Bhinson2018

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Hello, Bhinson2018, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:26, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Notesdate

Hi! I have some notes for you:

• I changed the information about the ocelot habitat, as it was vague about when this was first opened. It's always best to include the date with things like that. Also, I'm not sure if this needs to be in bullet format.

• Make sure that all content is backed up with reliable sources, preferably independent reliable sources - some sections lack sourcing.

• Be careful about tone. I know that it's not your intention, but it's easy sometimes for an article to seem promotional when the writing is too casual or mirrors the official websites' content too much, as those are written to promote the topic at hand.

• When it comes to things like incidents, keep in mind that this should be a "just the facts" type of deal. For example, there's no need to list the zookeeper as an expert at her job, as that would be a given for her position. It's something I'd only include if there are a lot of sources that go into specifics about that detail. I'll do a sample re-write of this to show how things like this are typically written.

• The section about the hours of operation is too much specific detail for Wikipedia. In most cases it's seen as too much miscellaneous detail, as it's something that's seen more along the lines of a travel guide sort of deal. We can have 1-2 lines about the hours, but it shouldn't go into too much detail. Also be cautious when it comes to controversies or events - not all of them need to be listed, only the most notable ones that have received a lot of coverage should be included.

Something I recommend doing is reviewing articles like the one on the Edinburgh Zoo, Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, Phoenix Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, and Monterey Bay Aquarium. These articles are of Good or Featured Article status, so they're definitely good to use as guides for writing.

• The list of exhibits should be in more of a prose format, if possible - the articles listed above can give you some ideas on that end. There doesn't need to be a precise list per se, just a general description of each area.

• This needs more independent reliable sources - the zoo is notable, but it would be good to try to find as many non-primary sources as possible.

I hope this all helps! You have a really good base here, so a lot of this will be fine-tuning it to meet Wikipedia's writing style and guidelines. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:32, 17 October 2019 (UTC)