User:Js7581/sandbox

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Week 3 Article evaluation: Ethology

• Immediately evident is the banner stating that the article needs more sources. There are multiple sentences and paragraphs without any references, which is something that needs to be remedied.
• I didn't feel like there was anything in the article that should not have been there, except for the many statements without citations (which may be true statements however they still need to be referenced to a reliable source).
• The article states that Tinbergen was the modern founder of the discipline, however his questions are very near to the end of the article, which I think possibly could be changed as they are very important in ethology and therefore should be in a more prominent part of the article.
• I believe the article is fairly balanced and neutral. There are certain claims (without references) which make statements about who did certain things first which cannot be verified.
• Comparative psychology and ethology are compared based on what each group focuses on, however without the appropriate citations, this could be seen as opinionated, for example the statement: "Ethologists have made much more use of such cross-species comparisons than comparative psychologists have" (quoted directly from Ethology).
• After trying a few of the references listed in the References section, I have discovered that the citations which are included in the article are accurate and do support the information they are listed to support.
• The majority of references for this article come from either websites, or books, however there are also a number of academic journals such as Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology.
• There is no bias noted for any of the sources listed, and after briefly reading each article/book/source title, the sources seem to be non-biased towards ethology.
• Some of the books that are listed are quite old, which could indicate that the are outdated however the majority of the facts they are supporting are just historical content and thus seem to still be appropriate for the article.
• Cultural learning, observational learning, and imitation link directly to other pages of Wikipedia, and while this is appropriate, there are many other sections that do the same, however they also have a brief description of the topic at hand. I think that a brief summary for each of these three could be added to improve the article.
• The Talk page for this article goes all the way back to 2004, with some people posting large pieces of work, almost in an essay format. There are definite biases and strong language (ie. 'the best/worst..." used on the Talk page.
• There was some confusion ~10 years ago regarding definitions of the word ethology, etology, etc. that was discussed by multiple contributors.
• The Ethology article has a few comments from Bots over the years, however there has been no editor comments from other contributors since ~2007, indicating that some updated information and citations would most likely be available.
• The article is rated B-class and as a level-4 vital article in Science-Biology. The article is also a part of the WikiProject Biology, as well as the WikiProject Animals, receiving a C-class and B-class rating on each, respectively.

Week 4 Add to an Article: Alpha roll

• Added sentence and citation regarding study findings of lack of hierarchy in domesticated dogs.

Potential Article Topics:

• Dominance signal
  • This is a stub article with two listed references, and no posts on the Talk Page.
  • Improve: how different animals use dominance signals, which groups/families/species use, and provide examples.
  • Improve: addition of when signals are used, and how animals differentiate them from other signals.
• Play signal
  • No current article.
  • Improve: create article, with appropriate references, regarding animals that use social play and how they distinguish (via play markers) play versus other activities.
  • Improve: provide examples and journal articles where this has been studied. Play markers are present in many animals so this is a broad topic with a lot of research available.
• Information Centre Hypothesis
  • No current article.
  • Improve: create article, with appropriate references, regarding the Information Centre Hypothesis and provide examples animals (mostly birds) which use this strategy.
  • Less information is available on this topic, however it is more specialized/specific, so it might provide the opportunity for a more focused article.

Week 6 Topic Decision: Information Centre Hypothesis

I decided to choose this topic because I believe this will be a worthwhile contribution to Wikipedia. I am happy with the amount of research and scientific study that has been conducted on this topic, as it is enough that I did not have a hard time finding sources, but I also was not overwhelmed with broadness of the topic.

My plan for this article is to write a section on theory, and then add a few sections that provide examples to support the theory. The majority of research in this area has focused on birds, so I will likely use a few species as examples (ie. vultures, crows, gulls, etc.).

Bibliography: