Peer Review Report on Expanded Definition of “Binary Search Tree”

Name of the Reviewer: Jake Moh, member of team “Jake’s Friends”

Author’s Name: Ben Maxfield, member of team “Jake’s Friends”

Date: February 4th, 2022

Title of the Expanded Definition: The Definitions of a “Binary Search Tree”

 

Thank you for the definition of “Binary Search Tree”. I enjoyed reading your definition and reviewing a popular data structure. Please read through the review and suggestions.

 

Initial Impressions

Overall, the documentation was clear, concise, enjoyable, and fulfils the requirements of the assignment. However, there are few areas that could be improved and revised.

 

Situation

I think the situation could be changed to provide more explanation about the term. The provided situation does not provide much meaning since the word can be anything else. For example, “The situation is a professor describing the term rhetoric to a one of their students.”. A better situation could be, “software developers are discussing if they should use binary search tree as the data structure for their application.”

 

Parenthetical Definition

The definition of parenthetical definition should be focused on using synonyms and relatively easy to understand. For example, “the leaching field (sieve-like drainage area) requires crushed stone”, “the trees on the site are mostly deciduous (shedding foliage at season’s end).” I think parenthetical definition can be used for sentence definition as well. I think a better solution could be “many modern software application use binary search tree (ordered tree data structure) to improve search performance.”

 

Sentence Definition

The sentence definition is very clear and concise.

Expanded Definition

Analysis of Parts

I really like how analysis of parts are ordered in increasing order of complexity. The explanation is clear and concise, and it is very easy to follow with visual example.

Comparison & Contrast

When comparing, a table may help readers easily compare the two elements. Although the assignment is aimed for non-technical audience, comparison of time complexity could help technical readers understand the term better. It is important to note that, BST is not always faster than an array but on average it is faster on delete and search. You can imagine a BST with all nodes without a left children.

Visuals & Examples

Clear visual with explanation of an example that is not a binary search tree. You could indicate that the right figure is still a binary tree.

 

References

Reference should be in alphabetical order.

 

Conclusion

Overall, the definitions are clear and concise with many examples used to further enhance reader’s understanding of the term. I really enjoyed reading your post and I hope my review helped!

The Definitions of a “Binary Search Tree”