Talk:Joint attention

Ready for GA submission

Here are my thoughts on the article as it stands. It looks very good and I think is ready for GA submission. I am hoping that will bring more wikipedians by so we can find out whether we have hit the mark in terms of format and level of coverage.
A few thoughts:

• Humans are primates, so I wonder if you prefer to use the section title JA in non-human primates? ✓
• there are still weird ref codes [1?] and [1] in the definition of JA section.✓
• "both individuals and others" I removed "both individuals" since you used the term others in the lead up to this list.
• rogue reference in the socio-emotional section, I'd fix it but I can't see what is wrong with the formatting, although the ref itself is not complete. ✓
• I wonder if you want to combine the bit about disabilities in the socio-emotional section with the very relevant material under disabilities. ✓

Consider this as way of integrating the two portions:

Furthermore, mothers who were unable to successfully establish regular joint attention with their child rated that infant lower on scales of social competence.[3] These judgements were made as early as 18 months of age. Deaf children of hearing parents or blind children of sighted parents may struggle to establish joint attention in the face of sensory loss. As a consequence these children are often rated as less socially competent than their peers by parents.</ref>Nowakowski, Matlida E. 2009</ref>

Joint attention in individuals with disabilities Several studies have shown that problems with joint attention are associated with developmental processes. Deaf infant are able to engage in joint attention similarly to hearing infants, however, the time they spend engaged in joint attention is often reduced in deaf infants born to hearing parents. [3] Hearing parents of deaf infants are less likely to respond and expand on the initiations and communicative acts of their deaf infants.[3] Deaf infants of Deaf parents do not show reduced time spent in joint attention.[3] This suggests that auditory input is not critical to joint attention but that shared modes of communication and understanding are vital.[3] In blind infants, joint attention may be delayed compared to sighted infants.[4] Joint attention may be established by means of auditory input or feeling another person's hand on an object.

Difficulties in establishing joint attention may partially account for differences in social abilities of children with developmental disorders (i.e. Autism).[2][26] ✓

• the primate section looks much better now (except do consider my question about non-human primates in the title.

I have one additional point about your sources. Why don't you just cite what you read rather than cite something you didn't read and using "cited in"? This is really best left for sources that can't actually be retrieved (e.g., personal communication, an oral paper at a conference, things like that). If it is a book or article either get it or just cite what you read. Other than addressing these few points, and possibly inserting the table, I'd say submit. You have all done great work. Paula Marentette (talk) 02:26, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Although this is turning into a nice article, I don't recommend that you submit it for GA at this time. Submitting it won't bring extra eyes to it, most likely -- it will probably sit in the queue for a few weeks, and then one reviewer will look at it, and probably reject it because it still has some pretty clear deficiencies. I'm familiar with GA reviewing, and would be willing to give advice on bringing the article into line. The first point that I see is that the article fails to answer the very first question that occurs to me, which is: Who first defined the term, when and where did this happen, and what was the motivation for the concept? That ought to be covered in the lead. Another thing missing is the fact that there is considerable evidence that dogs can have joint attention with humans -- they are actually much better at it than monkeys. That's not a systematic review, just the first things that I notice. Looie496 (talk) 04:02, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Looie496. Thank you for these suggestions. I will discuss with Neelix, our online ambassador, the best plan in terms of when to submit for GA review. Our rationale to do that soon is to get the actual feedback needed for further improvement before the end of term.

This article revision is part of the Wikipedia Canada Education Program and is being conducted by students for course credit. We appreciate receiving any further suggestions you have as soon as you can provide them. We are not familiar with GA review and would appreciate knowing about the other obvious deficits so we have as much time as possible to correct them before the end of term. For example, I never considered that information about the historical background of this concept would be desirable. The point about the dogs is well-taken. They are highly attuned to social interaction with humans though I have always thought about this in terms of social and cooperative engagement rather than specifically joint attention. We'll take another look at that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marentette (talk • contribs) 15:07, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Here are some good refs for the question about dogs. I think the issue is that these researchers (many of whom are also involved with the primate research) don't discuss the dogs' capacities in terms of joint attention. I worry it would be original research for us to do so.

