User:Garrondo/Comments to students

==Collapsin unuseful text


Not directed to improving article. Collapsed.--Garrondo (talk) 09:44, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Format edit

Refs edit

  • There should not be spaces between two sequential references (e.g:semantic errors during reading and the impairment of nonword reading.[2] [3] should become semantic errors during reading and the impairment of nonword reading.[2][3])
  • There should not be spaces after the full stop and the reference. (e.g: more precise mechanisms used in normal reading. [16] should be more precise mechanisms used in normal reading.[16])
  • References should be after the sentence and not before the full stop (e.g forcing reading to proceed through the semantic route [2]. should be changed to forcing reading to proceed through the semantic route.[2]), and same occurs with other punctuation marks such as commas (e.g change be a more severe form of phonological dyslexia[8][9][10] to be a more severe form of phonological dyslexia;[8][9][10])
  • Regarding refs in the middle of sentence: this is usually avoided in wikipedia per Wikipedia:Citing_sources#How_to_place_an_inline_citation_using_ref_tags. Instead of including them in the middle of a sentence (or at the very beginning in your case) try to move them after the full stop or the next punctuation mark if it only applies to part of a sentence. For example:

In an artificial grammar learning study with adult participants, Saffran, Newport, and Aslin[4] found that participants were able to locate word boundaries based only on transitional probabilities, suggesting that adults are capable of using statistical regularities in a language-learning task

should be

In an artificial grammar learning study with adult participants, Saffran, Newport, and Aslin found that participants were able to locate word boundaries based only on transitional probabilities, suggesting that adults are capable of using statistical regularities in a language-learning task.[4]

if the reference specifically states the last part of the sentence or

In an artificial grammar learning study with adult participants, Saffran, Newport, and Aslin found that participants were able to locate word boundaries based only on transitional probabilities,[4] suggesting that adults are capable of using statistical regularities in a language-learning task.

if it does not.

Other edit

  • Bolding: there is a specific style wikipedia guideline (See WP:MOS) which is overly specific and detailed and boring for recent editors. It has a section on bolding (See WP:MOSBOLD#Boldface). In summary, bolding is only occassionally used in Wikipedia. All in-text bolding should be removed.
  • Capital letters: I do not think that the models are names by themselves. I do not think they merit the use of title case. In text I would change them to lower case (and unbolded as proposed above): e.g. I would change The Morton and Patterson (Dual Route) Model is based upon the to The Morton and Patterson (dual route) model is based upon the. Similarly titles should be changed to sentence case (e.g:Dual Route Model would be Dual route model).
  • Internal links to technical or important concepts are very interesting and the article at the moment is probably underlinked. I would recommend the addition of many more internal links. I would say as a hint that any concept that 14 years old may not know should be linked. On the other hand: concepts should be only linked in the first appearance of the article.
  • Automatic citations: You might not know that you can automatically create references from scientific journals by inserting the pubmed number (pmid) or digital object identifier (doi): go to the editing toolbar, click cite, click templates, click cite journal and insert either of the two identifiers in its appropiate place, and voila!: you have your citation. It has the advantage that it reduces errors (although it is better checking since sometimes it makes some mistakes) and also gives a link to the article abstract direcly when you go with the mouse over the inline citation or at the reference at the end of an article. For example in the case of Jones-1985- article Deep dyslexia, imageability, and ease of predication just by inserting its doi (10.1016/0093-934X(85)90094-X), obtained from either pubmed (pmid:3971130 see [1] or the publishing house abstract to the article (See [2]) I get (in this case using doi): [1]. You might notice that gives an error in the year that you can easily fix and have: [2]. I am not sure if I have explained myself adequately but these kind of things make editing muuuuuuuuuuuch easier, so if you did not really understood my explanation please ask.
  1. ^ Jones, Gregory V (NaN undefined NaN). "Deep dyslexia, imageability, and ease of predication". Brain and Language. 24 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1016/0093-934X(85)90094-X. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Jones, Gregory V (1985). "Deep dyslexia, imageability, and ease of predication". Brain and Language. 24 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1016/0093-934X(85)90094-X.
  • Sources in each section (talkpages): You have to add {{Reflist|close}} after them to create a list
  • The lead should be a summary of the full article. Right now it does not cover the info from all sections. It would be great if you could do a brief summary of these sections to enhance the lead. See: WP:lead
  • Citations are not needed in the lead. See: WP:lead
  • The article appears to be linked in very few articles. Maybe you could think of other articles that could point to this article and insert a link in them either in-text (preferred option), in the "see also" section, or at the beginning of specific sections (for this one there is an specific template that has to be used). The more links the article has the more probable it is to attract traffic, which will lead to further improvements in the future.

Sources edit

Initial comment

  • Almost all sources are WP:primary sources, that is, results of single studies. However, Wikipedia is not an academic paper or essay! Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources (for instance, journal reviews and professional or advanced academic textbooks) and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources (such as undergraduate textbooks). WP:MEDRS describes how to identify reliable sources for medical information, which is a good guideline for many psychology articles as well. So please, reconsider your choice of sources and use secondary sources instead!

