Wikipedia:Peer review/Integrative medicine/archive1

Integrative medicine

This peer review discussion has been closed.
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because this article was very recently created by a brand new editor through WP:AfC (bravo!) and moved into article space. I'm interested in any feedback editors may have, but the following areas are of specific interest to me:

General commentary on where this article stands w.r.t. assessment and what tasks are recommended to eventually reach GA status.
The article is rather lengthy (61K as of this writing) and summarizes a lot of information pertinent to other articles. Suggestions on what to remove, what to shorten, and how to reorganize sections are appreciated.
- Going with that, how much of the research results are appropriate to present vs the article becoming a directory of studies? Note that many of the citations are meta-reviews.
Tone and NPOV. Obviously the article was written by an author supportive of integrative medicine concepts. What stands out as overly promotional or non-neutral and what kinds of alternative views should be presented?
Thoughts on possible use of images, pull quotes, and other page layout tricks to reduce the "wall of text" look.

Many thanks, Zachlipton (talk) 19:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Aircorn Comments An impressively big article for a first time editor. Unfortunately as you mention size is an issue. I will go through each section paying attention to the points made above. AIRcorn (talk) 10:09, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Much appreciated. Look forward to your comments. Zachlipton (talk) 10:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have made a start. I will try and get to the rest in the next couple of days. I should let you know that this is my first review so don't take my comments as gospel. Hope it helps though. AIRcorn (talk) 12:39, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is very helpful. Thanks for such a through and useful review! Zachlipton (talk) 19:12, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Definitions

The first sentence should start with the most reliable definition, be concise and accurate. It can be expanded on further in the section and alternative definitions could be applied according to their weight if necessary.
Probably don't need to define health (wikilink health and that article should define it)
Single sentence paragraphs are frowned upon, so it is probably easiest to remove all the sub headings and start straight in on the definition.
Would remove wellness, it redirects to health and I am not sure it adds anything Health does not.
I am not sure the Bravewell colaborative is the best source for a definition, found this which might be useful and shouldn't raise any reliability concerns
Do not bold not, only the name should be bolded or common alternative names (it could be italicised).
Avoid technical, "in house" terms or complex sentences. Imagine a lay person is reading this article and explain it as simply as possible (referring to the use of modalities here). Wikilinking a complex term is acceptable, it is amazing what articles can be linked.
Avoid lists if you can. Converting to prose may also allow the section to be shortened.

History

The WP:MOS discourages the use of Dr. (see WP:CREDENTIAL)
"As a result" not needed as the previous sentence conveys this.
Although the sources cited are reliable they are Primary Sources. Basically they say that the studies existed and can not be used to convey what effect they had. A WP:secondary source is needed for that.
"The single biggest shift in perception was that integration was the key" will need a cite
The next sentence reads a little like WP:Original Research. It is giving opinions and without attribution it sounds like the authors.
The last paragraph, especially the last sentence is too promotional. The History section should just deal with facts, what happened when. The article in general should really just stick to facts, and any opinions need to be Reliably Sourced and probably attributed if any disagreement could be raised.

Foundational Science

The heading doesn't immediately convey what this section is about. Not sure what an adequate title would be for this section, maybe something like "Principles" or "Theory".
Again prose is preferred over lists.
This whole section can be trimmed a lot, maybe even into two to three paragraphs. Anything that does not directly relate back to integrative medicine should probably be removed and the background information trimmed to the bare minimum. I have highlighted some (but not all) potential NPOV issues and other possible problems below.
I would also do away with the sub headings.

The Connection Between Lifestyles and Health

Would be very careful about saying diseases could be mitagated altogether through a healthy lifestyle. There is a lot of evidence that genetics plays a major part (especially in cancer and diabetes). Might be better to highlight the part the environment plays without discounting the hereditary effects.
Also I would avoiding saying things like "they have been shown to" in regards to scientific research. I haven't read a "good" paper yet that comes to a definite conclusion.

