A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for June 2008.
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because we've put a lot of work into it recently and I would like to get it to FA status. At the moment I feel I've reached that "beam in the eye" stage and need help as to where to go from here.
The first sentence - I have never heard it used with the indefinite article like that. I would have just said 'attachment theory' and left of the 'an'.
The second attachment makes the first sentence flow oddly. Does it lose anything if it is removed?
Actually, thinking of the definition itself, it is always used (to or by me) with the key term 'intimate relationships'. Not sure familiar is actually strong enough. I'll check later on today.
and this article will follow that usage is redundant as already just stated.
Actually I am wondering if the article actually loses anything by ditching the whole first para of the lead. Have a rad and see what you think.
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced the first para of the lead should go - it is pretty unequivocal that the name Attachment Theory refers to the theory that has developed from Bowlby's work. The first para is a bit confused and doesn't add anything, apart from a sentence or two on preamble but they can be left in the body. apart from mentioning somewhere Although some of his ideas have been reworked or reinterpreted, - which could be incorporated further down the page.
Funnily enough we were hounded by an editor who claimed Bowlby did not originate attachment theory and refused to acknowledge plentiful sources to show he did. Fortunately he's now been community banned for pointy and tendentious editing. I think this paragraph dates from then in an attempt to clarify things. Nobody (including him) has ever been able to find an alternative "attachment theory" apart from a few limited early precursors like Freud or Suttie.Fainitesbarley16:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
..for discussion of interpersonal relationships between human beings. - discussion seems not to fit. analysis would be good but would be misconsrtued due to psychoanalysis. maybe examination or assessment is better.
The word 'attachment' is used 16 times in the first three paragraphs of the Attachment section. I know it is a key word but any way this can be reduced without losing meaning would be helpful. It will be tricky...Cheers, Casliber (talk·contribs) 11:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These assumptions form a coherent whole that fits with available data. The following is a list of the assumptions that form the theory: - repetitive. could be 'These assumptions form a coherent whole that fits with available data; they are listed as follows:' (?)
Attachment theory accepts the customary primacy of the mother as the main care-giver and therefore the person who interacts most with a young child, but there is nothing in the theory to suggest that fathers are not equally likely to become principal attachment figures if they happen to provide most of the childcare and related social interaction - cumbersome. How about 'Attachment theory acknowledges the mother as the main care-giver, although a father could feasibly fill the role (if they are the person who interacts with and cares for the child.)' (messy but no worse and alot less wordy - could probably even lose whole bit in brackets. It sounds a bit overemphatic as is)
Better - 'Attachment theory acknowledges the mother as the main care-giver, although this may not always be the case'
But then what-- how do you bring in the part about being an attachment figure? It's not necessarily the same as being the caregiver, which was the reason for the original rather cumbersome sentence. Jean Mercer (talk) 15:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also "customary" is important. Lots of attachment research and books mostly rabbit on about mothers or 'maternal' because most of the time thats who it is - or they use 'mothering' or mother figure' as descriptive of behaviours rather than gender. It was important to make the point that attachment behaviours and caregiver responses are not, in fact, gender specific. I'll see if I can refine it though.Fainitesbarley17:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I concede your points are important, it just comes across as quite convoluted and overemphasized for what should be relatively straightforward to explain. Cheers, Casliber (talk·contribs) 20:46, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly another legacy from the days of the Man Who Thought it was all a Plot Against Fathers. I sourced the point because I agreed with him that it was important to make it plain attachment was not gender specific. Attachment writers can be careless on this point. I really will try and refine it though. Fainitesbarley17:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
OK. I've had to use 'citation' because its the only one that seems to work for papers that are chapters of a book. However, I've had to leave 16 as citejournal because its a quote and if I change it to 'citation' it doesn't show up. Fainitesbarley21:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've now redone all the refs using the family templates including the encyclopaedia ones for compendiums. They should now be all of a piece. Fainitesbarley21:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As far as nitpicky, either use the p. and pp. abbreviations or don't use them, but right now you mix the usage, about half your notes have them, the others don't.
