article is easy to read. Although is lacking detailed information that should be included on such a specific pathogen.
  • Does the article have any grammatical or spelling errors?
  • There are a few grammatical errors such as, "An individual pig can carry more than serotype in their nasal cavity". I am assuming this is to be more than one, but when reading an article on a topic no information should be assumed.
  • Another is they said will boar instead of plural boars.
• Is the article well-organized - i.e. broken down into sections that reflect the major points of the topic?
• No I think that detection should have been before treatment and control and that before zoonotic outbreaks some information regarding the serotypes should have been included.

Images and Media

Guiding questions

• Does the article include images that enhance understanding of the topic?
  • There are no images which make it look wordy. There could have been inclusion about sample collection, what the bacterium looks like, or clinical signs that are displayed by the animals infected with the disease.
• Are images well-captioned?
  • N/A
• Do all images adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations?
  • N/A
• Are the images laid out in a visually appealing way?
  • N/A

Checking the talk page

Guiding questions

• What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?
• There are only ratings and saying which wiki boards the article is in scope for, ie wiki project Veterinary medicine.
• How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?
• rated as a start-class which I agree with
• Wikiprojects Microbiology and Veterinary medicine.
• How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?
• I think that it is very general and doesn't go into enough depth for veterinary purposes.

Overall impressions

Guiding questions

• What is the article's overall status?
  • I am sure what this means. Only thing I can find is that is a start class on mid importance of the project scale.
• What are the article's strengths?
  • Short, easy to read and concise
  • Good for young uneducated laymen to get a gist of the topic.
• How can the article be improved?
  • More concise have more peer reviewed references. More up to date referencing aswell.
  • Include information on serotypes, the importance of systemic infection on clinical signs and common ages affected.
  • Have a general overview at the beginning on detection, treatment and diagnosis
• How would you assess the article's completeness - i.e. Is the article well-developed? Is it underdeveloped or poorly developed?
  • I think this is underdeveloped.

Overall evaluation

• I think that this is a good start but needs lots of recreation and information additions.

Optional activity

• Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback

with four tildes — ~~~~

• Link to feedback:Talk:Coccidiosis#Mergeto: Coccidia

Category:Wikipedia Student Program Category:Swine Category:Disease canada