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Nanobright (talk) 04:50, 12 May 2019 (UTC) beginning to expand article on Adriana Briscoe, after preliminary edits updated class to C with ORES script quality evaluation[reply]
Nanobright (talk) 19:17, 13 May 2019 (UTC) completed article improvement and updating content. submitted article as a GAN for the women in red project per discussion w/wikipedians and article quality evaluation with ORES script[reply]
@Nanobright:, I've had a brief look through this article, and it's looking pretty solid to me. Nice work! I have a few suggestions that may help it successfully pass the GA process: (1) Doublecheck to make sure all content in the body of your article is cited. The majority of your content looks well-cited, but you have a few sentences without any sourcing, primarily in the 'Research, career, and service' section (plus a few of Briscoe's listed awards). I think you should consider cutting the whole first paragraph of 'Research, career, and service', as this paragraph is just a summary of the rest of your content (and it's already been covered in your article's lead section, right?). (2) Organize your list of Briscoe's 'Selected publications' to make it easier to read through (it seems pretty random at the moment). Organizing it alphabetically by author surname might be the simplest route. (3) Check your list of references to ensure the bibliographic information is accurate -- sometimes it gets jumbled when you generate citations, and I noticed that the Robin Arnette reference looked like it needed attention. Good luck with this nomination! If you have any questions, just ask. Alanna the Brave (talk) 20:22, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
thank you so much @Alanna the Brave: for taking the time. I have been having a little trouble with the citation addition and formatting lately (people have been helping out here and there when they find errors) but I'm concerned things might be linked to using the new beta editing platform. Will def go back through this one and also clean up the the Research section. There are some addt'l details I'd like to add on her research findings especially on a class of opsins in a different wavelength regime than is currently mentioned but I haven't yet the time yet to read those papers. I'll also go ahead and organize the publications by thematic area or timeline like I've done on some other pages. will likely ping you quickly again once that's wrapped up so you can take a second look. thanks again Nanobright (talk)
This is a good start on the article; however, I fear that there are a number of problems that preclude its listing as a Good Article at this time.
There's a fair amount of verbose wording and repetition eg
"has discovered and systematically demonstrated over the course of her career" (lead) --> shown; "After graduating high school," "After receiving her Ph.D.", "at St. John's College at the University of Cambridge", "In the area of policy and higher education" (all in Early life and education); "Briscoe's research career has been largely distinguished by her studies on" --> Briscoe has studied ... and later repeated: "Her investigations have been largely situated in the field of molecular evolution." "In the area of service to the scientific community" "Briscoe's career has been distinguished by the study of diverse butterfly species and international collaborations which have supported these investigations." (Research, career, and service). These all should be pruned.
"one of approximately two dozen students who planned to attend university" context-less trivia and close paraphrasing; should probably be deleted.
The digression on her grandmother/mother should be severely pruned or cut. This part feels rather politicised and not neutral.
response pruned however not cut as it provides insight into the scientists' upbringing as requested by the other question in this review below Nanobright (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Service paragraph: much of this seems trivial. Usually editorial board appointments are not listed (only Editor-in-Chief). Mentoring research students is normal and 14 is not unusually high; usually only mention this sort of information if the student is themselves notable, or if the subject is particularly known as a teacher/mentor (per reliable independent sources). This section should be pruned and independent sources should be sought.
The sourcing is very problematic. Only a handful of sources are reliable and independent, and there are many primary (auto) refs supporting important claims. In a BLP everything should be cited inline. All lead statements must be expanded and cited in the body. Everything that is of the form "particularly well known", " importantly", "particularly significant" or claims to have discovered/shown something MUST have a reliable independent source.
Ref 13 is a press release (neither reliable nor independent); Ref 15 likewise (here should cite paper directly)
"In the course of the investigations, Briscoe and collaborators also identified the chemical composition of the evolved pigment which, in combination with the nanostructured nature of scale cells on the butterfly wing, leads to the phenomena of UV-yellow butterfly wing coloration." Sentence with claim missing source entirely
Need a source for her middle names (and these should be removed if they are not openly published). As she only seems to use the D. initial the other name should probably be removed.
