Talk:Neuroscientist

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Danielggpeters, MReilly51, Sand774823, Chkollath.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:10, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Nothing more than a name upgrade by psychologists
This article reflects the low self-esteem of psychologists since they have never found a cure for any serious diseases. Most of their actual knowledge at any atomic or molecular or neural level is about zero. Sorry guys, but doing a "brain scan" every time someone farts does NOT make you a scientist.

By the way, look at that first reference source: the NIDA. The same group that says smoking marijuana is a mental illness and that it breaks up families! It would be funny if it were not so foolish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.130.168.139 (talk) 04:42, 12 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Most "neuroscientists" have a background in biology, not psychology. I have a Ph.D. in Neuroscience, and never took a single formal course in psychology.  Give it a break, already.  The word is certainly abused, but ridiculous exaggerations don't help. Looie496 (talk) 16:14, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

General headings for further development:
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Chkollath (talk • contribs) 04:26, February 24, 2016‎
 * Education
 * Job placement
 * Salary
 * Predicted Job Growth/Demand
 * Career Satisfaction
 * Common Personality Types In This Career
 * Fields they can apply their work to
 * Interdisciplinary stuff
 * Current Research Topics

Summary framework for Introduction
Danielggpeters (talk)Daniel G G Peters —Preceding undated comment added 06:30, 27 February 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danielggpeters (talk • contribs) 15:46, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep current summary but with a more condensed version
 * Add brief overview of the history of neuroscientists
 * Add brief overview of current state of neuroscientists and direction the profession is headed in the near future
 * Clarify educational background of neuroscientists
 * Reference any renowned neuroscientists to help reader relate to previous knowledge

BIOL 3501 outline for Neuroscientist under "Danielggpeters"
This is a notice that a draft for improvements on the "Neuroscientist" page can be found in my sandbox, under Danielggpeters. This article includes the work of Chkollath, Sand774823, and MReilly51. The information included is in a rough form and is not all inclusive. Additions will be made in the history section especially.Danielggpeters (talk) 23:52, 31 March 2016 (UTC)Danielggpeters
 * Here is the direct link: User:Danielggpeters/sandbox. I'm going to put a note about this at WT:NEURO, so that more editors will be aware of it. I haven't yet looked at it carefully, but I can see right away that it needs a lot of formatting fixes according to WP:MOS. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:18, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Purpose of the Marquette BIOL 3501 Edits on the Neuroscientist Wikipedia Page
Neuroscientist, as with any other profession or area of study, is a very broad topic. Our goal in these edits was not to expand on every possible topic but instead to give a more detailed overview of things that may be pertinent to understanding and relating to the topic. For this reason, we added some bits on history as well as current research and the short list of famous neuroscientists. Danielggpeters (talk) 21:16, 17 April 2016 (UTC)Dan Peters, BIOL 3501 MU

Secondary Review from SEReichert
I think this is a great article. It clearly meets the six criteria for a good article, as it is well written, verifiable, broad in its coverage, neutral, stable, and has relevant images. However, I think that a few additions to your article may help add to the quality of the article.

I think that your article would benefit from a few more wiki links throughout your article. For example, Egyptians, Plato, neurotransmitter(s), government funding, etc. could all be wiki links. The article utilizes many wiki links already, however, I think it would benefit your article to make sure there is at least one or two wiki links per block of writing.

It is especially nice how the page is formatted, using headings for your main points, using subheadings, and using tables to illustrate your points. I know that Neuroscience encompasses a wide range of potential jobs, but it may be beneficial to add a photo of a neuroscientist at work or some other related photo in the 'Job overview' section.

Overall, I think you guys made a strong contribution to this article.

