Bias alerts

Not many, actually - I was pleasantly suprised by how neutral your language was (though I don't have the text in front of me, so I can't tell whether you're being neutral in your summary). Here's a couple of points where you slipped: "They apparently made this statement either before, or unaware that, this theory had been discredited as a cause of homosexuality." This is editorialization: you're drawing a conclusion about an ongoing scientific controversy ("this theory had been discredited"). You could note that a number of scientists disagree with this theory, but if I were you, I would simply note that this is one of several competing theories put forward to explain homosexuality. "Again, this view may reflect outdated views of male dominance and homosexuality." Same problem here; "outdated" is editorialization. You could neutralize this sentence by noting that this section is based upon the same theory of the cause of homosexuality as the previous section. It's been several years since I read Wilson and Cox, but I seem to recall that they discuss the possibility of bias in their own sampling (since it was not a random non-clinical sample but a sample taken from a particular group that held particular views). If I'm correct, you might want to mention this in your summary. Heather [E-mail]   [Home Page]