Talk:Electron diffraction/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Phlsph7 (talk · contribs) 14:01, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

This is unfortunately a quickfail (see WP:QF): the article has many unreferenced passages and several full paragraphs lack references. This issue can be addressed by making sure that all claims in the body of the article are supported by inline citations no later than the end of the paragraph, see GA criterion 2b.

A few other observations: Phlsph7 (talk) 14:01, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:EARWIG shows no copyright problems
 * the article has many helpful images to visualize the topic
 * some passages use Oxford commas but others don't. Consistency would be better.
 * the article seems to oscillate between American English (behavior) and British English (modelled)
 * Electron diffraction refers to changes in the direction of electron beams due to interactions with atoms. avoid phrases like "refers to" for the first sentence, see MOS:REFERS.
 * Is the distinction between Fresnel diffraction and Fraunhofer diffraction required in the lead? Maybe the lead could be simplified by removing it to reduce the number of technical terms.
 * nucleus could be thought of as standing waves, and that electrons there is a linebreak between "as" and "standing waves"
 * In 1650, Otto von Guericke invented the vacuum pump allowing for study of the effects of high voltage electricity add "the" before "study" and replace "high voltage" with "high-voltage"
 * He proposed that particles are bundles of waves (wave packets) which move with a group velocity replace "which" with "that"
 * Others were focusing of the electrons by an axial magnetic field by Emil Wiechert in 1899, should this be "the focusing"?
 * similar to a optical microscope but with magnetic replace "a" with "an"
 * However, the vacuum systems available at that time was not good enough replace "was" with "were"
 * This has changed, in transmission, reflection and at for low energies. should this be "at low energies"?
 * The development of advanced detectors for transmission electron microscopy such as charge-coupled device or direct electron detectors, improving the accuracy and reliability of intensity measurements. replace "improving" with "improves" and maybe add a comma before "such as" to make it easier to parse.
 * The set of diffractions spots at right angles this should probably be "diffraction spots"

Response: I confess that I think that in some cases you counted references/paragraph without looking at the context. For instance, the lead paragraph for a section IMHO does not need to have references if they are given below. Also, in many cases formulae etc follow from a prior reference, which is the standard method in science -- you do not always put references at the end. In any case, I have gone over it adding a few more references, in some cases they are just duplicates. Please look at the context as well, although I realize this is technical (it has to be somewhat). In terms of the specifics you mentioned I have accepted most but some are not really correct, below with my responses in italics:
 * some passages use Oxford commas but others don't. Consistency would be better.
 * This is because of multiple authors in the past. I checked in MS word and it had no problems with anything. I, personally, always use Oxford commas when there is a possible ambiguity, but not otherwise. No changes, sorry


 * the article seems to oscillate between American English (behavior) and British English (modelled)
 * Again because of multiple authors and MS word had no issues. No changes, sorry.


 * Electron diffraction refers to changes in the direction of electron beams due to interactions with atoms. avoid phrases like "refers to" for the first sentence, see MOS:REFERS.
 * I have changed the first sentence to "Electron diffraction is a general term for phenomena associated with changes in the direction of electron beams due to elastic interactions with atoms". It is a bit long, but it is accurate which is not so easy.


 * Is the distinction between Fresnel diffraction and Fraunhofer diffraction required in the lead? Maybe the lead could be simplified by removing it to reduce the number of technical terms.
 * Sorry, this really matters. The lead here not only must describe what the article is about, but clearly define several things that it is not about. There have been questions raised about this, and some other technical issues which is why the terms are there and also note a. No changes made.


 * nucleus could be thought of as standing waves, and that electrons there is a linebreak between "as" and "standing waves”
 * Not sure how this got there, removed


 * In 1650, Otto von Guericke invented the vacuum pump allowing for study of the effects of high voltage electricity add "the" before "study" and replace "high voltage" with "high-voltage"
 * Yes to “the” before “study”, no to high-voltage as it is not a compound term as an adjective. Please check it, you will find that “high voltage electricity” is the standard usage.


 * He proposed that particles are bundles of waves (wave packets) which move with a group velocity replace "which" with "that"
 * I have changed it, although I think it is wrong as the rest of the sentence is not essential


 * Others were focusing of the electrons by an axial magnetic field by Emil Wiechert in 1899, should this be "the focusing"?
 * Sorry, “the focusing” is wrong, as focusing is a verb not a noun


 * similar to a optical microscope but with magnetic replace "a" with "an"
 * Thanks, changed


 * However, the vacuum systems available at that time was not good enough replace "was" with "were"
 * Thanks, changed


 * This has changed, in transmission, reflection and at for low energies. should this be "at low energies"?
 * Thanks, changed to “for low energies”


 * The development of advanced detectors for transmission electron microscopy such as charge-coupled device or direct electron detectors, improving the accuracy and reliability of intensity measurements. replace "improving" with "improves" and maybe add a comma before "such as" to make it easier to parse.
 * Not really correct, I changed the sentence in a different way


 * The set of diffractions spots at right angles this should probably be "diffraction spots"
 * Thanks, changed
 * Ldm1954 (talk) 23:56, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your timely response to the suggestions and for taking the steps to implement them. I'm not sure which passages you think that I think were unsourced but I apologize if I was not explicit enough about which claims lacked references. The references you added in response already cover the most severe cases so I'll respond to some of the remaining points. Unreferenced claims in the lead are fine as long as they just summarize sourced material in the body of the article, see WP:LEADCITE. The criticism referred to the body of the article.


