User talk:Sarmocid/sandbox

Comments from User:SandyGeorgia

Hi Sarmocid! Thanks for communicating at Talk:Causes of autism and for the helpful step of proposing your edits in sandbox. I hope you will find my commentary helpful, so that we can end up with some well constructed and enduring text on evolutionary aspects in the Causes of autism article. Some of my comments are stylistic (that is, things that any editor can fix, but you may be interested in learning), while others are more significant relative to Wikipedia policy and guideline (in other words, don't let the little stuff overwhelm you, but I put it here anyway since it will help you write better articles).

I am looking at this version of your sandbox for these comments.

Citation methods

1. Named refs. If you look at User:Sarmocid/sandbox#References, you will see that you have three links to the same source (Ploeger). Those can all be combined into one line, using what is called on Wikipedia "named refs". Learning to do this will make your work easier, since you won't have to repeat citation information. It is explained at Wikipedia:CITEHOW#Repeated_citations.

    Done in this version; I hope you find that makes your editing easier! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

2. Citation style. Whenever you work on an article with an existing citation style, it is good practice to continue that style (see WP:CITEVAR). On featured articles, a consistent citation style is required, so folks may get irritated if you plop in another style. The autism suite of articles uses the vcite journal template and one author field with a specific author style that is used across most medical articles (we find it less cluttered). Adding the PMC links the full text in the citation. You have a period at the end of the title, which should be omitted. There is only one page in this case, so pages is not plural. To be consistent, your citation should be as follows (if you view this in edit mode you will see the difference):
   • Yours:
     • Ploeger, A (2011 Jun). "Evolutionary approaches to autism- an overview and integration". McGill journal of medicine : MJM : an international forum for the advancement of medical sciences by students. 13 (2): 38. PMID 22363193. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
     • Crespi, Bernard (1 January 2013). "Developmental heterochrony and the evolution of autistic perception, cognition and behavior". BMC Medicine. 11 (1): 119. doi:10.1186/1741-7015-11-119.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
   • Article style:
     • Ploeger A, Galis F. Evolutionary approaches to autism- an overview and integration. McGill journal of medicine: an international forum for the advancement of medical sciences by students. 2011;13(2):38. PMID 22363193.
     • Crespi B. Developmental heterochrony and the evolution of autistic perception, cognition and behavior. BMC Medicine. 2013;11(1):119. doi:10.1186/1741-7015-11-119. PMID 23639054.

    Done in this version (but keep in mind that other articles may use different styles-- if you look at an article in edit mode, you can see the citation style). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Evaluating sources

I hope you have a had a chance to read Wikipedia's medical sourcing guidelines, and this page, which helps clarify how we use sources in biology and medicine.

1. If you click on the "Link out" tab at the bottom of any PMID, you can (sometimes) discover if that article is a primary source or a secondary review. For example, PMID 22363193 isn't listed there as a review, and it proposes a new theory, although it does recap some older theories (that is, it may be a secondary review of some other theories).
2. You can see here that this theory is only cited twice, and I am concerned that one is an editorial (it may be important to view that). It does not yet seem to be a well studied or cited or reviewed source.
3. In terms of the quality we typically find in medical articles on Wikipedia, an international forum for the advancement of medical sciences by students raises eyebrows. It would be most helpful to find high quality secondary reviews.
4. On PMID 23639054, when you click on Publication types, you see it is not listed as a review, but the abstract and text indicate that it is a secondary review of the literature. This source appears a bit better than the other, but other editors may have better knowledge on that source than I do.

Due weight

Wikipedia's policy on Neutral Point of View (NPOV) requires that we consider due weight to represent (emphasis mine):

... all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views.

When working on an undeveloped or underdeveloped article (such as Causes of autism), it can be hard to evaluate how much weight should be given to any particular theory, since the article is generally a mess anyway and several theories there are now given more weight than they should be given. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS applies here; because an article isn't well written doesn't mean we should add to that. On the other hand, when working on a Featured article, they have already been vetted vs. the FA criteria, and are hopefully already comprehensive, so it can be helpful to propose new text for those articles on talk (see WP:OWN#Featured articles). Featured articles require the highest quality sources, so if a given theory isn't mentioned in recent, high-quality secondary reviews, it is unlikely that a theory will find a place in a broad overview article like autism. There is more room to explore in sub-articles like causes of autism, but we still have to respect MEDRS and UNDUE, and the main articles use summary style to build upon daughter articles, so they should be as compliant as possible.

So, how to decide how much of your proposed text should be included will be a discussion on talk involving how much prominence is given to these theories in other reviews. If evolutionary theories are given no credence in high quality recent reviews, then it is unlikely that this article should include more than a sentence or two discussing those theories. You will have a much better chance of having text that you write being accepted into the article if it is based on what is said about the theory by broad, independent, secondary, recent reviews of autism. If most secondary reviews do not include or discount these theories, it is unlikely that more than one line of text will endure in the article.

Linking

I see you have on your "To do" list to include better linking to other articles. There are several things to keep in mind there:

1. WP:OVERLINK: only link to articles that are really relevant here, and typically link only on first occurrence.
2. A bigger problem that often occurs with new editors is that they add content to this article that is better explained at or belongs in a linked article. One thing to think about is whether you go off-topic in an article with explanations that are better found via link.

Headings

Please see WP:MSH: it is "Evolutionary considerations" not "Evolutionary Considerations".