SEReichert (talk) 21:19, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Primary Review from Johnmleclaire
Johnmleclaire (talk) 00:52, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) Well Written: Overall your article meets good article standards. You guys did a very good job of putting together your sections. Each section stands alone and is approachable without a significant scientific background. You guys do a good job of tying in the occupational aspect to the scientific aspects. I did find one significant error in the History section titled "Medieval European Beliefs and Andreas Vesalius." This section discusses the "attribution of mental processes to specific ventricles in the brain." Ventricles are a set of fluid filled cavities in the brain that don't actually store any information. All the information in the section otherwise seems correct, you probably just used the wrong word. The future directions section is interesting but might go into a little bit too much detail. Some of the information in this section seems like a summary of past research and could be cut out.
 * 2) Verifiable: The article is verifiable with no original research. References are provided with in line citations from reliable sources. The source "Contributions of Neuroscience to Our Understanding of Cognitive Development" is a quality secondary source that provides the information attributed to it.
 * 3) Broad in Coverage: The article is indeed quite broad. Incorporates enough science to be relevant to the field while also providing economic and other information that could be useful to the casual person. As mentioned previously, the current/developing studies section goes into almost too much detail. some parts of these sections seem like a summary of previous research rather than an exploration of current fields. A few more wikilinks seem necessary in the more scientific sections of the article.
 * 4) Neutral: The article is neutral. Does not present any bias. Information is all factual and pulled from relevant sources in a way that is consistent.
 * 5) Illustrated: Illustrations are tagged, relevent and in the correct portion of the article. A neutral picture at the top of the article that is related to the topic would be a nice touch but not entirely needed.

Response to Johnmleclaire's Primary Review
Thanks for the feedback and keeping your review more than organized. One of our main goals with the article was to keep it approachable, and it seems that we both succeeded and failed in this. We may adjust our current research and developing studies section to make it more relevant and easier to grasp.

As we talked in class, Vesalius actually used the word "ventricle" to describe his proposals; the "ventricle" he referred to is not the same "ventricle" that we now use in discussion of fluid filled cavities in the brain. We've also added a few wikilinks after reading your review, especially in the science-heavier parts of the article. We've taken the liberty to add a picture of Camillo Golgi to the top of the article - we figure he's both a great example of a neuroscientist and someone many people outside the field of biology could identify, at least based on the knowledge of the Golgi apparatus. Danielggpeters (talk) 04:00, 27 April 2016 (UTC)Daniel Peters, Marquette University BIOL 3501

Secondary Review
This article is very well written. The illustrations complement it well and most importantly, it is concise and informative. I would suggest adding a couple more illustrations, especially near the top of the page. I also suggest using wikipedia links as liberally as you have in the first paragraph in the rest of the article. Overall, awesome job!

AleksNemo (talk) 03:34, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Secondary Review
Very informative and well-written article about neuroscientists. As for the content and information in your Wiki page, I believe you guys did great and are totally fine when it comes to that. I would like to make a few suggestions though! Firstly, I would just look over some simple grammar and make sure that every word in the title headings are capitalized. Secondly, Some sentences had information that was relatively repetitive. In the opening paragraph, you mention that a neuroscientist typically has a PhD or an MD, and then you repeat the same information near the end of the paragraph. Thirdly, I think that the sections "Job Description" and "Job Overview" could just be combined into one section. Overall, well-written Wiki page! Skakos18 (talk) 20:59, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Primary Review
Very thorough article, it has a nice flow while reading it. The article was nicely divided, with an appropriate comprehendible amount of information included in each section. I especially appreciated the Job overview and Famous neuroscientists sections. In the Job overview section though, I do see room for more links to direct readers to information within Wikipedia on other fields or techniques used that were mentioned. A neutral voice can be seen in the article, without a worry of a bias. Your included images are appropriate and meaningful, though as a previous reviewer mentioned, a lead image in the introduction would be a nice addition. My one main point of confusion comes by Andreas Vesalius’ inclusion in the article. In the brief mention of him, I wasn’t able to see what the article gained through him being mentioned. If there is reason for his inclusion, perhaps an elaboration on what he directed the field towards?

As a primary reviewer, I have also covered your source article “Contributions of Neuroscience to Our Understanding of Cognitive Development.” I’ve found the information you have cited to be present in the article. The article provided a breadth of relevant information on the topic, from which I can see the value in selecting it. Though, as the article is dated by some standards by being published in 2008, I may recommend a brief search to see if more modern literature, within the past 5 years, is available on the subject. Once again, good job on the article and I look forward to seeing its progress! Edavis95 (talk) 00:27, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Response to Primary Review
-Thank you for your input into the article, it was very insightful, and allowed us to make the article better.

