Feedback (J4)

Hi, Here are my comments from a read through:

I think the abstract spends too much time talking about the philosophical definition - e.g. the second sentence seems unnecessary.

This sentence is really hard to follow: "In connection to logical reasoning in particular, although this entry is not about ontology as in philosophy, an issue of philosophical nature, the relation of representation of things in the world to the notion of truth, is briefly considered." Is it necessary to draw the connection to philosophy? (ie could you remove "although this entry... ...issue of philosophical nature"? ).

I won't copy and paste them all, but there were other very long sentences throughout the article that I thought would be clearer if they were broken up.

Also in the interests of making things clearer to read and breaking up the text, I thought you could consider using bullet points in some places - like for when you list the essential characteristics of ontologies. Maybe also when listing the three constructs of OWL. For me, at least, this would help to emphasize these points, and make the text easier to follow.

I like how you structure 'Implication 1: Interoperability' and 'Implication 2: Levels of Abstraction' as separate subsections. Maybe more of these mini sections would be better than the bullet points I mentioned above.

Diagrams would be very nice to illustrate the examples you give - for the residential buildings one and/or the Fido one.

In the last paragraph, you use 'Poole says' or 'Poole explains' etc. several times - could you leave these phrases out since you are already citing him? This could help shorten the sentences and make it easier to follow. I think you could maybe do something similar in earlier paragraphs where you reference authors as well.

The topic of ontology somewhat verges on philosophy. The word "ontology" is originally from philosophy; there is a need for disambiguation. It would become apparent if you browse Smith's paper I cited or visit this site mentioned at the CPSC 522 course page: http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/

Regarding use of bullet points, personally I prefer to use sentences for precision and clarity. In presentation slides or other kinds of writing, which are essentially notes, I would use bullet points. Generally speaking, pictorial representation does not replace explanation in words. For the Fido example, please see my reply to Nam below. Part of the reason might be that as a former arts minor, I am used to dense prose and tend not find sentences too long. But I will certainly try to mix shorter sentences. Also, a brief summary sentence at the end of a section might help.

As for the last paragraph, generally I prefer to clearly indicate which part is from external sources to avoid plagiarism. But again, I can try to revise wording a little.