Talk:Aristotle's biology/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Shaded0 (talk · contribs) 03:16, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will begin work in the next day or two. Looks like a very interesting article - this is my first time doing GA review but I will look through the review process cheat sheets I have accumulated and see what valuable feedback I can contribute. Thank you for the time invested into this page, it looks like an excellent addition to Wikipedia. Any comments please reply below or to my talk page. Shaded0 (talk) 03:16, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for taking this on. The goal is just a "decent" article, there's no requirement for the "polish" needed at FA. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:18, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Work in Progress..

BTW the numbering below breaks when replies are inserted, best use fixed numbers.

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

I found a couple paragraphs that are lengthy couple possibly be broken up. Examples in Aristotle's biology#Inheritance and Aristotle's_biology#Aristotelian_forms

B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

The lead section summarizes points within the article with a good degree of overview of the topics covered in subsections.

Thanks.

Wikilinks seem to be very well done.

Thanks.

Subsections in Aristotle's biology#Processes could use some expansion to summarize systems in a bit more depth or explanation.

The level of detail there is comparable with the other sections, as is the total length. If there's something specific that is unclear then do mention it. I'll see if I can illustrate any more of them, however.

...

Is it verifiable with no original research?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

Only semi-questionable quote missing direct citation is in Aristotle's biology#Information processing as far as I can tell.

Added ref.

Both sentences and paragraphs meet adequate length, no single sentence paragraphs.

OK.

The date formats seem to be consistent format.

OK.

There's some inconsistency in footnotes comments before or after citation. I think this probably should be remedied and consistent through the article.

Fixed. We're into the realm of "polish" here.

The book references include author, publishing date, and page numbers.

OK.

C. It contains no original research:

D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

Seems stable, no edit warring.

OK.

Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

No use of fair use images in the article. Licenses included for images.

OK.

B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

Good images with captions that contain content relevant to the article and are engaging.

Thanks.

Text in Aristotle's_biology#Empirical_research is a bit sandwiched between adjacent images.

Tweaked.

I will look over it today or tomorrow for content and flow, thanks for looking at the technical things. It looks pretty inclusive and structured well, but I'll see if anything can be improved.

One other note, I think the - Aristotelianism |ideas - infobox might make more sense towards the top, rather then in the influence section. If you have some rationale on it being towards the bottom it can remain there. Looking over this and the templates and the bottom History of Biology box and it makes more sense to see how this fits with other articles.

I much prefer to have a lead image specific to the article, first; and images which illustrate the text, beside the relevant sections. So the navbox can go where it won't disturb. Actually sideboxes are obsolete for navigation, navbars at the bottom being far less obtrusive and basically now standard - if I feel strong/bored/suitably pumped up/ I'll convert it: means moving every instance, of course.

My other thought (outside the GA scope) was the title, with Biology of Aristotle maybe making more sense (or something similar). However, it's not a big improvement, and probably is more a matter of preference.

I think it's probably best as it is; we already have the other term as a search term however.

Content

Lead section

"..which in turn derives from but is markedly unlike" -- wordy

Done.

"The theory describes five major biological processes, namely.." -- add in a semicolon since it's a list

We usually don't, actually. Nobody sems to like them much.

"Each was defined in some detail, in some cases sufficient (enough?) to enable modern biologists to create models of the mechanisms described." - clarify

Added 'mathematical'.

"medieval scholasticism" - wikilink

Done.

You may want to clarify in the lead "no similar research was carried out in the classical era" with regard to point in the influence section "On Hellenistic medicine" which seems to contradict this.

Done.

Context

"Aristotle heard (adopted?) Plato's view: and developed it into a set of three biological concepts." -- Reword or else think of removing the colon

Done.

Some clarification is needed on the Aristotelian forms, make a distinction that these are separate from the five biological processes mentioned in the lead and processes section

We haven't introduced them in the main text at this point, as the forms logically come first.

The point on atomon eidos seems a bit unclear with paragraph structure. Can this be reorganized or expanded upon to emphasize the relationship with species? I'd also maybe include something on genus in the génos text (rather then including as a comment). The third paragraph here on "information" in efficient and material cause could similarly be more logically organized, introducing this towards the beginning of the paragraph rather than in the middle.

Hmm, I'm wary of dragging the discussion away from A's thinking into modern terms: I've moved the "species" note to a footnote, as the correspondence is deceptive, and people might be tempted to suppose he saw things the modern way. Information is introduced in the first sentence of the third paragraph, and again I'm very wary of saying more.

Processes

The "Soul as System" introductory subsection could be included under Processes rather than introducing another subsection (would also even out the number of subsections to match the number of processes mentioned). I could also see the point for keeping it the same way though. I'd also maybe suggest moving the structure of souls image down since it relates here more to the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs rather than the interlocking processes.

So it's broadly correct... we can't move it down as it will tangle up with the other images.

Add consistency with periods for numbered points

The five points are numbered automatically.

"..it in the sensorium".. it might make sense to quote or italicize sensorium

Both are deprecated for words used in English. I've avoided the term instead, but it remains linked.

With the gallery added, you may need to add a brief introduction before this. Or possibly moving under the metabolism subsection so that the "branching tree of flows" is clarified upon beforehand

Added a top caption, and numbered the process captions to make the connection more apparent.

Can you add some clarification that tissues are "uniform parts with no internal structure", ie. if they don't include cellular structure, what would sort of structure would tissue have?

Done.

The last sentence in metabolism can probably be moved into the previous paragraph to avoid one-sentence paragraphs.

Merged all, there are 3 subtopics but they are indeed short.

Temperature regulation could use a bit more explanation, seems a little jargon heavy. Same with information processing subsection

Done.

Inheritance subsection has a good amount of detail. Embryogenesis seems fine.

Noted.

Method

A couple of these sections could use some more clarification on the viewpoint for these sections. It sounds like a couple statements are opinions of the author or editor (original research) although more likely it's provided in the source. Still - some rework on NPOV or tone could be reviewed specifically in Mechanism, Scientific Style, and Causality. Descriptions like "opaque, scientific, vacuous".

All from sources. Repeated refs for clarity.

Last paragraph on classification could use a source

Done.

Influence

Personally I would be more interested in Islamic zoology and research on biology and comments on Aristotle's methods/processes but this would probably require some additional research.

Noted, and added a Further info link.

Cool Dürer picture, Historia animalium looks interesting.

Noted.

Overall Influence section has good synthesis of information, well researched, good info on scope and interpretation.

Noted.

Also, would it be worth mentioning influence on Pliny the Elder's Natural History? I found a couple references in Natural History (Pliny) to Aristotle's work. Since Pliny's work is one of the first encyclopedia's, I think it'd be worth noting.

Not sure it's worth a new section: Pliny didn't add science, just collated facts.

It took me a while to go through the full review of the article. Hopefully the input provided above is helpful. The info on Aristotelian forms was the only real point that I think that needs improvement. Altogether very good article and good research on this. I would say it is GA worthy. Let me know your thoughts on the above or any final comments and I can go ahead and add the GA approval. Shaded0 (talk) 02:27, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and yes it has helped sharpen the text. I think we're complete now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Overall:
Pass or Fail: