Talk:Anti-exhaustion hypothesis

Peer review
Great article Kyra!

Lead Section: Your lead section is clear, easy to understand and summarizes the article well. It reflects the most important information in the article. It presents different perspectives on song switching in birds for a balanced introduction of the subject.

Structure and body: -Headings are explanatory, concise and logically ordered. -The language used throughout the article is formal and not too complex. -There is a neutral point of view and neutral content throughout the article. An alternate perspective was presented   in "Motivation hypothesis" section, offering a different explanation for variation in bird's songs other than the anti-exhaustion hypothesis. -The conclusion was also neutral, acknowledging that both anti-exhaustion hypothesis and motivation hypothesis are possible and even present at the same time in bird species. There was no bias presented to persuade the readers toward believing either hypothesis as better than the other.

Sources: The article was written based on facts only. All the facts were cited using reliable sources (science journals and books).

Suggestions: -There was more information provided on the study of Great tits than on Blue tits, resulting in the article being slightly unbalanced. Although this extra information provided a good summary of the study, some of the study's description may not be necessary in understanding the significance of the study. I thought the paragraph on the Blue tits provided just the right amount of information to explain the study as well as understand the significance and findings of the study. - I think it would also be a good idea to add a short section on the "warm-up hypothesis" or to include it in the section where you explained the motivation hypothesis; since it was mentioned in the lead paragraph as another perspective on song switching in birds. - It is only necessary to wikilink a word the first time it appears in the article.

I found a few spelling mistakes you may not have noticed yet, I'll point them out for you as follows:

Anti-exhaustion hypothesis in great tits section, paragraph 2: “…is advantageous in (not is) territorial defence…”

Anti-exhaustion hypothesis in great tits section, paragraph 2: “…performance time (not timed) changed…”

Anti-exhaustion hypothesis in great tits section, last sentence: “…muscles and nerves (not and/nerves), therefore they (not the) would be able…”

Motivation hypothesis section: “…motivation to keep singing (not sing) the same song…”

Overall I think your article is very well written and follows the wikipedia guidelines!

AshlynGray (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for taking the time to read and review my article, Ashlyn! Your feedback is much appreciated. Kyradsimms (talk) 20:15, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Peer review 2
I would like to start by saying that as a whole, this article is very good. The lead section defines the topic very well, while introducing the article content in a clear concise manner. The lead provides equal distribution to the sections outlined in the article. I do not think anything needs to be removed or added from the lead section.

Overall, the article has a neutral stance, as it (equally) outlines arguments for and against the anti-exhaustion hypothesis. Any bias among the researchers who are for and against, is clearly pointed out in the article. The information delivered is relevant to the topic, and nothing seemed out of place.

The article is well organized, and I wouldn’t change anything about the order in which the sections are listed. That said, I feel that perhaps it would be good if the ‘Anti-exhaustion hypothesis in great tits’ section was shortened. This section is very interesting, but it has a lot more information than the section highlighting the 'Anti-exhaustion hypothesis in blue tits’. I think by condensing or reducing the size of this section, it would be easier to follow and would result in a more balanced article.

The sources used are great, as they are all from reputable scientific publications. The information was sourced well throughout the lead and body sections. There did seem to be a couple of references that were used quite a bit, such as reference #4 ("The anti-exhaustion hypothesis: a new hypothesis to explain song performance and song switching in the great tit"). Perhaps it might be better if the use of sources was a bit more evenly distributed. I found the writing to be well done, and there are only a few phrases that seem to have some form of grammatical error;

1) “The anti-exhaustion hypothesis was first proposed by Marcel Lambrechts and André Dhondt in 1988 after they carried out a study using recordings from great tits during the Dawn chorus (birds).”
 * Perhaps in the lead section, it would be good to include the scientific name for the great tit (Parus major).

2) “The anti-exhaustion hypothesis is a possible explanation the existence of large repertoires and the song switching behaviour exhibited in birds.
 * Could use “The anti-exhaustion hypothesis is a possible explanation for the existence…”

3) “The great tit in particular sings with eventual variety and has a small repertoire, usually consisting of two-seven different song types.”
 * Could write either “2-7 song types”, or “two to seven song types”

Honestly, as I said, I found this is be an excellent article. It is written well and contains a lot of information. I feel as though I learned a lot from reading it. It has given me ideas on how I can improve my own article. I liked how your article contained a lot of information, and I think I should perhaps add more to my own.

Great job! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joanna Naomi (talk • contribs) 13:55, 18 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Thank you for taking the time to read and review my article, Joanna! Your feedback is much appreciated.Kyradsimms (talk) 20:17, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Reference #2
Good work. Something for me to think about when I go and listen to the chickadees later. However reference#2 needs to be improved. All it tells me is that you accessed a pdf file at your library. ("Memorial University Libraries - Proxy Login" (PDF). ac-els-cdn-com.qe2a-proxy.mun.ca. Retrieved 2018-02-11.) We need details of the source you were looking at, as you have done with the others. Thanks. Derek Andrews (talk) 11:46, 26 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks Derek, I fixed it up.