• Kaminski, J., Schulz, L., & Tomasello, M. (2011). How dogs know when communication is intended for them. Developmental Science, 15(2), 222–232. This may still be embargoed, but I have a preprint if you need to borrow it.
• Mersmann, Dorit, Tomasello, Michael, Call, Josep, Kaminski, Juliane & Taborsky, Michael. (2011). Simple mechanisms can explain social learning in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris). Ethology, 117, 675-690. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0310.2011.01919.x
• Pettersson, Helene, Kaminski, Juliane, Herrmann, Esther & Tomasello, Michael. (2011). Understanding of human communicative motives in domestic dogs. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 133, 235-245. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2011.05.008
• Udell, M. A. R., Dorey, N. R., & Wynne, C. D. L. 2008. Wolves outperform dogs in following human social cues. Animal Behaviour, 76, 1767-1773.2008-17110-004
• Wynne, C. D. L., Udell, M. A. R., & Lord, K. A. 2008. Ontogeny's impact on human dog communication. Animal Behaviour, 76, e1-e4.2008-13674-002

Paula Marentette (talk) 17:09, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I looked for some sources that speak to the history of Joint attention but I have not been able to access any of them online or through the library. Many are pointing towards the early work of Bruner particularly "Joint Attention: Its Origins and Role in Development By Chris Moore", or Bruner's original works. I am not sure where we want to look next, or how we could get some of these sources. In particular the one article I would really like to get would be Bruner, J. (1977), 'Early social interaction and language acquisition', in H.R Schaffer (ed.), Studies in Mother-Infant Interaction. New York: Academic Press, 271-89. The reference made to prediction in Comprehension is cited as coming from this source in the book I located it in. I have not been able to find an example or explanation elsewhere. Amae2 (talk) 19:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Amae2, the mother-infant interaction book is on its way. I should have it by Thursday, possibly Wed aft. Paula Marentette (talk) 20:49, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

You can read at least parts of the Moore book using Google Books. In particular, this chapter by Bruner has an account of the history of the concept. Let me also suggest to you that you try Google Scholar (scholar.google.com) when looking for sources, if you haven't tried it yet -- often you can locate freely available online versions of things. This review (published online here) discusses joint attention for dogs as well as other nonhuman animals. Looie496 (talk) 22:14, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Looie496, we greatly appreciate your input and advice.Amae2 (talk) 23:18, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

I activated the CitationBot that worked on the vocabulary development page and these are the results that I got, I am not sure if it finished, or worked...(my guess is that it didn't work like it did for them). I will ask the Bots operator to figure out what I should do. LianneAnna (talk) 05:01, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Activated by LianneAnna Expanding 'Joint attention'; will commit edits. Revision #418 [00:00:00] Processing page 'Joint attention' — edit—history

- switch to cite id format is supported.
* Looking for bare references... 
* Tidying reference tags... 
  - No duplicate references to combine.
  - No duplicate references to combine.
** No changes required.
# # # 

End of output

  # # #

LianneAnna - Perhaps this bot can only effectively run on a citation list formatted as the one in Vocab Dev't? Thanks for trying. Amae2 - the book by Moore is currently out to another user. Since the pages you need aren't on Google Books I've requested it but it could be two weeks or more.
Paula Marentette (talk) 15:19, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes I think I may have to manually edit the citations, I am not sure, I left another message on his talk page (two other people left very speedy comments last time and I am hoping they will again). When I figure out how to run this Bot, ISBN's will be added by the Bot. I will comment here when I figure out how to run it because while it runs, I think we will want to avoid making changes to our citations (there seemed to be a slight problem with this on the Vocabulary development article). LianneAnna (talk) 16:50, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Apparently the references need ISBN's now.....There is a banner in our reference section. Amae2 (talk) 16:11, 21 March 2012 (UTC) LianneAnna and I think that the bot will add them. She has a plan for making it work. If not, we'll go the by hand route I guess. ISBN is only for books. I have no idea what a PMID is, but I suppose we'll find out soon! Perhaps it is like DOI. Paula Marentette (talk) 19:53, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Psychology articles

Although this wasn't submitted under "Culture, sociology and psychology" in the Good article section, it does fall under psychology and needs to follow WP:MEDRS, as stated in the Good article section for "Culture, sociology and psychology". Also, you should provide the PMID, DOI etc. for journal articles. This way the reviewer can check your sources. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 16:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Joint attention/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Canoe1967 (talk · contribs) 06:41, 4 April 2012 (UTC) Looks fine. The lead may be a liitle long. You may consider moving some of the more detailed information in the lead to lower sections to further improve it.