Agressive tone

  • Why don't you search for high quality secondary sources instedad of using sub-optimal sources that should probably be eliminated in the future? The article needs secondary references instead of primary articles.
  • The tone is not encyclopedic but highly research like. Wikipedia articles should be based on generalities and conclussions, and not so much in describing specific studies. This section is a complete X did this in the year X and X did that in the year Y. It is precisely the type of writting that derives from use of primary sources. However: who are we to decide that these specific articles are the most important ones, and not a random recollection from inserting in google the term we are searching for? Take a look for example at the schizophrenia article a featured article (one of the best articles in wikipedia): you will not find writting saying X performed an investigation in schizophrenics in 1993 and his colleague X in 2002, since it is not the relevant thing for an encyclopedia (and because there are literally thousands of primary articles on the issue). The important thing is the conclussions that experts have already drawn from this articles and written in secondary sources.

Definitions

  • First a definition of primary source in science: they are mainly first-hand experiments and investigations. Authors analize data. Hint: if there is statistics or methods section it is most commonly a primary article
  • Second a definition of secondary source in science: they are reviews of many first-hand experiments (also meta-analysis). Authors instead of analizing data "analyze" previous works, ellaborate from the previous results and generalize conclussions. Hint: if there is no results section it is probably a review.
  • Third a definition of peer-review: peer review is the proccess of quality assurance in scientific journals by which a work (either primary or secondary) is judged and critized so the author has to make ammendments before publication. It is independent of tha article being primary or secondary.

Further comments

  • Reason for using reviews is because wiki is an encyclopedia, and use of secondary sources is the best way to remain neutral (See WP:neutral, a core policy) in an article. As students or anonymous editors we are not capable of deciding what is truly important for an article. Secondary sources, such as books or reviews are the sources capable of giving this perspective. To decide which primary sources are relevant is most commonly original research(See WP:NOR, a core policy) Take a look for example at the schizophrenia article a featured article (one of the best articles in wikipedia): you will not find writting saying X performed an investigation in schizophrenics in 1993 and his colleague X in 2002, since it is not the relevant thing for an encyclopedia (and because there are literally thousands of primary articles on the issue). The important thing is the conclussions that experts have already drawn from this articles and written in secondary sources.
  • Introductions in primary articles while usually make a succint review of the literature, it is most commonly directed to make a point by the author, not comprenhensive enough and not balance; and therefore not good enough for wikipedia. This has been for example specifically stated in the WP:MEDRS (guideline for choosing sources in medical articles, which is the closest guideline for psychology articles). I quote: Research papers that describe original experiments are primary sources; however, they normally contain previous-work sections that are secondary sources (these sections are often incomplete and typically less useful or reliable than reviews or other sources, such as textbooks, which are intended to be reasonably comprehensive).
  • Additionally, if there are no reviews for a subject it usually means that it is so obscure and badly researched that it does not merit inclusion in wikipedia.
  • 'Regarding the non-existance of secondary sources: I am not an expert nor I have the time to check so I would have to take your word for it. Nevertheless it is quite common among newcomers to understimate the quantity of secondary sources for a topic: Have in mind that technical books, (as well as peer-reviewed reviews) are considered great sources, and I am sure that there will be some out there. The more proportion of secondary sources you use in your article the better.
  • Specific proposal (best way to improve article without huge efforts): what I would do is to use the already included secondary sources as a reference (in addition to the primary ones) for those sentences that at the moment are only referenced with a primary source but are also covered in these secondary sources. I'm sure that at the moment you almost know all the references by heart and it would not take you much effort to do as I recommend.

Wikietiquette edit

While in articles modification of previous editions is how wikipedia improves in talk pages is not really common to modify comments since then people are unable to follow what has happened. Whenever you write in a talk page do not change what you find: instead write a new comment below so the talk page has chronological flow.

Interact, interact, interact.... and interact!!! When somebody posts a message for you, answer to it directly in the article page or in the user talk page, say thank you as much as you can, and if in doubt it is always better to ask.--Garrondo (talk) 20:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Images edit

Diagrams like the one you created are not usually appropiate due to several reasons: 1-They are considered not encyclopedic, and more typical of student books, since they summarize and simplify an issue most commonly to make it easier to learn 2-They usually are very close to original research (See WP:NOR) since the creator has to make several decisions on what and how to include which does not directly come in the sources used. 3-If they are not OR they are usually only copied from a book and in that case there would be copyright issues.

License tags:you can choose between many licenses, depending on whether it is your work or not. The most common one in this case (created by yourself) should be added using the text {{self|cc-by-sa-3.0}} on the image description page.

Copyright from images from a journal: Question from the student:We want to upload a fMRI showing the differences in facial processing in typically developing brains and ASD brains. Are we not allowed to post a fMRI scan from journal article even if we cite it? The picture in question is http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/124/10/2059/F3.large.jpg.

  • Short answer. NO YOU CAN NOT, you will be infringing the copyright. It will be similar to posting a full chapter of book in the internet . Independently of whether your cite were you took it from you will be breaking copyright.
  • Long answer: NO YOU CAN NOT IN MOST CASES. However there have been several publishing houses created in the last years such as PLOS that permit the use of some or all of its content with certain restrictions such as citing the origin of the work. Other traditional publishers now release specific articles without total copyright (See open-access journal. In order to upload an image to wikipedia it will have to come from an article with a compatible copyright license (the one you were thinking of using does not have a compatible license, but a traditional copyright).