Talk:Lie-to-children/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Markworthen (talk · contribs) 20:49, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Nicely written: Clear, readily understandable; correct spelling and grammar.
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead From MOS:INTRO: "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article. ... Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and over-specific descriptions, since greater detail is saved for the body of the article." As written, the lead section contains unnecessary detail. The second, third, and fourth paragraphs could be combined into one paragraph. I suggest condensing the lead section to its essence. For example, something like this: Lie-to-children refers to a simplified, and sometimes even technically incorrect, explanation of technical or complex subjects as a teaching method. Parents, teachers, professors, or others who employ a lies-to-children explanatory method do not intend to deceive. Instead, they seek to 'meet the child/pupil/student where she is', in order to facilitate initial comprehension, which they build upon over time as the learner's intellectual capacity expands. Relative Emphasis From WP:DUE: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." The lead asserts that the phrase enjoys widespread use across a variety of academic disciplines. However, the article body lacks evidence for this bold assertion. For example, the second sentence of the article reads, "The phrase has been incorporated by academics within the fields of biology, evolution, bioinformatics and the social sciences." Unfortunately, the article's citations do not provide support for this claim. Similarly, the lead concludes with the declaration, "Tim Worstall wrote for Forbes that lie-to-children was ubiquitous across multiple academic disciplines." This sentence implies that multiple academic disciplines use the phrase in their scholarly discourse. But that is not what Worstall wrote, as one can readily discern reading the first paragraph of his Forbes article. On the contrary, Worstall simply opines that "any form of education" involves "lies to children". That's it.
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).	I would not characterize the article's sources as unreliable, rather the article relies too heavily on work by three writers, Jack Cohen, Ian Stewart, and Terry Pratchett, who often wrote together or in complementary fashion. Nearly half of the citations (14/32) refer to one or more of those three authors' texts, or to publications discussing their lies-to-children conceptualization. It might help to break the article into sections, e.g., education, philosophy, parenting/child development, and perhaps others. Each section could discuss the meaning of 'lie-to-children' within that discipline. This strategy might broaden the scope beyond the current Cohen-Stewart-Pratchett focus. Here are a couple of references to consider in this regard: Brown, Penelope (2002). Everyone has to lie in Tzeltal (pp. 241-276), in Talking to Adults: The Contribution of Multiparty Discourse to Language Acquisition, by Shoshana Blum-Kulka & Catherine E. Snow (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. In particular, see the section titled, Lies to children as social control (p.245). M. Jagadesh Kumar, Telling Lies to Describe Truth: Do we Emphasize the Importance of “The Art of Approximations” to the Students?, IETE Technical Review, Vol.31 (1), pp.115-117, January-February 2014. https://mamidala.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/telling-lies-to-describe-truth-do-we-emphasize-the-importance-of-the-art-approximations-to-the-students/ Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume III (1835). In particular, see Chapter II. Of Laws Penal and Tributary - Rule V. It is not lawful for a guilty Person to defend himself by Calumny - Question I. Whether it can in any case be lawful to tell a lie? (pp. 427-428)
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	Please see 1b and 2b.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	To some extent it reads like a literature review. I suggest tightening the conceptual focus. What are the main points? What is the best way to organize the key concepts? Otherwise, the writing quality is very good. :O)
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.	Although the points made in 1b and 2b pertain to images as well.
	7. Overall assessment.	Interesting topic; well-written; sincere efforts to respond to suggestions; and very patient editors since you had to wait forever for me to finish this review, for which I am very sorry. My main concern is that the article reads like a spinoff from a Discworld or Terry Pratchett main article. I don't think that is literally the case, it's simply my impression.

Markworthen (talk · contribs) 20:49, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

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@Markworthen:Thank you for taking on this GA Review. I've gone ahead and significantly trimmed down the lede intro sect. As to your concerns about weight, thank you, I had not viewed it as such. Truly, I have no particular POV here, and only came across this article after I'd noticed it had been the subject of a failed deletion discussion. I used direct quotations from sources to show each particular source's viewpoint. Could you be more specific? Could you tell me which references you feel are not appropriately borne out in the article body text content? Thank you, — Cirt (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

• Update: I've trimmed a good deal more, both from the lede intro sect, and the article body text sects. Hopefully now this alleviates some above concerns about weight, and the article presents pro and con views a bit more accurately now. Thanks for this helpful feedback, Markworthen, much appreciated, — Cirt (talk) 02:19, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
• Passing comment: On first skim, the article doesn't succinctly state the uses and application of the idea. An Overview section might be in order. Also, re: the lede:

  Lie-to-children (also referred to in academic scholarly sources as lies-to-children) is a phrase that describes a simplified explanation of technical or complex subjects as a teaching method for children and laypeople.

  Isn't a lie-to-children supposed to be an oversimplification or false statement (at least generally)? Surely it isn't just a a simplified explanation of a complex subject, else it wouldn't be a lie.  czar 04:30, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Thank you, Czar, for your passing comment. I've done a significant amount of research across numerous sources. Perhaps you could be more specific about what you suggest to add to the article? Could you recommend a particular source to incorporate your ideas from? — Cirt (talk) 11:13, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

    In terms of the lede, I think the case for calling it an oversimplification is already in the article. E.g., "A 'lie to children' is a useful oversimplification that starts one on the path to better knowledge." "a pedagogy of stupidification is promoted in which teachers imbue students with untruths" or even that it is not just an untruth but an outright falsehood/lie: "Parents are not sure how much of this deceit is right, how far to go with it, and how and when to explain it was all a lie." "a statement that is false, but which nevertheless ..." Some of those analysis quotes and examples can be repurposed to give an overview. Right now the article reads that a lie-to-children is a simplification and goes into a somewhat technical Discworld introduction without really explaining how it works or why it is important. (The lede can also be bolstered to better show what others have said about the concept—the stuff already covered in the analysis section.) czar 15:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

    Thanks very much, Czar, those specific recommendations are most helpful !! I'll take a bit to look over the article again and do my best to address these points. :) — Cirt (talk) 15:38, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

It appears that the reviewer didn't assess parts 2 to 6. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 06:18, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Yeah I'm not sure what's going on with the GA Reviewer activity level here. — Cirt (talk) 16:21, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I apologize for taking so long to complete this review. Mark D Worthen PsyD 13:42, 23 April 2016 (UTC)