Wikipedia:Peer review/Dexatrim/archive1

Dexatrim

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I've listed this article for peer review because I've recently updated and expanded the content of the stub article and would like to have its status upgraded to article. Suggestions or comments to encourage the article's upgrade from a stub would be appreciated. I would like all sections of the article reviewed.

Thanks, Pchauvet (talk) 00:49, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: I think this is "start" class rather than "stub", and I removed or updated the stub templates. I don't think anyone will complain about this. I would call this a start-class article with potential. It needs a bit of Manual of Style polish and a slightly expanded lead. I've made specific suggestions below, and I've added a couple of ideas for expansion.

If you can find them, statistics about sales of Dexatrim over the past 30 years would be useful to add to the History section.

It's often useful to look at GA or FA articles to get ideas about how to proceed. You can find articles on medical topics at WP:GA and WP:FA. Aspirin is an example. It's much more developed than this article, but I immediately note the infobox in the upper right and the illustration further down. As you develop this article, I think you'll want to add an infobox and at least one image or illustration.

Lead

The lead should be a brief summary of the whole article. The existing lead doesn't mention the History or Controversy sections. I would be sure to add a couple of sentences to the lead that include the main ideas from those two sections. WP:LEAD has tips about writing leads.

"Current Dexatrim products available are in capsule form... " - It would be less ambiguous to say "Dexatrim products available in 2011 are... " since words like "current" and "now" generally refer to the time of writing, and readers have no way to be sure when that was.

"The major active ingredients found in current Dexatrim products... " - Same problem with "current". Here I think you could solve the problem by simply deleting "current".

Contents

The Manual of Style recommends telegraphic heads and subheads that do not repeat the main words of the article title. It also says to lowercase most of the words except the first word and any proper nouns. The first head "Active Ingredients: Weight Loss Efficacy & Potential Side Effects" is too long (not telegraphic), and it uses too many capital letters. This would be better: "Active ingredients, efficacy, side effects". I would likewise shorten the other two heads to "History" and "Controversy". The subheads should be altered to "Green tea extract" and so on.

Caffeine

"products ranges from 50-400 mg per day" - Rather than a hyphen in constructions like this, I'd use "50 to 400", which is how you would read them aloud.

"no more effective in promoting weight loss as compared to a placebo" - Tighten by changing "as compared to" to "than"?

Green tea extract"

"There is currently insufficient data... " - Delete "currently"?

Controversy

"Currently, no over-the-counter weight-loss supplements have met criteria for recommended use by physicians." - Maybe something like "Through 2011, no over-the-counter... " to avoid the ambiguity of "currently".

"Currently, no over-the-counter weight-loss supplements have met criteria for recommended use by physicians." - It might be helpful to say who decides what is "for recommended use by physicians"? Is it the American Medical Association or another group or legislative body? Who decides these things?

"Dexatrim claims to provide a powerful benefit for weight loss despite the lack of scientific data to support their claims." - Since Dexatrim is an "it", the pronoun "their" doesn't work grammatically. Maybe "Dexatrim advertisements claim" instead of "Dexatrim"?

"In addition, the use of Dexatrim or other OTC weight-loss supplements presents a possible factor in establishing disruptive eating patterns... " - Awkward. Suggestion: "In addition, Dexatrim or other OTC weight-loss supplements may disrupt eating patterns... ".

References

Citations to web sites should generally include the date of most recent access. I find the "cite" family of templates helpful in reminding me what each citation needs and how to arrange the material. It's not necessary to use citation templates, but they can still be interesting guidelines. See WP:CITET for more info. If you use templates, don't mix the Citation and Cite families, which are both found at WP:CITET.

Citation 11 is missing an URL. Citation 13 is missing the publisher. Some of the other citations may be incomplete as well. Generally, you should include author, title, publisher, date of publication, URL, and access date for web citations, if all of those details are known or can be found, and citations to journals or books require additional data.

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) 22:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]