-We have worked on adding more internal links within the job overview section, along with added more internal links throughout the article in general.

-The Vesalius section was part of the history section, and was shown to emphasize the shift in the study of neuroscience, and thus we thought it would be important to note this as a change in the discipline.

-The sources can be updated, and so we used the department of labor statistics to give us the most insight on the current field. Sand774823 (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Secondary Review
This article was extremely informative. I think that it has a lot of information about neuroscientists. I like how it the article flows together, however there are some issues with grammar and sentence structure. There were just a few sentences that did not make sense. I think that it is a bit much to have two entirely different sections about the actual job of a neuroscientist, including outlook and salary, so I would condense those two sections into one. I also think that there could be more added into the section on "Current and developing research topics", it would make the wiki page more interesting if readers saw more neuroscience research. Finally, make sure the first letter of every word in every header in the article is capitalized. 2974hurtadm (talk) 04:51, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

==Secondary Review by 0272thinkap=

I didn’t find any major issues and agree that the article is a good representation of an article written using points from the “6 criteria of a good article” page. I enjoyed the layout of the article, especially in its headings and links- as these make it very easy to navigate through the text. Additionally, sources seem to be used appropriately. If I could change anything, I would advise in the addition of illustrations at the top of the page. Overall, i believe this this article is excellent. 0272thinkap (talk) 14:46, 20 April 2016 (UTC)0272thinkap

Secondary Review
The article seems pretty thourough. Im not sure what else can be added to the topics already there. I would try and focus on adding in more topics or headers and filling in those. The section on job description seems relatively short for an entire summary of neuroscientist. I would try to add in some things about how the job interacts with other careers maybe. I understand that’s covered in the interdisciplinary fields section but you may be able to tie these together. Also in the R&D heading, you may be able to add some links to medical journals or places that interested people could pursue the topic. I'm thinking if a kid wants to become a neuroscientist maybe have links to a medical journal or website for them? Most people have already addressed the headers which should be capitalized and the fact that there are a few grammatical errors or just sentences that read a bit funny. Otherwise, really great article just needs finishing touches

ErikEastwood (talk) 18:51, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Secondary Review by riesgraf.emily
This article is very unique and does a nice job of giving an overview of neuroscientists that is readable and interesting for historians, scientists, and businessmen (I’m surprised this was not already a Wikepedia page). With such a broad topic that could be taken in any direction, I have a few suggestions to help organize, clarify, and neutralize your page.

First, I would suggest to group like subheadings together and order them in a more chronological order. To do this I would suggest moving the “Education” heading right after “Job Description”. Within education, it might make more sense to first discuss undergraduate studies and majors and then talk about the different PhD programs, the sentence ordering jumps around a little. I would suggest grouping “work environment” and “interdisciplinary fields” together as they both talk about career paths and diversity within neuroscience. I would also suggest grouping “Job outlook” and “salary” as they both talk about money and advancements. The subheading “Egyptian Understanding and Early Greek Philosophers” could be re- worded or separated as I don’t see a direct correlation or flow between the two topics. Organizing the Wikipedia page will condense repeated information and make it easier for users to sort through and find the information they are looking for.

Secondly, I think the page is very descriptive while also covering a wide range of aspects of neuroscientists but there are a few places that could use clarification and extra description. In the second paragraph the first sentence could be changed rom “these scientists” to “neuroscientists”. The text under the subheading “Medieval European beliefs and Andreas Vesalius” could use dates or date ranges as it is under the greater heading “history”. It might be beneficial to give examples of results in the Job description heading under “some common tasks for neuroscientists”. I would suggest mentioning which neuroscientist studied PKU in the second paragraph under “Behavioral and Developmental Studies” rather than saying “a neuroscientist”. Under the same heading, the first sentence of the third paragraph could use a date for clarity, how recent is “a recent study”? To clarify I would suggest listing James Holme’s neuroscience research or job focus under the “Other Famous Neuroscientists” rather than just his involvement in 2012 Aurora theater shooting.