Dubious tag removed

Anyone who has seen a child interact with an adult doesn't proof that the sky is blue.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:38, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Problems with article - it was not given a proper GA review

• I have replaced the dubious tag. This uncited statement says a two month old infant is capable of "Engaging in dyadic joint attention and conversation-like exchanges with adults during which each is the focus of the other's attention and they take turns exchanging looks, noises and mouth movements." - Where does this information come from? The statement as worded is open to question.

Anyone who has seen a child interact with an adult doesn't need proof that the sky is blue.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoe1967 (talk • contribs)

Developmental markers of joint attention in infancy

• This section is open to as the editor has combined several sources into one table, thus synthesizing the information. Not all statements in the table are cited.

Examples of possible problems in the article

• Are the editors concerned that 19 of the citations refer to animal studies? And some of those citations source human behavior.

Humans are in the animal kingdom. It seems the article topic talks of both.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoe1967 (talk • contribs)

• Is the reviewer concerned that the statement that a two month old is "Engaging in dyadic joint attention and conversation-like exchanges with adults during which each is the focus of the other's attention and they take turns exchanging looks, noises and mouth movements" is uncited?

Anyone who has seen a child interact with an adult doesn't need proof that the sky is blue.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoe1967 (talk • contribs)

• Is the reviewer concerned that one of the other sources used in the article contradicts the time line presented at one point in the article.?
• Is the reviewer concerned that the passive voice is frequently used?
• "Great apes such as orangutans and chimpanzees also show some understanding of joint attention." - so do dogs and other animals. This statement is misleading.Gaze Following and Joint Visual Attention in Nonhuman Animals

Misleading in what way? 'Understanding' is they key term. Those animals show understanding of JA, while other animals may just participate in it. Such as a dog looking or pawing a ball, and then looking at a master. This shows they want the master to acknowledge the ball.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoe1967 (talk • contribs)

• "Dyadic joint attention can be thought of as a conversation-like behavior that individuals engage in. This is especially true for human adults and infants who engage in this behavior starting at two months of age. - this is cited to an article on chimpanzees (16 citation go to this article).

The sky is still blue.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoe1967 (talk • contribs)

• Is there any indication that the nominator responded to the (minimal) suggestions that the reviewer made?

The lead only seemed that way to me. It does fit WP standards for a lead. I just believe in shorter leads as opposed to longer ones.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoe1967 (talk • contribs)

• The reference section needs copy editing.
• Pointing needs disambig, so the reviewer didn't even check that.

I'm not saying this is a bad article. It's a psychology article that needs to have the sources evaluated by WP:MEDRS criteria. I'm saying that it was superficially evaluated by an editor with a total of 963 edits, who not familiar with the subject who says it looks good so it's a GA. That's my concern.

Do you assume that WP is the only text I have read and found errors in? And what makes you think I was not as thorough as other GAR. A short summary = a short read? Very bad assumption.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Canoe1967 (talk • contribs)

• I am considering submitting this article to Good Article Reassessment, as I don't think it was properly reviewed.

I would constitute that as disruptive editing, the same as I do the edits you reverted of mine that improved the article.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:49, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Regards, MathewTownsend (talk) 17:58, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good article reassessment

• The decision to initiate a reassessment does not require consensus. It is a decision that can be made by any individual editor. It is not disruptive editing. You are misinformed. The fact that this article is part of the Education Program means that GA reviews should be conducted correctly. Regards, MathewTownsend (talk) 21:46, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Joint attention/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

GA review-see WP:WIAGA for criteria (and here for what they are not)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose: clear and concise, correct spelling and grammar:

   Please see comments below.

   Avoid statements in the passive voice: e.g. "Dyadic joint attention can be thought of as a conversation-like behavior that individuals engage in. This is especially true for human adults and infants who engage in this behavior starting at two months of age.

   B. Complies with MoS for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   Per lead, it does not summarize the article.

