Wikipedia:Peer review/Pudú/archive1

Pudú
This peer review discussion has been closed. Hi! I've listed this article for peer review because I, along with two others, am contributing to it as part of our AP Biology 2009 WikiProject. This is our first article, and any suggestions/criticism from more experienced wikipedians would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, SixStringz (talk) 04:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)SixStringz


 * Couple things: I would take the diet section out of the "behavior" heading and put the reproduction section at the end (which is often done with animal articles). In the habitat section, you mention the amount of rainfall typically expected in the areas where they are found, if the pudu relies on this much rain specifically than I would leave it in, but if it doesn't really depend on a specific amount than I wouldn't. If it turns out that it does than you may want to say that (in parenthesis). Other than that I would just add to the sections you have already created and you should be okay.--NYMFan69-86 (talk) 17:06, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is a good start on an article about an interesting creature. Here are some suggestions for further improvement.

Heads and subheads
 * Generally the heads and subheads in Wikipedia articles take a capital letter for the beginning of the first word only unless a formal name (proper noun) is part of the head. Thus "Physical Appearance" should be "Physical appearance". Ditto for the other heads and subheads.

Lead
 * "Pudús (which translates to mapuche or the people of southern Chile)... ". - I'm not sure what this means. "Mapuche" needs to be explained. Linking to mapuche might help, but the sentence would still not be clear. What is being translated to what? That is, does "Pudú" mean "deer" in one language but "mapuche" in another?


 * "Pudús average in size from 36 to 38 centimeters tall and 71 to 84 centimeters long." - Generally Wikipedia articles express measurements in both metric and imperial units. I like to use the convert template for the conversions because it not only does the math, it spells and abbreviates correctly, thus: 36 to 38 cm and 71 to 84 cm long". I see that you've converted others lower down in the article. (The template uses "centimetres", but "centimeters" is OK too).

Social
 * "Uncommonly spotted in its natural habitat, the pudú is a solitary animal... " - "Seen" rather than "spotted" since the latter might be mistaken to mean "covered with spots"?
 * "Pudús are nocturnal and diurnal... " - Wikilink diurnal?

Reproduction
 * "Newborns weigh 900 g (31.68 oz) on average." - Round to three significant figures, 31.7 oz?

Habitat
 * "and can also be found in lower altitudes" - "At lower elevations"? I believe "altitude" generally refers to places not attached to the ground.
 * "Annual precipitation in these areas of Argentina and Chile ranges from 74 to 150 in (approximately 2 to 4 m)." - Rainfall is usually expressed in millimeters rather than meters. Snowfall is usually given in centimeters. I'm not sure about a mixture of the two, but centimeters is probably acceptable. Also, if you use metric as the primary system in one place in the article, you should use it throughout as the primary. Since this article is South-America-centric, metric makes sense as the primary. Thus, the conversion would be 74 to 150 in flipped to 190 to 380 cm. You probably have to say "about" in front of this since "74 to 150 in" may be the exact numbers your source supports.

Subspecies
 * This needs to have content beneath it, or it needs to be deleted.

Status and recognition
 * Ditto for this empty subsection.

Causes of endangerment
 * "Many types of parasites can be spread, with the most common being bladder worms, lung worms, and roundworms." - "With" doesn't make a very good conjunction. Suggestion: "Many types of parasites affect the pudús; the most common are bladder worms, lung worms, and roundworms."

References
 * Many of the citations are incomplete or malformed. I see that you've used the cite web template for citation 2. If you simply imitate the pattern you see there, you'll be able to fix the other web citations. In edit mode, you can copy the citation 2 ref tags and the template sandwiched between the tags to your computer's short-term memory and then paste the whole business into the main text where you want the next citation. Fill in the correct information for that citation (rather than the citation 2 information), and save. Alternatively, you can copy and paste a blank template from WP:CIT. If you do this, don't mix the "citation" family of templates with the "cite" family. Stick with "cite" throughout.

General
 * The dabfinder tool at the top of this page finds nine wikilinks that go to disambiguation pages instead of their intended targets.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. Finetooth (talk) 03:13, 26 November 2009 (UTC)