User:Illiad5922/Orbital tuning/Grindlet Peer Review

General info
Illiad5922
 * Whose work are you reviewing?


 * Link to draft you're reviewing:User:Illiad5922/Orbital tuning
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists):Orbital tuning

Evaluate the drafted changes
(Compose a detailed peer review here, considering each of the key aspects listed above if it is relevant. Consider the guiding questions, and check out the examples of what feedback looks like.)

First off, I'd like to say that I like your choice of article. It can be very difficult to write articles on methodology, since almost by nature the methods paleoecologists (or really any specialists) use are by nature arcane and technical, resisting easy plain-language description. I don't know if you've used the technique yourself- if you haven't, all the more congratulations for addressing something you've only read about before. That being said, after reading through it a couple times I think there are a few ways this could be improved as a Wikipedia article.

Lead
I think the lead is buried quite a bit. I think one of the top things that could improve the article is a clearly stated definition and use of orbital tuning right out front, a headliner that tells me the one or two sentence elevator pitch for orbital tuning. Starting with the method in which it's used and the technical details of what's involved when you want to orbital tune (is that the verb form? I like it so I'm going with it) doesn't give me a great idea of what it is, especially if I'm not a scientist, or even not a paleoecologist or astronomer who already knows about how the Earth's orbit can be used in science. I think that the first sentence of Criticism and Uses is a great place to start if you're looking for somewhere to grow off of. I know it can be hard starting from a really stubby article that didn't have any initial sections, but in the whole work I think that's the number one thing that could improve your article.

Content
With content I think there are just some phrases I wish you elaborated on a little bit: 1) "Criticisms have been raised against this process and often this tool needs multiple factors validating its results" is a good start, but I wish there were more citations, or a short explanation that just references what some of the criticisms may be, just some level of content between being told that some criticisms exist but not what they are, and having to read a full length scientific paper; 2) 'Due to this orbital tunnig is used only when needed over shorter time spans to not produce "overtuning"' is a good way to lead into a section on orbital tuning, but not really a great way to end an article. What is overtuning? What does it look like? Why don't we want it? Has it produced demonstrably dubious results in the past?; 3) "Methods have been developed to support results adjusted by orbital tuning such as radiometric data and more" same thing as the nebulous Criticisms. Could you cite radiometric dating, maybe provide a couple more examples? Maybe what specific problems are addressed by the various corrective methods?

Overall, you're off to a good start, but I think there are a few places you could elaborate on the content even just a little bit that would greatly improve the readability of the article, and give me a few specifics to start from if I'm doing my own research.

Tone and Balance
It feels a bit like you've written this article with a preconceived notion that orbital tuning is an ineffective tool. I know in this class we've focused a lot on the negative aspects of orbital tuning, but it has its uses! This is particularly evident in the Criticism and Uses section- I think the criticism is really the main part of this section. You've done some good work kind of implying what it's used for then ensuring that the reader knows that it shouldn't be overused, but I think there may be some implicit bias against orbital tuning as a method from class content so far.

Sources and References
I think you've done a good job with sources so far! A few more might not be amiss, and one in the last decade would go a long way toward seeing the modern uses of orbital tuning. Paleoecology as a field has come a long way even since 2010, and since 1999 especially. There are also a few phrases that I think are maybe missing a reference or two, like broad references to "other criticisms" or when it comes to your discussion on the shifts in the Earth's past climate, which wouldn't require more than a reference or two just to show that you know what you're talking about but which should have at least something. By and large though I like what you've done here.

Organization
Organization is probably my broadest quibble with your article. I already touched on most of what I'm going to say, but here are a few things I would like to see if I were reading the article. Most of these are just shifting around sentences, but I think it would really help with clarity:

1) A lead. I think you fly straight into methods, and skip over the very important part where the reader gets the gist of what they're actually reading.

2) A methods section. I like that you explain the background of orbital tuning later in the article without getting too into the nitty gritty, so this one you probably just have to change the ordering of the sentences. Maybe group methods and uses?

3) An independent criticisms section. This is more of a standardization thing based on how Wikipedia is usually organized in which criticisms of a procedure come after describing how it's typically used, but I also think parceling out criticism will help with tone and neutrality.

4) Another editing sweep or two. The beginning of the article is pretty solid, though there are a few gnarly bits of grammar in there, but toward the end of the article errors really started creeping in. Especially in the last paragraph, I would really encourage running through it spellchecking. Grammatically, "Because of what we know of these areas these two curves should be related to eachother and if they are not scientists are able to adjust one or more points to have these curves better correlate" would benefit from a few commas or a rewrite just so it's a little clearer. Also, the phrasing 'we' is always a little fraught on Wikipedia- that's making assumptions about your reader and asserting a collective between the reader and the author, which isn't a great practice on such a public forum.