Mind-Body Connection

Titles (MD & PhD) should not be used. If important you could say Joe Blogs director/professor/etc of such and such, or something similar.
Could just mention fight and flight response and other studies, probably does not need that much detail in this article.
This section does not obviously relate to integrative medicine

Prevention

Too much detail in this section about aspects that do not directly or obviously relate back to integrative medicine. There are main articles for these sections and they should contain the detail. This should be just a summary of that information with a focus on integrative medicine

Social Determinants of Health

urls should not be in the main article, it should be incorporated into a reference (might just be a formatting error)

Environmental Aspects of Health and Disease

"the way those genes are expressed can be modulated" would try and put a reference to this here. I would also change explained to claimed or something similar as explained seems to suggest this is generally accepted.

A Systems Approach

"are processed by one’s body, mind and spirit through a unique set of genetic predispositions, attitudes and beliefs" this needs attribution and a source

Patient-Centered Care

would not use "embraced"
Need secondary source for the effect of the report

Clinical Research

It does seem to be a collection of journal articles. My inclination would be to just cite recent reviews. They should cover all the up-to-date information and it is better for them to decide the weight of experiments than us. There are enough published in 2009-2010 to provide a good base. This one could be used as a start. In medicine, anything older than 2006-2007 is probably getting out-of-date, although there would of course be exceptions.
Instead of lists use prose and I would limit the sub headings here too. Maybe use therapy type instead of diseases?

Summit on Integrative Medicine and the Health of the Public

This doesn't seem to warrant its own section. Maybe the Summit can be merged with another one.

Integrative Medicine in Academia

"To varying degrees and in different ways" this is too ambiguous. In what ways? Also needs a cite saying half of the schools are using it.

"a group of acclaimed medical schools" would remove that unless a strong cite can be found

Don't say "For more information:" use the urls as inline citations
Too much detail about what the programmes do.

Integrative Medicine Institutions, Best Practices in Integrative Medicine and Research Organizations

Would combine these sections with Integrative Medicine in Academia, maybe retitling "Institutions". They all seem to be discussion organisations that use Integrative Medicine.
Lack of secondary sources in these and the previous sections. Need a third party source to say a school or institution is "leading" and to establish notability

Cost Effectiveness

"Through its emphasis on prevention and wellness, its focus on patient empowerment and its mandate to treat causes not just symptoms, integrative medicine holds the promise of helping to curtail these costs." Reads too much like an essay.
The rest seems fine to me. In fact I would use it as an example of a better way to write the Clinical Research section.

Future of Integrative Medicine

"The practices and principles of integrative medicine have the potential to transform health care, improve the health care system, reduce costs and produce a much healthier nation better able to meet the challenges of the 21st Century." WP:Essay
Would recommend removing this. Future sections by there very nature violate WP:Crystal. If someone notable mentions something about the future of Intergrative Medicine it could be included, but I would not have a whole section for it.

References

Work needs to be done standardising the references. I recommend using cite templates {{cite doi}} would be very useful in this article.

Lead

Left it to last as I think it should be the last thing written in an article. Theoretically it should write itself, but will be one of the most contested parts in the article. The easiest way is to summarise each section briefly (no refs should be necessary).

General

My advice would be to trim back this article as much as possible. Make use of wikilinks and compress the sections. Each section should have a theme and the writing should stay focused on that theme. My recommendations would be something along the lines of (Definition, History, ?Principles?, Research, Institutions, and ?Cost effectiveness?). I would not include any alternative treatments at all, but would where possible add in criticisms. If you don't you can be sure someone else will. Not a fan of separate controversy sections, would much rather just add them where appropriate within the body.

The tone of the article is too promotional, but that could mostly be fixed by changing or removing a few words or sentences. I would avoid opinions unless they can be attributed to someone, and then you have to decide if the person making being attributed is notable enough to be mentioned. It also needs some secondary sources to back up the journal articles (reviews should do this).

Images of notable people (who at least have their own wikipedia article) or institutions would be nice if available. Could also use images that represent the therapies (acupuncture, massage etc) or diseases - but I would only use diseases as a last resort. Personally I don't like block quotes and tables/lists as they break up the flow of text. I would rank the article a "C" at the moment and after a heavy trim I would ask for a copy-edit and then relist for another peer review before attempting GA. AIRcorn (talk) 04:11, 10 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]