OK. I just fill in the page numbers in the template. I have no idea why in a journal they show up after a colon and for a book they show up with pp. or p. I don't know what to do about the fact that they show up differently. Fainitesbarley21:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A number of your book references are lacking page numbers. Make sure they are meant to be referencing the whole book.
OK
Current ref 68 has a bare link in it, it needs to be formatted.
Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 12:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
Very nice work, certainly doesn't look like a start class article to me. I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet though, so I'll wait before changing the class. A partial review for now:
Sorry, lead's way too long. You've probably expanded it based on people's requests, so it's got to be frustrating to hear. But it should be cut down, there's a good amount of detail you can take out.
I think it's recommended that you don't set the size of the image, rather just do |thumb| and let the user's preferences set the size (not that most people have preferences set for that).
How about spinning out History into History of attachment theory and leaving a summary here? The article's very long and this section in particular is.
control+F for " <ref" (ref tag with space in front), "ref>.", "ref>," , etc. to make sure all punctuation is before the ref tag with no spaces. Also there are some sentences without periods after them, some of which you'll catch by searching for "[space]<ref".
I can't see the baby in the first image, it's too dark and busy. If it wasn't for the caption I wouldn't have known there was one. Maybe find a replacement for the first image? It's too bad because it's a cool idea for an image. The second image is also a great theme but also of poor quality.
Looks like a lot of long, complicated sentences. These are hard to follow. For example, Mary Ainsworth developed a theory of a number of attachment patterns or "styles" in infants in which distinct characteristics were identified known as secure attachment, avoidant attachment, anxious attachment and, later, disorganized attachment. Sometimes a colon or semicolon can give the reader a pause without breaking the flow: Mary Ainsworth developed a theory of a number of attachment patterns or "styles" in infants in which distinct characteristics were identified: these were secure attachment, avoidant attachment, anxious attachment and, later, disorganized attachment. Ideally, wikilinks for each.
An extreme lack of appropriate parenting can in some cases lead to a lack of attachment behaviours in a child and may result in the rare disorder known as reactive attachment disorder -- can you do away with the may and/or the in some cases without changing the meaning? This would cut down on redundancy. In my recent FAC someone suggested ctrl+F for all "can" and "may" to see if they can be removed with the meaning intact to tighten up the wording.
Bowlby explored a range of fields including evolution by natural selection, object relations theory (psychoanalysis), control systems theory, evolutionary biology and the fields of ethology and cognitive psychology, in order to formulate a comprehensive theory of the nature of early attachments Confusing sentence. Maybe it would help to put the long list at the end so the reader knows why they're reading it. This way you have to wait through the list to find out what the rest of the sentence says.
The main tenets of attachment theory, incorporating thinking from many fields, were presented to the British Psychoanalytic Society in London in three papers: The Nature of the Child’s Tie to His Mother (1958), Separation Anxiety (1960a), and Grief and Mourning in Infancy and Early Childhood (1960b) -- way too much detail for the lead, should be moved to the body. Same with these sentences: The main tenets of attachment theory, incorporating thinking from many fields, were presented to the British Psychoanalytic Society in London in three papers: The Nature of the Child’s Tie to His Mother (1958), Separation Anxiety (1960a), and Grief and Mourning in Infancy and Early Childhood (1960b).
Criticism of attachment theory has been sporadic, some of it relating to an early precursor hypothesis called "maternal deprivation", published in 1951.[13] There has considerable criticism from a variety of disciplines, notably psychoanalysis, and from ethologists in the 1970s. -- sporadic and considerable sound kind of contradictory.
How about combing the article for unnecessarily fancy words like whilst that have common equivalents? Let me know when you're done with this crop of suggestions and are ready for me to continue reviewing. delldottalk13:34, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
