Talk:Adriana Briscoe/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: I will review this article. This is my first GA review (though I'm experienced in other review venues) so bear with me, please! Espresso Addict (talk · contribs) 04:55, 8 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good start on the article; however, I fear that there are a number of problems that preclude its listing as a Good Article at this time.

There's a fair amount of verbose wording and repetition eg

"has discovered and systematically demonstrated over the course of her career" (lead) --> shown; "After graduating high school," "After receiving her Ph.D.", "at St. John's College at the University of Cambridge", "In the area of policy and higher education" (all in Early life and education); "Briscoe's research career has been largely distinguished by her studies on" --> Briscoe has studied ... and later repeated: "Her investigations have been largely situated in the field of molecular evolution." "In the area of service to the scientific community" "Briscoe's career has been distinguished by the study of diverse butterfly species and international collaborations which have supported these investigations." (Research, career, and service). These all should be pruned.

"one of approximately two dozen students who planned to attend university" context-less trivia and close paraphrasing; should probably be deleted.

response removed Nanobright (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Awards & honors needs pruning to notable ones, and don't mention minor things under awards & honors that are also in the main text

response: Award list in line with the total number of awards listed for other scientists. All awards listed are significant. Nanobright (talk) 20:18, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The digression on her grandmother/mother should be severely pruned or cut. This part feels rather politicised and not neutral.

response pruned however not cut as it provides insight into the scientists' upbringing as requested by the other question in this review below Nanobright (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Service paragraph: much of this seems trivial. Usually editorial board appointments are not listed (only Editor-in-Chief). Mentoring research students is normal and 14 is not unusually high; usually only mention this sort of information if the student is themselves notable, or if the subject is particularly known as a teacher/mentor (per reliable independent sources). This section should be pruned and independent sources should be sought.

The sourcing is very problematic. Only a handful of sources are reliable and independent, and there are many primary (auto) refs supporting important claims. In a BLP everything should be cited inline. All lead statements must be expanded and cited in the body. Everything that is of the form "particularly well known", " importantly", "particularly significant" or claims to have discovered/shown something MUST have a reliable independent source.

Ref 13 is a press release (neither reliable nor independent); Ref 15 likewise (here should cite paper directly)

"In the course of the investigations, Briscoe and collaborators also identified the chemical composition of the evolved pigment which, in combination with the nanostructured nature of scale cells on the butterfly wing, leads to the phenomena of UV-yellow butterfly wing coloration." Sentence with claim missing source entirely

Need a source for her middle names (and these should be removed if they are not openly published). As she only seems to use the D. initial the other name should probably be removed.

Whole first paragraph of research/career/service which contains clear claims is completely unsourced.

response: these sections have been written from direct reading of Briscoe's scientific publications + abstracts (which have passed peer review) and those of related workers in the field for context. Those scientific findings have then been rephrased in terms accessible to the layperson which I believe are the statements in question here. If they need to be removed entirely due to lack of sourcing, I would like to defer this to a more experienced wikipedian. Nanobright (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Only source for entire final paragraph of Research, career, and service is Briscoe's university profile.

Visiting research fellow at St. John's College, Cambridge unsourced.

Ditto much of Awards and honors

The Conversation isn't linked. Do you mean The Conversation (website)? I'm not sure how reliable that is.

Likewise Inland Empire Community News.

response: Briscoe's academic affiliation is with the University of Irvine. Her awards and academic training is therefore not self-reported but rather linked to the university so I do not see an issue with sourcing based on my understanding of wikipedia. I do not think it would be appropriate to remove her training or awards on these grounds as this is not a standardized policy for the biography of other academics on wikipedia. Nanobright (talk) 20:37, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I found mild puffery in places eg word choices such as "extensive", "important", &c. These should be rephrased.

response: addressed Nanobright (talk) 20:37, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I happened to notice a bit of copying/close paraphrasing of [1]:

"Briscoe was born in Hawaii and was raised in Colton, California. She graduated Colton High School in 1988 where at the time she was one of approximately two dozen students who planned to attend university." (article) cf "Briscoe, who was born in Hawaii, graduated from Colton High School in 1988; at the time she was one of approximately two dozen students who were planning to go to university." (source). This all needs completely rewriting.

response: This statement has been pruned however it's phrasing is in line with other standard biographies of scientists which begin by stating place of birth early education. Nanobright (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's always wise to run things by Earwig copyvio detector in case this sort of thing has crept in; see: [2] which is also highlighting a few very minor problems with copying from the university profile. The %ages are not very reliable; one needs to go through all the sources that are tagged, even the very low probability ones.

