User talk:EVEC2

Welcome!
Hello, EVEC2, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Ian and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

I hope you enjoy editing here. If you haven't already done so, please check out the student training library, which introduces you to editing and Wikipedia's core principles. You may also want to check out the Teahouse, a community of Wikipedia editors dedicated to helping new users. Below are some resources to help you get started editing. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:25, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Article moved
Hello! An article you created Selection Gradient has been moved to Draft:Selection Gradient as it was not yet ready for mainspace publication. You are welcome to continue to improve your article there. And, when you are ready, you can submit the article for review using the template I have added to it. I think it might be a good idea to ask at the talk pages of related articles and/or relevant WikiProjects about whether the subject requires a standalone article first (see my edit summary of the page move). Welcome to Wikipedia, and Good luck!  Usedtobecool  TALK ✨ 18:57, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Usedtobecool. I appreciate your concern. EVEC2 (talk) 21:07, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Issues
EVEC2: ST47 (talk) 19:40, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) As has already been explained to you directly above and again at Requests_for_undeletion, your article was moved to Draft:Selection Gradient, it was not deleted.
 * 2) Per WP:SIGLINK, your signature must include at least one internal link to your user page, talk page, or contributions page.

Hi ST47, I am sorry for my mistake. EVEC2 (talk) 21:05, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

AfC notification: Draft:Selection Gradient has a new comment
 I've left a comment on your Articles for Creation submission, which can be viewed at Draft:Selection Gradient. Thanks! —C.Fred (talk) 20:16, 25 November 2019 (UTC) Thank you C. Fred

November 2019
Hello and welcome to Wikipedia. When you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion (but never when editing articles), such as at Requests for undeletion, please be sure to sign your posts. There are two ways to do this. Either: This will automatically insert a signature with your username or IP address and the time you posted the comment. This information is necessary to allow other editors to easily see who wrote what and when. Thank you. —C.Fred (talk) 20:29, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
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Thank you C.Fred for all the suggestions. EVEC2 (talk) 21:02, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Reply
I'll take a look at it, and give you some feedback later today. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:09, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Reply
Thank you for your response. Best EVEC2 (talk) 16:14, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Feedback
The first thing you need to think about is whether we need a stand-alone article about selection gradients, or whether it's something that should be part of an existing article.

Assuming you want this to be a stand-alone article, you need to get the layout question right. I've linked to the Editing Wikipedia brochure, and I recommend that you start by looking at that, especially pages 7-9 which talk about layout.

To begin with, you need a lead section. The lead section should start with a simple statement that says that the topic is. Normally, it would be something like: The selection gradient is... and succinctly state what it is, in a single sentence. Normally I would recommend that, but in this case it gets a bit more complicated - you can't say The selection gradient is the correlation coefficient of the partial regression plot of the relative fitness of [some trait] - because no one would understand that. So I recommend something more like In evolutionary biology, a selection gradient is a measure of the relative fitness of a given phenotype across a range of environments.

The rest of the lead should summarize all the main points of the article, in a manner that's proportional to the way they're covered in the article. But before you do that, you need to write the article.

The first section I would start with is history. Russ Lande came up with the measure in direct response to Lewontin and Gould's critique of adaptionism. This is important because it tells the reader why this exists. I'm guessing that a lot more people know about spandrels than understand selection gradient. If nothing else, it makes it evident to readers that this isn't just some trivial thing.

I'm not sure if I could go into a calculation section, at least not into too much depth. You don't want to explain to people how a regression coefficient is calculated - not only is it a bit of a digression, it's also something that people either know, or don't care about. The minority who fall into neither of those categories aren't going to understand it based on your short explanation, so link to another page that addresses it in more depth and stick to the evolutionary biology.

The application section is probably the most important. This is also the place where it's most important to remember that you're writing for the general public. Don't write about "Lande and Arnold", but rather about American evolutionary ecologists Russell Lande and Stevan Arnold. Don't talk about papers and their methods (MN et.al applied Lande and Arnold framework) but rather, talk about the big picture findings first. Very few people reading a general encyclopedia are going to care about methods. Most people aren't going to read more than a few sentences into an article, and those who do won't read more than a few sentences into a section, so put the big stuff up front, and talk about methods last, maybe. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:59, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Reply Thank you for your suggestions. I will try best to work on it. EVEC2 (talk) 02:01, 27 November 2019 (UTC)