User:BartHarleyJarvis/Human jaw shrinkage/Bhuggins2 Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

BartHarleyJarvis


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * Human jaw shrinkage - Wikipedia
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Human jaw shrinkage - Wikipedia

Evaluate the drafted changes
Ben! I made a lot of "Invisible Comments" on your article but for some reason they got taken down. I don't know if you can go back and see them somehow or what.

Lead Section:

Overall, I think the lead section does a good job of describing the contents of the article. I think the content was really interesting and I think everything you said was compelling. If I were to change anything about the lead section, I would mostly just modify it to be more concise. Like I said, I previously made comments about how to do that within the article, however, they're gone now. I'll describe some of the changes I would make below:

Human jaw shrinkage is the phenomenon of continued size reduction of the human mandible and maxilla over evolutionary time spans. Modern human lifestyles and diets are different now than they were for most of human history. Human jaws, as well as oral cavities, have been shrinking ever since the Neolithic agricultural revolution (~12,000 years ago). This has been confirmed by bone remains dated to this time period. Researchers are able to infer the basic lifestyle practices of past cultures, enabling them to associate jaw size with lifestyle practice/behaviors. Bones from hunter-gatherer societies are associated with larger jaws and mouths, while bones retrieved from former farming cultures have decreased jaw size. Bones from farming societies also indicate the presence of dental malocclusions, commonly known as non-straight teeth. Within recent centuries, as food has become more processed and soft, a rapid increase in non-straight teeth, smaller jaws and mouths, a lack of space for wisdom teeth, and associated health conditions have been observed. Such conditions are things like sleep apnea, constricted airways, and decreased respiratory fitness. Changes in diet, lifestyle, and breathing patterns have led to maladaptive phenotypic expression in terms of morphological craniofacial development that starts in childhood but persists throughout the lifespan.

Content:

The content of the article was great. All of the information was super interesting to read about. The only critique I'd add is that the end of the article seemed to diverge from evolution just slightly. Rather than being about the evolution of human jaw shrinking, it seemed to go into pathologies associated with jaw shrinking. I think it was interesting to read, I'm just not sure it fits with the topic perfectly.

Tone and Balance:

There were some minor edits that I made to the article upon my first read through that I thought helped balance out the tone a little bit. Again, those edits are gone now lol. However, none of the edits were anything extreme, I just took out some words like, "very" to reduce the overly emphasized tone. I felt like you were taking a strong position in one direction, however, wiki articles are supposed to be neutral. I think by changing some of these adjectives it would make the article feel a little bit more balanced.

Sources and References:

The sources and references seemed to be formatted correctly and substantiated the claims made. None of the references had links that lead to the articles, I don't know if that is required, but other articles had them.

Organization:

I enjoyed the way the article was organized, starting broad and becoming more specific. However, there were instances where I think I would edit some of the sentences in order to make them more clear/concise. There are a couple of run on sentences that could pretty easily be chopped up with some periods that would make the article more concise. There was also one section where you were talking about allergies that I might change up. The way that it is written, it seems like the high concentration of allergens is what is causing humans to spend more time indoors. I would change it to say something like, "Modern humans have spent more time indoors, and as a result, are exposed to higher concentrations of allergens-which accumulate to higher concentrations indoors."

Overall Impressions:

Overall, I thought the article was awesome! I'm a little sad my comments within the article got deleted, but hopefully there is enough feedback provided here that can help guide some revisions. I really enjoyed reading your article and thought everything was super interesting. My biggest suggestion is to cut down some of the commas and simplify the sentences. This would help to make the article mroe concise. I would also be careful to not let the tone come across like you're arguing, but rather, taking a neutral stance.

Bens response
Thanks so much for all this feedback Billy! First off, regarding my lead section and conciseness, I’ve taken another look at it and have decided to make most of the suggested edits you’ve made in that paragraph! I feel as if it has a sentence that introduces each topic in the article, but at the same time is not overwhelming, so I don’t think it should be shortened anymore. Regarding the last paragraph diverging in topic in your opinion, I disagree, because I was thinking of it as getting into evolutionary medicine a bit, and I want to make sure readers don’t only attribute smaller jaws to less chewing stress; mode of breathing is an important factor as well that needs to be mentioned. Regarding the tone, I totally agree and will make those edits, as I tend to emphasize things in my writing, but sometimes this turns into overemphasis. In reference to your sources comments, I didn’t think we need links, but all articles have been cited in APA so anyone can still use them to find the article quickly with a google search. Organization: Thank you, I made an emphasis on structuring the article so that it logically flows into the next topic, enhancing comprehension. I’ve made conciseness edits and have taken care of any run-on sentences that I’ve noticed or that other peer-reviewers noticed. Also, I will change that allergen line, as you are right, it can be misleading. I’ll continue working on your suggestions, and I wish your invisible comments didn’t get removed too, could’ve made both of our lives easier!