 * If a formula follows from a reference given in an earlier paragraph, it is probably best to repeat the reference. Otherwise, it would be a lot of work to verify since a reviewer would have to go through all the previous references to see whether one of them supports the formula. An exception might be if the formula itself was already explicitly stated in that earlier paragraph. It's quite possible that the Wikipedia GA criteria are different in this respect from how this is handled in other fields.


 * If a group of references covers all of the claims in a passage, it's usually best to put them at the end of the passage. For example, references 1, 2, and 3 in the passage The normal usage in the field[1][2][3] is to collectively refer to both the scattering process and the maps of directions as electron diffraction, not differentiating the two. Therefore, strictly, electron diffraction also plays a major role in how images are formed in different types of electron microscope such as transmission, scanning transmission, scanning and low-energy. should be put at the end if they cover all the claims. If they do not cover all of them then separate sources should be added after the passage. Otherwise, it can be difficult for readers and reviewers to assess verifiability since they would need to guess which reference might cover which sentence.


 * One more point regarding citations: in some cases, you cite full books without specifying a page number (e.g. "Edington, Jeffrey William (1977). Practical electron microscopy in materials science" and "M. A. Van Hove; W. H. Weinberg; C. M. Chan (1986). Low-Energy Electron Diffraction"). This makes it very difficult for reviewers to find out whether a reference verifies a claim.


 * In response to some of the other issues:
 * in relation to American vs British English: this is covered by MOS:CONSISTENT. MOS:CONSISTENT is not included in the GA criteria so, strictly speaking, this is not required for GA status.
 * in relation to MOS:REFERS: the main point is that "the article is about the subject, not a term for the subject". One way to solve this would be to use a phrase like: "Electron diffraction is a phenomenon associated with ..."
 * in relation to Others were focusing of the electrons...: if I understand the sentence correctly, "Others" refers to significant steps in relation to the previous sentences (One significant step...) and means "Other significant steps". On that reading, understanding "focusing" as a verb (i.e. other significant steps were focusing of the electrons) does not make much sense to my ears and does not fit with the preposition "of". But maybe I am parsing the sentence wrong.
 * Phlsph7 (talk) 07:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Clarifying, with numbers for your paragraphs:
 * 2) The only formula that does not (now) have a specific reference is the one after "The wavelength of the electrons". That is just substitution of variables, so does not need a reference. Of course I am not writing a textbook here, as that would not be appropriate.
 * 3) Sorry, but you have misread that paragraph. The references [1-3] go with "normal usage in the field". Note that both [1] and [2] do not have page numbers which is deliberate. Both books are on "the field", hence page numbers would be inappropriate. The "therefore" directly refers back to a consequence of the "normal usage". Putting the references at the end would not be so rigorous IMHO. Yes, it may be harder to validate but the reader who wants to know more has a source to read. (This is why both of these are also in the "Further reading" as well -- deliberate and accepted practice.) What I am doing in this paragraph is trying to provide complete context for the non-expert, which is not so easy in a topic as vast of this one.
 * 4) Please look at the context. The text by Edington is a general reference for experimental details (that you can't find elsewhere), so (similar to 3) above) is deliberately the whole book. Similar Van Hove's book on LEED and Ichimiya's on RHEED are general references to areas where there are many thousands of papers. Note that for both LEED and RHEED I point towards the existing "Main articles" (also for Kikuchi, PED, CBED, 4D STEM, GED, EBSD). All these topic need to be at least mentioned, but since decent, longer articles already exist I use these for expansion.
 * N.B., concerning the "Others were focusing" sentence, let me give you two uses to clarify.
 * "The focusing of electrons can occur because they are matter waves"
 * "A magnetic lens can focus electrons"
 * In the first "focusing" is a noun equivalent, while in the second focus is a verb. I meant to use a verb. To clarify I have changed the sentence to read "focusing of electrons by an axial magnetic field". (The "of" is needed to differentiate it from, for instance, focusing of light.)
 * It may well be that there are areas in the article which are not so clear, and could be improved. What I am pretty certain of is that everything in it is either backed up by citations, or if I have missed 0.5% then I have them readily available, so can easily add.
 * Ldm1954 (talk) 18:21, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * N.B., I resubmitted the GA a few days ago. Ldm1954 (talk) 22:29, 28 September 2023 (UTC)