User:Laura.smith450/sandbox

Rough Draft Article

Current Research - looking at adding to main Wikipedia page

Current research from Scientific Reports volume 8, Article number: 4666 shows that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic. They surveyed buoyant ocean plastic with multiple vessels in July through September 2015 and aerial surveys in 2016.  They are quoted “Our model, calibrated with data from multi-vessel and aircraft surveys, predicted at least 79 (45–129) thousand tonnes of ocean plastic are floating inside an area of 1.6 million km2; a figure four to sixteen times higher than previously reported.”

Dutch innovator Boyan Slat has been working on an ocean cleanup array that is a passive system that will float on the ocean surface and collect plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Based on his 2012 TedEx talk.  However, he recently announced there is a new prototype that is more efficient, cost effective and will theoretically collect plastic faster. The new prototype is scheduled to be in service in 12 months, roughly in 2019, and is a simplified version of the first prototype designed.    This new prototype will be smaller and have floating anchors approximately 600 meters beneath the surface, floating with the currents to where the plastic trash is located.  

Notes

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is comprised of two distinct collections of debris, the first is the Western Garbage Patch near Japan and the Eastern Garbage Patch located between California and Hawaii.  These two garbage patches are bound by the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone combined with the wind and ocean currents, called gyres, to move the debris into what is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is largely non-biodegradable material that has fallen off of cargo and fishing ships or litter from the shoreline and can be comprised of fishermen's netting and gear called ghost netting, consumer trash from various continents that has been ended up in our oceans.

All different sizes and types of plastic float in the oceans along with other debris and accurately measuring all of the plastic is difficult as the debris can float, be submerged, or sink to the bottom of the ocean. Some of the plastic that enters the oceans breaks down due to photo degradation and is distributed throughout all of the oceans due to its physical characteristics and buoyancy.  This plastic breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces until it has become microplastic .  The microplastic can make the ocean appear cloudy and these particles float below the surface largely undetectable by direct observation.  This makes the Great Pacific Garbage Patch difficult to accurately to measure.

Bibliography

• Goldstein, Miriam C., et al. “Scales of Spatial Heterogeneity of Plastic Marine Debris in the Northeast Pacific Ocean.” PLOS Medicine, Public Library of Science, journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0080020.

• Millimeter-Sized Marine Plastics: A New Pelagic Habitat for Microorganisms and Invertebrates Julia Reisser , Jeremy Shaw, Gustaaf Hallegraeff, Maira Proietti, David K. A. Barnes, Michele Thums, Chris Wilcox, Britta Denise Hardesty, Charitha Pattiaratchi, Published: June 18, 2014 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100289

• To Eat or Not to Eat? Debris Selectivity by Marine Turtles, Qamar Schuyler , Britta Denise Hardesty, Chris Wilcox, Kathy Townsend, Published: July 19, 2012https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0040884
• Correction: To Eat or Not to Eat? Debris Selectivity by Marine Turtles, Qamar Schuyler, Britta Denise Hardesty, Chris Wilcox, Kathy Townsend, Published: October 15, 2012https://doi.org/10.1371/annotation/0215f07d-0265-485c-966f-aee192a18313,
• National Geographic Society. “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” National Geographic Society, 9 Oct. 2012, www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific-garbage-patch/.
• http://www.businessinsider.com/boyan-slat-ocean-cleanup-launch-2018-2017-5

Week 5 - Choose your topic / Find your sources Assignment - EDITING GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH

In your sandbox, write a few sentences about what you plan to contribute to the selected article. Think back to when you did an article critique. What can you add? Post some of your ideas to the article's talk page.

• I hope to add new reliable research to my selected article (the great pacific garbage patch)
• When reading up on the journals maybe there is a new angle to look at the garbage patch to enlighten readers
• I would like to tackle revising some of the verbiage on the information section as it was hard to understand the first time i read through it - maybe some editing here
• reviewing all information with a critical eye to the "is it relevant and reliable"

Compile a list of relevant, reliable books, journal articles, or other sources. Post that bibliography to the talk page of the article you'll be working on, and in your sandbox. Make sure to check in on the Talk page to see if anyone has advice on your bibliography.

for reliable sources i am looking into:

• Public Library of Science Journals
• Book/Textbooks
• Peer Reviewed work/journals

Please see below heading for my Bibliography/Notes

Article Evaluation - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Question: Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

• The article stays on topic in regards to plastic in the ocean and the cause and effect of the plastic/garbage
• This is a scientific article with a lot of detail and understanding all of this can be distracting from how the article has been written, specifically in the information and estimate of size sections
•  It appears that the information section has been re-written and added to many times and is not seamless

Question: Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

•   In the information section there is a statement that has been cited as “dubious-discuss” and “citation needed”

Question: Are there viewpoints that are over represented, or underrepresented?

• My first impression is that the article has even representation to each section, with cleanup research being the largest 

Question:  Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

•  I randomly selected various citations throughout the article.  They worked properly and supported the sentence/statement that had been written

Question:  Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

•  I’ve noticed a few places where there could hyperlinks added to an individual so that someone could understand who is being cited
•  This article has been well cited and sometimes multiple citations per statement
• The citations come from multiple neutral sources
•  One of the cited items was a TedX video, not sure if these are acceptable as references?

Question:  Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

•  I would research the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as this is what caught my eye when determining what article to review
•   Newer information could be added as this is an ongoing research topic, however, it would need to be vetted out

Question: Check out the Talk page of the article. What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

•  In 2011 there is a discussion about whether or not the Great Pacific Garbage Patch exists
•  It appears that external links have been cleaned up multiple times
•  There is an incomplete Archive Bot that was addressed in 2017
•  Discussions regarding the title of “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is not really what the debris is and how to rename or merge with other articles
•  Also, there is discussion about getting a reliable photo of the garbage patch

Question:   How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

• It appears that this article is rated C by various entities
• The article was subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment.

Visual Editor Buttons

Paragraph: This helps you set the style of the text. For example, a header, or plain paragraph text. You can also use it to offset block quotes.

A : Highlight your text, then click here to format it with bold, italics, etc. The "More" options allows you to underline, add code snippets, and change language keyboards.

Links: The chain button allows you to link your text. Highlight the word, and push the button. The visual editor will automatically suggest related Wikipedia articles for that word or phrase. This is a great way to connect your article to more Wikipedia content. You only have to link important words once, usually during the first time they appear. If you want to link to pages outside of Wikipedia (for an "external links" section, for example) click on the "External link" tab.

Cite: The citation tool in the visual editor helps format your citations. You can simply paste a DOI or URL, and the visual editor will try to sort out all of the fields you need. Be sure to review it, however, and apply missing fields manually (if you know them). You can also add books, journals, news, and websites manually. That opens up a quick guide for inputting your citations. Finally, you can click the "re-use" tab if you've already added a source and just want to cite it again.

• Bullets: To add bullet points or a numbered list, click here.

Insert: This tab lets you add media, images, or tables.

• 

Ω The final tab allows you to add special characters, such as those found in non-English words, scientific notation, and a handful of language extensions §≈≠.