Talk:Behavioural genetics/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Montanabw (talk · contribs) 09:28, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I will review this article. Montanabw (talk) 09:28, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I am placing this article on hold because it is quite a ways from GA class, but it might be possible for an article improvement drive to fix it. If it cannot be brought up to speed over the next few week, however, it may be better to fail the nomination now and try again later. Here are some basic problems for a start:

1) Lead is too short and does not adequately summarize the article.   That said, fix this last, after other improvements.

2) Much content is unsourced.  Basically, there should never be any unsourced paragraphs at all, and in most cases, even individual statements should be footnoted.

3) The article seems to have ongoing discussions about the quality of the source material.  This is an article in the sciences, so WP:SCIRS applies to sourcing.  Please review the material.

I will do a more in-depth review when these basic problems are addressed. Montanabw (talk) 09:35, 30 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Vrie0006, Montanabw, where does this review stand? It has been a month since the review was posted. I see that Vrie0006 has been editing the article in the interim, but there's no indication here what progress is being made, and how close the article might be to addressing the basic problem described above. A status report is probably in order at this point. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:41, 30 December 2016 (UTC)


 * BlueMoonset & Montanabw, thanks for the nudge. I think I've addressed the concerns listed... Vrie0006 (talk) 00:07, 31 December 2016 (UTC)


 * Montanabw, are there other changes you would like to see before conducting the review? (Thanks for being willing to do it in the first place!) cc: BlueMoonset. Vrie0006 (talk) 14:58, 24 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Finally back. Here are more comments and suggested changes:
 * General:

I’d still like to see more concepts wiklinked, (polymath, pedigree, Bayesian statistics, dizygotic and monozygotic etc…)

Also still a lot of uncited material… I just went ahead and tagged where I saw a need.

The topic is still somewhat controversial, may be worth noting why and in what ways, don't need a lot, but a mention.

Lead should more closely mirror the order of the article and roughly summarize each section. As it sits, it's better, but I'd like to see more work on it. Anything not repeated in the body of the article needs a citation in the lead (like the first sentence)
 * Lead:


 * History section:

The citation to ‘’The Tempest’’ needs a page number for the edition you used.

There’s a few too many flowery adjectives that are not encyclopedic and neutral in tone, “seminal book chapter”, for example. (just “book chapter” will do, unless you want to add an additional source for why it was “seminal” and so on…)

“Nowadays, it is widely accepted that most behaviours …” also pretty broad and not really backed by the sources cited. It’s better to stick to the sources and not make a WP:SYNTH conclusion… Turkheimer makes a conclusory statement in a 17-year old article, and I can only access the abstract of the meta-analysis, but it indicates that the field was still “controversial” in 2015 and though heritability is important, the percentages are interesting (49% 69%). I would suggest a rephrase with more neurtal phrasing along that lines that the topic has had extensive study and that clear connections between (some, many — but not “most”) behaviors and a genetic component exist, giving a few of the best-known examples.


 * Twin and family studies
 * section needs a citation for all the biometrical formulation stuff; I put in cn tags where needed (If footnote 21 covers it all, add it before the table and in the table)

The Measured genetic variants section would do better for the two subparts to be a bulleted list rather than separate small subsections.

That heading title is also too "editorial" in tone; I think you’d be better just calling it something like “Research summary.”
 * Broad Conclusions from behavioural genetic research:

I would toss the “Journals” and “Societies” sections or at least consolidate them into something with citations — and a broad overview heading title (“Journals and Organizations” perhaps, or something similar)


 * I found one image with problems: The one of the twins is apparently from this orignal which is copyrighted... possibly the uploader had a bad link or something.  But I'm going to have to ask that it be removed.


 * I'll fill in the parts of the chart above that are OK. Sorry for letting this review languish without feedback.   Montanabw (talk) 10:40, 5 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Montanabw, I've attempted to make the suggested changes. I scanned the article for statements that require additional references, but am hard pressed to find any more. That could be because I've been in the weeds on this article for too long. Please let me know if there are additional changes you would like to see made. Thanks again for the review. Vrie0006 (talk) 19:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)


 * You have addressed my concerns and this article now meets the GA criteria. I made a few minor wikignoming edits of my own, particularly to remove phrasing like "our" -- for a more encyclopedic, third-person tone. Nicely done and congrats!  Montanabw (talk) 01:11, 11 February 2017 (UTC)