   Everything in the lead must also appear in the article. The reason citations are not needed in the lead is that the material will be cited when it appears in the articles, so there is no need to cite it twice.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Provides references to all sources:

   B. Provides in-line citations from reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Main aspects are addressed:

   B. Remains focused:

   Not clear what the topic is - joint attention in animals? or only chimpanzees and humans?

4. Does it follow the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

• I will be completing this in the next few days. I don't anticipate any serious problems but I do want to do an adequate review according to GA review criteria. Regards, MathewTownsend (talk) 20:58, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
• The following are examples only and not a complete review of all problems.

lede

(example of combining information from different sources, resulting in some confusion to the reader)

• (first sentence) "Joint attention is the shared focus of two individuals on an object."

Source: "In our daily lives, a great deal of information is communicated by means of following another individual's gaze to specific objects and events. This behavioral sequence is called gaze following or joint attention. Gaze following/joint attention is characterized by one individual (X) following the direction of the attention of another individual (Y) attention to an object (Z) (an object of joint focus; Emery 2000)." etc. page 155 of 2006 book on chimpanzees. Following is additional discussion of differences between "gazing", "joint attention" and "shared attention" over which there is some disagreement among researchers.

• (second sentence) "It is achieved when one individual alerts another to an object by means of eye-gazing, pointing or other verbal or non-verbal indication."

Source: "Joint attention and children with autism: A review of the literature" a 2004 journal article, adds additional elements not in the source for the first sentence.

• (third sentence) "In this situation the individual who points is "initiating joint attention" and the individual who looks to the object is "responding to joint attention".

Source: Striano, T.; Stahl, D (2005). "Sensitivity to triadic attention in early infancy". Developmental Science.

• • Suggestion: Stick with one source that explains what is meant by "joint attention"; avoid combining sentences using different sources discussing slightly different topics or looking at the subject from different angles. The lede should be a clear summary of the article content and doesn't usually need citations, as everything in the lede will be covered in the article.

Definitions of joint attention

• "The definition of joint attention is important in order to determine if children are engaging in age-appropriate joint attention and to determine if apes are capable of engaging in joint attention." - why are apes mentioned here. Is this article on humans or on the capacity of other animals for joint attention. (Elsewhere there is evidence that dogs, for example, are capable of joint attention (depending on the definition of "joint attention".)
• "Dyadic joint attention is a conversation-like behavior that individuals engage in." - clumsy wording
• This whole section is a mixture of children, adults, apes, humans in no particular order.
• "There is a debate in contemporary psychology as to the psychological significance of joint attention." After defining various terms as if they are agreed upon definitions, then "controversy" is introduced. Controversy is interspersed with flat statements that sound like fact.
• (Chimpanzees seem to be used interchangeably with apes throughout the article.)
• "A vocal minority maintain that joint attention is always a means to an end (i.e., that "pure communication" in the infancy period of humans is a myth), and therefore joint attention by apes and humans reflects shared psychological processes" - I don't understand what this means.

Suggestion: Clarify the topic and stick to it.

Gaze

• Is this humans, apes, or both?

Intention

• Humans only or what?

Joint attention in humans

• So the preceding was not necessarily human?
• (skipping over a bunch)

Developmental markers of joint attention in infancy

• What is the source for this table? Some of it is unsourced, while a variety of other sources are used. Is this Original research? Or is this a synthesis of different sources into an original combination.

Suggestion: Need one source for table.

General

• Is this article about all animals, about humans, apes and chimpanzees, or humans, apes, chimpanzees and primates, or what? The way the article is organized now, it swings back and forth.

Sources

• Some of the sources are fine. Some it is difficult to tell if they are primary sources or what. It would be better to stick to reliable secondary sources and avoid the confusion of so many references to slightly different topics than the article is focusing on.

I hope you find these suggestions helpful. Please feel free to provide feedback or ask me questions.

MathewTownsend (talk) 00:20, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• I will put this review on hold for seven days. Let me know if you need more time. MathewTownsend (talk) 11:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

MathewTownsend,
Thank you, we will indeed need the whole week to respond to these comments. Students don't return to campus until Tuesday. Classes end at the end of next week, so we will really focus our efforts over those few days.
I am thinking hard about OR (a rule I understand quite well) and synthesis. I'll reflect a bit more before I respond to your concerns about the table.