Lastly, with such a broad topic there were generalizations made that could be worded differently that I think could help take out bias. Under the subheading “Galen” the first sentence could be interpreted as biased “…was arguably one of the most influential scientists in regards to anatomy”. I would suggest writing something like “In the middle ages, Galen made many discoveries in regards to anatomy”. Under “Job outlook” the second sentence could be considered biased “this is a fairly average job growth rate when compared to other professions” could you list the other professions? Overall this article was well written and informative. I feel there are just a few adjustments that could be made to organize, clarify, and make the article more neutral.

Riesgraf.emily (talk) 23:24, 20 April 2016 (UTC)riesgraf.emily

Secondary Reveiew
I do like how even though the topic was broad, it tried to cover a lot and clear up a few things. The only thing that I could suggest doing is move the headings and sections around. I would think education should be before job description and salary. If there is a photo of a neuroscientist in action I would also put that in there. I like the famous neuroscientist section and thought the last neuroscientist section was a nice addition. TEckert412 (talk) 19:09, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Primary Review by Xiaoyi Hou
1	Well written:

The article is well written: very informative, thorough, and flow nicely. There are no recognizable spelling or grammatical errors that need to be fixed. The article meets the requirements of the style manual for Wikipedia articles, starting with a broad introductory lead section, followed by detailed sections. The sections are generally well organized, and the headings and subheadings are concise and informative. However, it seems to me that section “job description” could be part of section “job overview.” Maybe the authors keep them separate to make each section look balanced. Moreover, I think the “history” section could be moved behind “job overview” and in front of “Current and developing research topics.” In this way, the history and current works follow the chronological order.

2	Verifiable with no original research:

The article is verifiable, since the authors have cited many sources with both proper in-text citation and references. Since this is a very broad topic, describing a profession, many sources are from websites rather than journal articles from databases. I have checked the 13th reference, which explains behavioral neuroscience. The source is the website of Department of Psychology of UC San Diego. Even though UC San Diego is a reputable university, I still think the authors could find more reliable sources from PubMed or other databases. Additionally, the summary paragraph after the heading “Current and developing research topics” does not seem like common knowledge to me. I wonder whether the authors need to cite it or not. Otherwise, all the contents are traceable, and there is no original research.

3	Broad in its coverage:

The article has a broad coverage, mainly focuses on job overview, history, and current research. Besides, the authors list famous neuroscientists, which honors the contributions of the scientists and also shows the progress of neuroscience. I especially like that the authors include “See also” and “External links” because these connect neuroscientist, the profession, to the larger field of study, which also recall the various aspects that the neuroscientists could focus on.

To me, it is hard to talk about the current and developing research topics, since this section is too broad. The authors mainly talk about “Behavioral and developmental studies” and “Effects of early experience on the brain.” I can see that these are two examples of current research topics. However, as an audience, I wonder why the authors have chosen these two topics to represent the current research. Since this section can be expanded endlessly, I think maybe the authors could only talk about the general trends of current neurological study, such as on molecular level, organ level, behavioral level, etc., without going into a specific research (like the study performed by Michael Meaney and his colleagues).

4	Neutral:

The article is written in a neutral tone without bias and personal views.

5	Illustrated, if possible, by images:

The authors used relevant images and a table to illustrate their topic. Each image has a reference and a caption.

Xiaoyi1991 (talk) 02:18, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Reply to Xiaoyi Hou
Chkollath (talk) 01:01, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * 1) Thanks! Good organizational tips! I agreed and reorganized.
 * 2) For the purpose of the source, defining behavioral neuroscientist, we feel that UC San Diago is a reputable, and easy to understand source. While a paper from PubMed may be more reputable, I believe that UC SanDiego was able to put it more succinctly and with less debate than would have been present in a research paper.
 * 3) Thanks! And I agree that this section could take on a life of its own and be expanded endlessly. We wanted to chose a couple of the hottest topics right now and get specific with them so that our readers would have something they could read and get excited about. When we first read about the Human Connectome Project for example, our reactions were, "wow that's cool!". We wanted our readers to be able to have that same reaction and felt that that couldn't happen if we kept the article generalized.
 * 4) + 5. Thanks!