Whole first paragraph of research/career/service which contains clear claims is completely unsourced.
response: these sections have been written from direct reading of Briscoe's scientific publications + abstracts (which have passed peer review) and those of related workers in the field for context. Those scientific findings have then been rephrased in terms accessible to the layperson which I believe are the statements in question here. If they need to be removed entirely due to lack of sourcing, I would like to defer this to a more experienced wikipedian. Nanobright (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Only source for entire final paragraph of Research, career, and service is Briscoe's university profile.
Visiting research fellow at St. John's College, Cambridge unsourced.
Ditto much of Awards and honors
The Conversation isn't linked. Do you mean The Conversation (website)? I'm not sure how reliable that is.
Likewise Inland Empire Community News.
response: Briscoe's academic affiliation is with the University of Irvine. Her awards and academic training is therefore not self-reported but rather linked to the university so I do not see an issue with sourcing based on my understanding of wikipedia. I do not think it would be appropriate to remove her training or awards on these grounds as this is not a standardized policy for the biography of other academics on wikipedia. Nanobright (talk) 20:37, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I found mild puffery in places eg word choices such as "extensive", "important", &c. These should be rephrased.
I happened to notice a bit of copying/close paraphrasing of [1]:
"Briscoe was born in Hawaii and was raised in Colton, California. She graduated Colton High School in 1988 where at the time she was one of approximately two dozen students who planned to attend university." (article) cf "Briscoe, who was born in Hawaii, graduated from Colton High School in 1988; at the time she was one of approximately two dozen students who were planning to go to university." (source). This all needs completely rewriting.
response: This statement has been pruned however it's phrasing is in line with other standard biographies of scientists which begin by stating place of birth early education. Nanobright (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's always wise to run things by Earwig copyvio detector in case this sort of thing has crept in; see: [2] which is also highlighting a few very minor problems with copying from the university profile. The %ages are not very reliable; one needs to go through all the sources that are tagged, even the very low probability ones.
Select publications "Dr. Briscoe has an extensive publication record in the areas of physiological genomics, molecular evolution, color, vision, and sensory biology. Some of her works are listed below: " This should be cut to just the list. The GS link is already given under External links. Don't use Dr. Her lab profile lists only ~60 papers, which is relatively modest (more than 200–250 is very normal for notable scientists in the latter stages of their career).
responsethe word "extensive" has been removed however the introductory sentence is line with situating non-specialists and the public into her work which is the purpose of this article. Given the impact factor of her work for the field + the quality of her publications, the total # of publications should not be a concern in this case to establish notability nor should it be compared to other workers which are not in this highly specialized research area. Nanobright (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Watch out for errors in Google Scholar; I found a paper where she doesn't appear on the author list (only noted in acknowledgements): [3]
14 papers is far too many; usually one includes (1) all authored books & possibly all edited books, (2) a selection of 4 or 5 of the highest cited or otherwise notable (ie noted, really needs a source) research papers; and (3) perhaps a review or two, especially if freely available online or aimed at lay readers (eg New Scientist, Scientific American or even newsy pieces for the magazines of learned societies). I noticed a highly cited Annu Rev Entomol review, plus a Nature paper, which would be good places to start.
Needs to be in date order; reverse or forward both equally ok. It's ok to organise it by subject matter if that's appropriate, but each section is usually ordered by date.
response: The number of articles highlighted is fully in line with standard biographies of scientists and has been organized by research area to assist the non-specialist in navigating the work so leaving as is. As addressed, Briscoe was an author in the aforementioned work from 2005 which was corrected by the journal in question. Nanobright (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Some minor copy editing is needed throughout. I found several minor errors in Early life and education which I corrected. It needs consistency on the Oxford comma, especially in headings. Awards and honors needs spacing fixing and several en rules.
Comma needed in "She continued her graduate studies at Harvard University,[1] specializing in evolutionary biology where her Ph.D. advisers were Naomi Pierce and Richard Lewontin." (needs a comma after biology)
The infobox is overfull, repetitious & misses information often presented there eg thesis advisors (where notable, as here). it should be pruned just to the most critical information that the reader might like to see at a glance.
response: original infobox was in line with detail of other scientists however appears pruning has already been done so this is addressed. Nanobright (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is some important missing information: eg dates of all degrees, PhD thesis title. Career appointments with dates are either absent or not clearly enough laid out. Current position is only mentioned in the lead and completely unsourced. Date of birth (or at least year) and father's name/occupation (odd to detail mother/grandmother but not mention father) would be helpful, if available. Is anything about her personal life (eg spouse, number of children) available in a reliable source? This isn't necessary for an academic but a very brief note is interesting if it can be sourced properly. I would also like more information on her group's research, but this can be extremely hard to source for living, active scientists; usually it is easier to find material for deceased or retired scientists, where obituaries and festschrifts are a great help.