It is the case that the literature reviewed in books on chimpanzees or other great apes is relevant to the literature on human children, since that is the comparator for great apes. It is in these books that people are most clear about definitions that apply across species. Hence their frequency in the reference list.

As a class we struggled with whether to split this article into two. We thought we should start by just expanding the stub, which integrated across species. We can certainly do further work to be more precise about which claims apply to which species. I am not sure who decides, or how one decides to split an article. We would appreciate any advice.
Paula Marentette (talk) 20:04, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

reply

• I certainly don't want to pressure you. So take your time.
• However, I question the statement that "It is the case that the literature reviewed in books on chimpanzees or other great apes is relevant to the literature on human children, since that is the comparator for great apes. It is in these books that people are most clear about definitions that apply across species. Hence their frequency in the reference list."

I don't think this is productive thinking for the article.

There are plenty of references that apply to humans only, I believe. Someone mentioned to me recently that penis is the only article that doesn't have a separate article for humans!

Again I suggest that Object permanence is a good model in that it is focused on humans, and mentions animals (all animals) in another section.

comment - example

• The table Developmental markers of joint attention in infancy

This looks like it is a combination of 5 different sources. Is there any one source that supports this, or are you combining the views of several authors into one table?

• What is the isbn for Goswami, Usha (2008)Cognitive Development: The Learning Brain. New York, NY? Sources must have enough information that the reader can track them down. MathewTownsend (talk) 20:52, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
• Also, please my response to your comments on my talk page. Another editor added there that Wikipedia:SYNTH is the problem. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:27, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

comment on lead (lede)

• Be sure to follow WP:LEAD. Everything appearing in the lead must also appear in the article with citations in the article rather than the lead. The lead must be a summary of the article that can stand on its own. That is, if a reader gets no further than the lead, they will still have an overview of the article and a summary of the main points. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:23, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

We have made many edits to the article in response to the GA Reassessment above. It is ready for another review. We have

• attended to the prose: in particular edited for passive voice, focused on words to watch for, rewritten the lead
• carefully reviewed for problems of OR and SYNTH. This article is not proposing a new understanding of joint attention, nor synthesizing articles to create a new position. The article reflects a wide body of research on this topic and reports information for which there is widespread agreement.
• we have removed the table, as per Wiki policy on tables.
• we have reorganized the article to separate discussion of joint attention in humans and in non-human animals. We have separated out reference sources so that appropriate sources are used for each section.

Do we need to resubmit for GA review or can we continue the Reassessment started above? Thank you for your work on this review. Paula Marentette (talk) 19:16, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

reply

• I could pass it, or I could fail it and you could resubmit it.
• The article is much much improved. It still needs a little work though.

1. Everything in the lead must also be expanded upon in the article, where the citations can be provided also. The lead now is good, but the article is more disjointed.
2. Where do you get a definition for "gaze", as I've looked around and can't find one that fits your use of the word. So it would be good if you'd define it in the article.
3. Does eye contact play a role?
4. What information does cross-sectional analysis give? What information did Scaife and Bruner provide?
5. Definitions of joint attention seems disjointed. It should expand on the information. It also gets into gaze, when the whole next section is on gaze. Is gaze part of the definition of joint attention?
6. The sections that follow seem like they should be subsections of Definitions of joint attention - Are there varying "definitions" of joint attention (to justify the plural "definitions"?
7. Perhaps after "Definition", there could be a section called "Importance" or "Importance in development" in which you could describe the importance of joint attention in development of language, relationships etc.
8. Intention, reference could stand some expansion/explaining? There needs to be a sequence, a flow to the information you're presenting.
9. How does joint attention play a role in the development of theory of mind?
10. Really, you are quite close to having a good article. It just needs some focus and flow, so the reader can follow.

MathewTownsend (talk) 20:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

There are comments below here on the talk page, but I can't seem to find get below them in the edit box, so I'll keep writing in the middle of the page...

