Talk:Scaptomyza flava

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2019 and 4 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sydney.stein7. Peer reviewers: Srivera2019, Listephanie, Asivamohan.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:21, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Peer Comments
Overall I felt the article flowed pretty well with the organization it already had. Of the changes I made I started with addressing the banner on the article of the lack of hyperlinks and added a couple. I also noticed that initially, you had the plant family that they are pests for spelled as “Brassiceae”, but after looking at the sources cited for the plant as well as the source where they are pests the spelling is Brassicaceae. I changed the typos as well as replaced “Brassica” in the larval section as Brassica is the genus that is found in the Brassicaceae family. As for suggestions, when you talk about the name change of Scaptomyza flava I am not sure if saying “more modern” should remain as I felt more implies our interpretation as opposed to a neutral tone while writing. Still, I did not read the article and I am not sure if that was what was found from the source. Overall though I felt that the article overall flowed really well as was easy to comprehend. Srivera2019 (talk) 02:20, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

More peer comments
Good job on this article! I hope my edits and feedback are helpful. I added a reference section heading because originally the references were listed under “Interactions with humans.” I also edited the article for grammar, punctuation, and conciseness. In the lead section, I clarified an ambiguous statement about the fly distribution in Europe and New Zealand to refer specifically to the fly species; it could have originally been interpreted to refer to the mustard plants. In taxonomy, I edited a sentence to make more clear that the 270 species stated belongs to the genus Scaptomyza. I liked the discussion on the name change of the fly species and how it has been updated due to new understanding. I wonder if the phylogeny section is necessary because it mainly restates the taxonomic box information, although the closely related species fact is interesting. I think the “Life history” section was well written, although I did correct a few minor grammar details and fixed the formatting of one in-text citation. In “Distribution,” I corrected the typo of Antarctica, and I removed the statement that the fly was “recently” discovered in New Zealand because it is vague and may not apply as the source says they were found in the 1960s. I added this information in instead. I think the “Food sources” section was well-written, although I corrected “Brussel sprouts” to “Brussels sprouts” (who knew?). I think this article was well hyperlinked and did not make any changes here. Last, I separated the subheading “Evolution of herbivory” into its own section out of “Food sources” because I thought it was large enough and interesting enough to stand on its own, especially because the species is notable for being one of the few herbivorous species in the family. Subsequently I removed the "Diet" subheading under "Food sources." Listephanie (talk) 04:04, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

This is a really great start! I thought the introduction section was good, I only made some minor edits for clarity and concision. I would recommend that in your taxonomy section, you give more background on the name change because that's very interesting and unique to this fly. I got rid of the phylogeny section because very little new information was presented here and it could be better combined with the taxonomy. I would also talk more about pupation and add more to that section. I added in missing citation in the mating section. I added a heading to your ‘diet’ section so that it wasn’t just an empty group heading. Throughout I made minor edits related to formatting and grammar. Great job!Asivamohan (talk) 04:21, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

I enjoyed reading your article, Sydney! I think the lead section can benefit from including a summary of the fly's distinctive mating patterns, herbivory, mutualistic relationships, etc. I think it would be interesting to look into parasitic relationships, as you mentioned in the "Diet" section; I am a bit confused about what you mean by that too, since parasitism is not a kind of diet (?) or between the fly and "various plants?" I think it is also good to expand and explain what those plants are. Same for "Interactions with humans" section, where it is better to expand on what kind of crops they damage, what potential measures can be applied to control the species, and why they are not used. Those are just some further improvements that struck me as I read through the article and was wondering about. I learned a lot about this fly! Alicelixuan (talk) 03:33, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

This is a very well written article! I felt that you covered a great deal of material. I also agree that the leading section could be expanded a bit to incorporate more areas that you did discuss later in the article. I made a couple of small changes such as adding and moving some hyperlinks around for consistency. The only question I have would be if you would be able to clarify in your mating section if the "distantly related fruit fly" was Drosophila melanogaster in order to be able to add the appropriate hyperlink. Other than that I really enjoyed reading and learning more about your fly! Srivera2019 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:17, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Well written article. I made some minor revisions to make the article overall less wordy. I suggest changing to S. flava after the fly is first introduced because it will make it easier to distinguish when comparing S. flava to flies in the same genus. 05:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chickfilkay (talk • contribs)