"We have also recently discovered that the butterfly proboscis is not simply a passive straw for collecting food, it also produces its own suite of digestive enzymes." from her university profile page is not mentioned in article
response: per concerns about privacy and as the scientist has not disclosed this information publicly or in an independent source, these topics were not researched or the article. I agree if other wikipedians would like improve or add this info that would be helpful but leaving as is in the current version. Nanobright (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Much material has not been organised under the correct sections.
Reference details are needed. Some are lacking information or seem to have got scrambled somehow eg ArnetteDec (ref 8), ref 9. Missing dates in several. There is inconsistent date formatting eg refs 16/17 use different date formats.
As I wrote above, I've not done a GA review before, but there seem to be definite problems under criteria 1a, 2b, 2d, 3a, 3b and 4, sufficient to mean that it is a long way from meeting the six criteria. I am therefore quick failing it. I've written some detailed review notes above which I hope will help in improving the article. I hope that they don't feel too overwhelming! (I'm aware some of this is not essential for GA status.)
I should stress that the subject is clearly notable under WP:PROF from the fellowships in learned societies, which are sourced, as well as the professorship, so there is no need to "push" her notability. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:39, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, I'm new to the protocols of Wikipedia and just wanted to mention that while it is true that in the original 2005 Current Biology article, I was mentioned in the acknowledgements section, I was subsequently added as a co-author to the 2005 paper in an erratum which corrected an oversight (see https://www.cell.com/current-biology/comments/S0960-9822(06)01322-4 ) Both Google Scholar and Pubmed citations include me as a co-author of the 2005 paper, reflecting this correction. Best, Adriana Adbriscoe (talk) 00:44, 13 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Adbriscoe: Thanks for the added info about this Adriana. To share a bit, this and another article (Susan Kauzlarich) were recommended as good articles per a machine learning script (ORES) for wikipedia article quality I learned about in the WikiEdu scientists + scholars class I took this spring. As you can see for the reviews from wikipedians that came back on both articles they unfortunately didn't meet the mark. As I'm also learning wikipedia, this was a new situation (and not exactly expected based on other in-person feedback I had received on both articles). So I reached out to Women in Red last week with some questions about the process. The good news is that it sounded like the reviews aren't a cause for article deletion which was my first concern. With this said, I'd like to try to address as many of the points they brought up not necessarily towards another attempt at good article status but to make sure the article is in the best shape possible. I'm trying to loop in some additional folks to help with this so this is just a heads up that some changes + line-by-line responses to the review might be popping up on the main article and also this talk page over the next week. All the best, Alexandra Nanobright (talk) 05:51, 14 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Adbriscoe:@Espresso Addict:@Alanna the Brave: Following up, this is an update that I've gone ahead and addressed some of the concerns listed in the GAN review and also line by line in the talk above to assist future editors. Since wikipedia is based on collaborative editing and is also a living document, I'm going ahead and leaving things outside of my experience as-is since I'm hoping other contributors will be able to assist in improving this article over time.
One overarching concern I will bring up is that based on my personal experience so far on wikipedia (and in doing some research on other biographies over the past week) there were a couple concerning things in the review. Specifically requesting pruning of Awards + honors, # of listed publications flagged as too many, comparison of this scientists' total publication record to total publication of other scientists in an unspecified career, age, research field group. Additionally, factual information regarding the scientist's personal cultural and ethnic identity in the public domain was flagged as "politicized". I am not experienced enough with wikipedia to know if these are common concerns with biographies of living persons or those specifically associated with the high standards Good Article Nominees however it would be my personal preference to not prune this biography in those areas since to the best of my knowledge this isn't currently implemented for other scientific biographies
I'd also like to reiterate my thanks for the opportunity to see a bit more behind the scenes of the GAN review process. This has been very helpful context to learn more about how wikipedia works behind the scenes + has really helped me think through some considerations associated w/introducing wikipedia editing as science outreach in academic settings. Alexandra Nanobright (talk) 21:02, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