Select publications "Dr. Briscoe has an extensive publication record in the areas of physiological genomics, molecular evolution, color, vision, and sensory biology. Some of her works are listed below: " This should be cut to just the list. The GS link is already given under External links. Don't use Dr. Her lab profile lists only ~60 papers, which is relatively modest (more than 200–250 is very normal for notable scientists in the latter stages of their career).

responsethe word "extensive" has been removed however the introductory sentence is line with situating non-specialists and the public into her work which is the purpose of this article. Given the impact factor of her work for the field + the quality of her publications, the total # of publications should not be a concern in this case to establish notability nor should it be compared to other workers which are not in this highly specialized research area. Nanobright (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Watch out for errors in Google Scholar; I found a paper where she doesn't appear on the author list (only noted in acknowledgements): [3]

14 papers is far too many; usually one includes (1) all authored books & possibly all edited books, (2) a selection of 4 or 5 of the highest cited or otherwise notable (ie noted, really needs a source) research papers; and (3) perhaps a review or two, especially if freely available online or aimed at lay readers (eg New Scientist, Scientific American or even newsy pieces for the magazines of learned societies). I noticed a highly cited Annu Rev Entomol review, plus a Nature paper, which would be good places to start.

Needs to be in date order; reverse or forward both equally ok. It's ok to organise it by subject matter if that's appropriate, but each section is usually ordered by date.

response: The number of articles highlighted is fully in line with standard biographies of scientists and has been organized by research area to assist the non-specialist in navigating the work so leaving as is. As addressed, Briscoe was an author in the aforementioned work from 2005 which was corrected by the journal in question. Nanobright (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Some minor copy editing is needed throughout. I found several minor errors in Early life and education which I corrected. It needs consistency on the Oxford comma, especially in headings. Awards and honors needs spacing fixing and several en rules.

Comma needed in "She continued her graduate studies at Harvard University,[1] specializing in evolutionary biology where her Ph.D. advisers were Naomi Pierce and Richard Lewontin." (needs a comma after biology)

Occasional missing wikilinks eg St John's College, Cambridge

Journals under service need to be italics

response: appears to have been addressed by others Nanobright (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The infobox is overfull, repetitious & misses information often presented there eg thesis advisors (where notable, as here). it should be pruned just to the most critical information that the reader might like to see at a glance.

response: original infobox was in line with detail of other scientists however appears pruning has already been done so this is addressed. Nanobright (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

There is some important missing information: eg dates of all degrees, PhD thesis title. Career appointments with dates are either absent or not clearly enough laid out. Current position is only mentioned in the lead and completely unsourced. Date of birth (or at least year) and father's name/occupation (odd to detail mother/grandmother but not mention father) would be helpful, if available. Is anything about her personal life (eg spouse, number of children) available in a reliable source? This isn't necessary for an academic but a very brief note is interesting if it can be sourced properly. I would also like more information on her group's research, but this can be extremely hard to source for living, active scientists; usually it is easier to find material for deceased or retired scientists, where obituaries and festschrifts are a great help.

"We have also recently discovered that the butterfly proboscis is not simply a passive straw for collecting food, it also produces its own suite of digestive enzymes." from her university profile page is not mentioned in article

response: per concerns about privacy and as the scientist has not disclosed this information publicly or in an independent source, these topics were not researched or the article. I agree if other wikipedians would like improve or add this info that would be helpful but leaving as is in the current version. Nanobright (talk) 20:34, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Much material has not been organised under the correct sections.

response: clarification on this point would be helpful in terms of specific examples. Nanobright (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Reference details are needed. Some are lacking information or seem to have got scrambled somehow eg ArnetteDec (ref 8), ref 9. Missing dates in several. There is inconsistent date formatting eg refs 16/17 use different date formats.

As I wrote above, I've not done a GA review before, but there seem to be definite problems under criteria 1a, 2b, 2d, 3a, 3b and 4, sufficient to mean that it is a long way from meeting the six criteria. I am therefore quick failing it. I've written some detailed review notes above which I hope will help in improving the article. I hope that they don't feel too overwhelming! (I'm aware some of this is not essential for GA status.)

I should stress that the subject is clearly notable under WP:PROF from the fellowships in learned societies, which are sourced, as well as the professorship, so there is no need to "push" her notability. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:39, 9 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]