User:SwallowInTheTrees/Animal suicide/Keburt Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

SwallowInTheTrees


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * User:SwallowInTheTrees/Animal suicide
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * Animal suicide

Evaluate the drafted changes
Peer review of article Animal Suicide by user Keburt.

Lead Section

I agree that the original lead section needed some work. Your edit describes the general act of animal suicide in a way that is much easier for the reader to understand.

To make the beginning sentence sound more formal, you may want to consider saying something along the lines of, "Animal suicide is the act of an animal intentionally ending its own life...," instead of saying "Animal suicide is when an animal intentionally ends its own life..."

In the second to last and last sentences of the first paragraph, the use "no consensus/controversial among _____" at the end of both sentences may seem redundant to the reader. Combining these sentences to say that the aforementioned reasons (concept of self, death, etc...) and because of a lack of empirical data on the subject, the occurrence of animal suicide is controversial among academics. Your lead section briefly touches on the concepts presented in the article and establishes a good foundation for the rest of the article.

Organization/Content/Sources and References

I like the way you have chosen to organize/reorganize the article, and I agree that individual, species-specific examples of supposed animal suicide should be mentioned, but do not need to be explained in depth in this article. Removing/shortening these descriptions of the acts will help to keep the article concise and on topic, this will be such an improvement to the article!

In the first paragraph of the "Characteristics" section, the mentioning of the mirror test should have a citation linking to the article/study that spoke about/used that method.

In the "Animal modes of suicide" section, the sentence "the neuroscience behind the pathology" may need to be reworded as both neuroscience and pathology are fields of study, and not a natural event or occurrence as that sentence suggests. If it said something like, "these animal models allow scientists to study the neural mechanisms and possible reasonings that could lead to animal suicide," this would better convey your idea to the reader.

I am not sure which sections of the original article's "suicidal behaviour" section you intend to keep in your "Stress-related self destructive behaviour" section, but I think the alleged cases of animal suicide described throughout the original article's section (Newfoundland dogs, Aristotle's story of the horse, the "Flipper" dolphin, etc...) should not be included in the new article. These are unconfirmed stories based on one person's accounts of a one-time event are therefore do not necessarily belong in a Wikipedia article. Removing these descriptions of events will keep the article fact-based and on-topic.

In the subsections about group defense/maladaptive behaviours, etc..., adding a heading before these sections that said something along the lines of "Possible examples/instances of animal suicide" will distinguish those sections that contain examples of "suicidal" behaviours from the rest of the article that primarily explains the topic.

You have relied on a variety of sources to build your article. I checked a few of your links and they seem to be working on my end! Your sources are scholarly and do not rely on untested information or broad claims. They are strong foundations for your article.

Tone and Balance

You have a neutral tone throughout the article. I like that you reinforce that the act of animal suicide is controversial and not a widely-accepted concept. This is similar to my topic, calming signals, as they are both complex sets of behaviours that need to be studied further in order to completely understand them.