We have made a few edits following these comments, but are now in exam period. I don't know that students will have time to work on this article right away. I would suggest you can go ahead and reassess now. IF the article passes, that would be great. It has come a long way from its state in early January! If it isn't GA quality yet, then perhaps they'll be able to revisit after the term, as I imagine that the further changes needed would be fairly minimal. Thank you for your support in this review process. Paula Marentette (talk) 17:44, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Reevaluation after fixes

1. Well written?: Pass

2. Factually accurate?: Pass

3. Broad in coverage?: Pass

4. Neutral point of view?: Pass

5. Article stability?: Pass

6. Images?: Pass

• Very good job! MathewTownsend (talk) 17:48, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Response to Good Article Reassessment (please do not divide up the page with headers)

Is the reviewer concerned that one of the other sources used in the article contradicts the time line presented at one point in the article.?

• Could you please clarify what you mean by this comment? Are you referring to the table?

In addition, some domesticated animals such as dogs and horses show some ability to follow gaze. {{cite journal |last1=Itakura |first1=S. |title=Gaze Following and Joint Visual Attention in Nonhuman Animals |journal=? |year=? |pages=?|isbn=?|

• I was going to add a comment on joint attention (gaze following) in domesticated animals...however, is this a published article? I am unsure if this an article that is suitable to make reference to if it is not published and peer edited.

"Dyadic joint attention can be thought[by whom?] of as a conversation-like behavior that individuals engage in. This is especially true for human adults and infants who engage in this behavior starting at two months of age. - this is cited to an article on chimpanzees (16 citation go to this article).

• The article on chimpanzees consists of sections on human infants, chimpanzee infants and comparisons between the two groups. Comments on joint attention are based on sections on joint attention in infants.

If we remove the citations from the lede paragraph would that reduce the confusion? I used information from different sources in order to make the lede paragraph as explanatory as possible. Very basic sources that describe the general concept of joint attention didn't provide the details I was looking for and more specific articles didn't provide a description that was general enough to serve as the only source for the lede paragraph. This is why I chose to use multiple references for the lede.

• Comments on this would be appreciated

This whole section is a mixture of children, adults, apes, humans in no particular order.

• This section is organized by definition ie. triadic attention, dyadic attention in descending order of complexity.
• Should we consider deleting part of the section on the definition controversy? Especially that relating to "means to an end" and "psychological significance".

Humans and non-human layout

• Currently the definitions applies to both, then there are separate sections for humans and non-humans. If we want to use the same layout as Object permanence then we might consider removing the Joint attention in non-humans header.

Sources

• We wanted to use numerous sources for this article to provide a thorough review of this topic, some of these articles on slightly different topics are included to provide details that are not part of other articles, despite their similar topics.
• Comments on how to make the referencing less confusing for readers would be appreciated.

LianneAnna (talk) 02:15, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Reply

• "* We wanted to use numerous sources for this article to provide a thorough review of this topic, some of these articles on slightly different topics are included to provide details that are not part of other articles, despite their similar topics." - That is called synthesis and is considered original research. Please read verifiability and reliable sources. Please read carefully the comments I've already made above. I don't want to keep repeating myself. (You can't make up your own article by combining dispersant sources.) No, sources not published in a reliable source can't be used. Again, please read verifiability and reliable sources. MathewTownsend (talk) 03:27, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Impact of recent student edits

This article has recently been edited by students as part of their course work for a university course. As part of the quality metrics for the education program, we would like to determine what level of burden is placed on Wikipedia's editors by student coursework.

If you are an editor of this article who spent time correcting edits to it made by the students, please tell us how much time you spent on cleaning up the article. Please note that we are asking you to estimate only the negative effects of the students' work. If the students added good material but you spent time formatting it or making it conform to the manual of style, or copyediting it, then the material added was still a net benefit, and the work you did improved it further. If on the other hand the students added material that had to be removed, or removed good material which you had to replace, please let us know how much time you had to spend making those corrections. This includes time you may have spent posting to the students' talk pages, or to Wikipedia noticeboards, or working with them on IRC, or any other time you spent which was required to fix problems created by the students' edits. Any work you did as a Wikipedia Ambassador for that student's class should not be counted.

Please rate the amount of time spent as follows:

• 0 -No unproductive work to clean up
• 1 - A few minutes of work needed
• 2 - Between a few minutes and half an hour of work needed
• 3 - Half an hour to an hour of work needed
• 4 - More than an hour of work needed

Please also add any comments you feel may be helpful. We welcome ratings from multiple editors on the same article. Add your input here. Thanks! -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 20:38, 27 May 2012 (UTC)