Wikipedia:Peer review/Batoka Formation/archive1

Batoka Formation

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I would like feedback from the community on how to improve it, after having put in much of the scientific literature

Thanks, Babakathy (talk) 07:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: I'm glad to see articles about Africa. This is a very short one in its early stages. Here are a few suggestions:

• Since Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia, it's important to make each article as accessible as possible to a wide audience, most of whom are not scientists. Technical jargon in this article that is neither linked nor explained include the following words: tholeiitic, intercalacted, aeolian, amygdaloidal, porphyritic, plagioclase, augite, magnetite, ilmenite, amygdales, quartz, chalcedony, calcite, zeolite, stilbite, mesolite, laumontite, and so on. Although your reliable scientific sources probably assume a readership of geologists and others who do not need to have this vocabulary explained, the Wikipedia audience is quite another matter. It's your job as a writer to try to translate the scientific jargon or to link to articles that explain it. This is not always easy to do, and in some cases it may be impossible. Still, I would recommend moving in the direction of clarity even if not everything can be made clear to everyone.

• "The Batoka Formation is a geological formation in the Zambezi valley." - I would add the country or countries and continent. Not every reader will know anything about the Zambezi.

• Vulcanodon should be linked on first use, in the lead. I would also suggest expanding on the vulcanodon in the "Vertebrate fauna" section. Say what they are and why they are important. Also, what other fossils have been found in the formation? Why single out the vulcanodon?

• "The Batoka Formation is the uppermost formation in the Upper Karoo Group of the Karoo Supergroup, lying above the Forest Sandstone Formation and below the Batoka Formation."- This sentence seems to say that the Batoka Formation is below the Batoka Formation. Not possible.

• The image in the article is licensed by you as "own work", but it appears to be a scan rather than a photo that you took yourself. If it's a scan, you need to identify the source document. Copying an image by scanning might or might not violate copyright laws, depending on the nature of the source.

• It's often helpful to look at articles that have achieved GA or FA status to see how other editors have handled similar topics. I don't see many similar listed articles at WP:GA, but Marcellus Formation is one you might find useful as a model.

• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 20:19, 20 January 2012 (UTC)