# Talk:Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle

This review is transcluded from Talk:Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: I'll do this one. Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 14:53, 12 March 2018 (UTC)


### Comments
Interesting article. Surprising that Richard Prum wrote a book not on feathers, really.

'Subject' in infobox is clearly awkward here. I'd probably have chosen 'Evolutionary biology' as the primary topic. (Shame it didn't begin with 'F'.)
Done. I was ultimately at somewhat of a loss, so what I think I did was look at how my local library categorized the book in their catalog, but it clearly came out clunky. Mz7 (talk) 00:26, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Can't see what function 'Print' serves in the infobox - this book like nearly all nowadays is also available electronically and as an audiobook.
Point well made. I've taken it out. Mz7 (talk) 00:26, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Background - I think the bit about Hanson's career should be at the start of the section, not the end: I was missing it up there and then fell over it later. And maybe a paraphrase starting with something along the lines of 'Hanson is a researcher with wide interests: he has worked on ...' would be better than a quote really. It might also say briefly what he trained in and who he works for.
I shifted the career part up and gave a shot a paraphrasing the quote. I also added that he received a Ph.D. from the Univ. of Idaho along with a description of his dissertation topic. Mz7 (talk) 01:09, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Not quite convinced that repeating the book's division into 5 sections is worth it in the lead section.
I'm inclined to keep this in the lead. Most readers are probably just going to read the lead section anyway, and the 5 section division is fairly central to how the book is organized. Mz7 (talk) 01:09, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough.
I think the 'Awards' section could be a top-level chapter (and drop the 'accolades', not sure it adds anything; in which case the 'Reception' chapter contains only 'Literary' and 'Academic' sections, promoted and trimmed of their 'responses'.
Done. Mz7 (talk) 07:14, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
Suggest wikilinking a few terms - ecology, developmental [biology], forest fragmentation, theropod.
I added links to ecology and forest fragmentationforest fragmentation (which redirects to habitat fragmentation) in the "Background" section, and evolutionary developmental biology in the "Evolution" subsection for "developmental theory" (not sure if this is the best link). "Theropod" is already linked in the "Evolution" section as well. Mz7 (talk) 01:09, 15 March 2018 (UTC)


### Summary
This is a crisply-written, informative, and well-balanced book article, and I'm happy to award it GA status. I hope that you feel the article has been improved at least a little by the review process. I hope also that you'll consider taking the time to review one or two articles from the GA Nominations list. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:24, 15 March 2018 (UTC)


### Images
You might add one or two images to accompany the Flight-Fancy-Function sections, such as (for instance) a diving peregrine, a bird of paradise showing off its 'elaborate feathers', or a fishing fly.
Looking. Mz7 (talk) 01:09, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
I added an image of a peregrine flying (no decent shots of a diving peregrine) and a greater bird-of-paradise. Mz7 (talk) 02:08, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
They look splendid.


### References
The article uses RP numbers (actually in the main text) for primary (Hanson) refs only. It's a bit intrusive. Nicer would be to use short-form refs (such as <ref>Hanson, pp. xv-xvi</ref>) and place citation 4  in a 'Sources' section at the end.
I considered short citations initially, but I think I felt they bloated the reference list. However, since you have more experience with these kinds of things, I'm fully okay with deferring to you. I've flipped the format as you suggested. Please check if I did it correctly. Mz7 (talk) 01:09, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
It's great. I once did a book article with a lot of similar primary refs, and put them in a separate 'Primary sources' subsection (which could be formatted with narrow columns to save space). I didn't repeat the experiment but it's one of the possible ways of doing things super-neatly. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:20, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
@Chiswick Chap: Great! Thanks for your review! Mz7 (talk) 18:59, 15 March 2018 (UTC)