 Done in this version, and I'm hoping you will convey this info to your classmates. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality

Further information: WP:NPOV

When adding text (particularly in this case, where proposed text is the subject of a course focused on those theories, or by definition, not neutral), the text should be balanced (neutral). From Causes of autism, this section gives an example of how to present both sides (I have omitted the citations, but they are sound):

This theory hypothesizes that autism is associated with mercury poisoning, based on perceived similarity of symptoms and reports of mercury or its biomarkers in some autistic children. This view has gained little traction in the scientific community as the typical symptoms of mercury toxicity are significantly different than symptoms seen in autism. The principal source of human exposure to organic mercury is via fish consumption and for inorganic mercury is dental amalgams. Other forms of exposure, such as in cosmetics and vaccines, also occur. The evidence so far is indirect for the association between autism and mercury exposure after birth, as no direct test has been reported, and there is no evidence of an association between autism and postnatal exposure to any neurotoxicant. A meta-analysis published in 2007 concluded that there was no link between mercury and autism.

Your proposed text includes several theories that are not widely accepted, or are UNDUE, but does not present balance.

Writing in encyclopedic style

Have you had a chance to see WP:ASSIGN? Writing in encyclopedic style is different than a typical student essay, paper, or even a typical journal paper. We summarize secondary sources, and don't try to advance new theories. This may prove to be a challenge since your particular course is focused on narrow topic (evolutionary theories), and making sure that your content respects UNDUE may be hard. But also, in terms of writing style:

1. Your text:
   • Theories considering this question (cause of autism)in the context of evolutionary medicine are discussed below. Evolutionary medicine is a relatively new field dedicated to deducing the evolutionary causes for the persistence of disease.
     • The first line is unneeded, redundant, doesn't say anything (it is the way a term paper is written, but not an encyclopedia). The second line is text that belongs in an article about evolutionary medicine, with a link to that from here. It is not text that is relevant to causes of autism.
2. On the E-S theory, your proposal has more of same, that is, a long description of that theory which could be briefly summarized here and in fact, is already included elsewhere on the Causes page, so is redundant. Working on where to incorporate your text ...
3. On the imprinted brain theory, is "prominent" the word used in the source? It doesn't seem "prominent" according to high quality recent reviews?

That is all I have time for today ... perhaps my colleague User:Colin will have more to add as you continue working. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:39, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Summary

Evolutionary

There are several theories of autism in the context of evolutionary medicine.

Shorten it so something very brief relating the extreme male brain theory and the empathizing-systemizing theory) to ... individuals in ancient hunter gatherer societies displaying these qualities may have benefited while hunting and pillaging. This theory is not broadly accepted ... you have not given the NPOV reasons for why or explored the other side of the argument from independent reliable sources.

The imprinted brain theory hypothesized that autism is a result of heavy paternal imprinting. Paternal imprinting favors a larger energy investment by the mother into the child, and the reproductive success of the father. Not widely accepted, you need to explain why for balance and NPOV.

In the evolutionary theory of epistasis, it is hypothesized that in autistic individuals, some intelligence genes contain mutations. Upon their interaction with other intelligence genes, the autism phenotype occurs. Although autistic individuals do not have a high level of reproduction, these genes have persisted throughout evolution due to the fact that their interactions normally result in intelligence, a trait that undergoes positive selection. It is my understanding that these theories have been thoroughly debunked, I could be wrong, but you will find it hard to introduce this text without presenting balance, NPOV, that is, the other side of the argument.

The developmental heterochrony theory of autism posits that human life histories are changing in such a way that the childhood stage of psychological and neurological development has been prolonged. The extreme case of this prolongation, and not a neurological pathology, is hypothesized to result in autism, as evidenced by the child-like behavioral phenotype displayed by autistic individuals.

Recent deletions

I have chosen to remove the empathizing-systemizing theory portion of my proposed edit as it is already discussed in the article causes of autism. I have also removed the epistasis theory due to the lack of evidence outside of the Ploeger article. I am going to work on finding better secondary sources, giving due weight, and remaining neutral/presenting both sides of an argument for the remaining two theories (developmental heterochrony and genetic imprinting). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarmocid (talk • contribs) 03:37, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

If you are able to find better sources, then I will suggest some changes that are needed in the wording. But I'll wait to see what you can come up with on sources ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I've found this source, here, for the imprinted brain theory. It's listed as a review, provides good evidence, and it's been cited quite a few times. User:Sarmocid —Preceding undated comment added 00:34, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

That is Badcock and Crespi, PMID 16780503. It is proposing that theory, hence, is not really an independent, secondary review. To understand what a review of the Badcock, Crespi hypothesis would look like, please see Imprinted_brain_theory#Reception-- that is, it appears we may have already covered what can be covered about this hypothesis in its own article, and saying anything additional at Causes of autism would be undue. Perhaps you could glean one summary sentence from what is said at imprinted brain theory, explaining that it is as yet a speculative theory, with some supportive evidence and other criticism of the model. A better approach might be to take the sources listed at Imprinted brain theory, and expand that article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Would it be reasonable to have a summary sentence with a link out to Imprinted brain theory in the Evolutionary Psychology section of Causes of Autism? Sarmocid (talk) 22:26, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

If you can find an independent, secondary review discussing it, yes. Actually, that section doesn't belong in the article at all, since the source there now is not independent (the chapter cited was written by the author of the theory). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:22, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I found a secondary review that cited this Badcock paper. In terms of the Causes of autism article, this may fit best under the "other in utero" subheading in the Prenatal environment section. Sarmocid (talk) 04:57, 1 December 2013 (UTC)