D.Azani

Peer-Review Comments from Chloe Malcolm

Great job with your article! I found the article had a great deal of information and was very written to really help the reader understand the topic of aspartic acid. I also thought the organization of the headings flowed well.

For the first section, I thought it might be a little long and contained information that could be placed under its own heading. For example, you could have a "structure" heading and talk about how aspartic acid is under physiological conditions as a free amnio acid. Some of the information within this heading did not flow very well together, possible you could find some linking sentences to help the flow or organize the information by adding more headings or sub-headings. There were two small paragraphs at the end of this section that did not have citations. I think the overall article would be much stronger if all information has come from a reliable source.

The discovery section seemed as if it could be explained a little more. How exactly was aspartic acid discovered by the hydrolysis of asparagine? Was it accidentally discovered? And was it the original method that helped the discovery of aspartic acid? Or is that just the original method used to hydrolyze asparagine? A source is also needed for where this information was found.

I really liked the organization of the biosynthesis and the subheading of chemical synthesis, however I think the concepts could be expanded on to really clear up any confusion, especially in regards to the sentence talking about biotechnology. Why is biotechnology pertinent to aspartic acid? Also possibly adding a picture in this section would also really help the readers understand and have something to refer to.

The forms and nomenclature section was great! I think it was all good and relevant information to understand the enantiomers of aspartic acid. One thing I am going to suggest to you is maybe explain what the D and L means for each enantiomer and make sure the information has all come from a source.

For the metabolism section, I really enjoyed the information and I thought it flowed very well.

I think for the section about the urea cycle, there needs to be more information and sources or it needs to be put under the "other biochemical roles" heading. Personally, I think it does not flow well because it just states one sentence and seems as if it was just thrown in.

I like the information stated in the other biochemical roles section, however, there are no sources to back up any of the information.

The last two sections I thought were very well written, clear, and concise. Just pay attention and make sure everything is backed up by a credible source.

Also be sure to go through your article and link words to other wikipedia pages, I think this would strengthen the overall clarity of the article because readers with little science background can go to the other pages to better their understanding.

Again GREAT job and hopefully these comments help!

Peer-Review Comments from Ruwan

Hi there!

My name is Ruwan. Below are my suggested edits to your article, in the form of the 4 questions asked by our wiki edu training

1. What does he article do well?

• you have provided a lot of new information, which is great. The information is useful in understanding the amino acid's practical uses, as well as how it is made chemically and biologically. Most of it is properly cited, too.
• Your citations come from various evidence-based, peer-reviewed journals, which is perfect for wikipedia
• Structurally, the sections you've added make logical sense. You may consider organizing them slightly differently (see below).
• I also like that you don't have any unnecessary media that would clutter the page

2. What parts of the article could be improved?

• I don't know that it's overall really beneficial to the article to add that asparagine must be hydrolyzed to yield aspartate. If you do state this, explain why the hydrolyzing causes that.
• Organization: Some of the titles for your sections can be a little confusing. For example, Chemical synthesis and Biosynthesis have different formats, with the former bold and the latter in smaller font. It's a little unclear if one is under the other or if they are two separate sections. You may want to have a larger "Synthesis" section, with 2 subheadings: biosynthesis and chemical synthesis.
• Grammar: no need to capitalize aspartate, it is not a proper noun.
• Information: in the biosynthesis section, you say that aminotransferase activity produces aspartate. But which exact aminotransferase is that? This would be a good place to find and cite an article. Also, you may want to mention that when it is synthesized, it is not in the acidic form (protonated) because it is synthesized in physiological conditions. Under the chemical synthesis section, what kind of biotechnology can be used, and, briefly, how does it work? This sentence should have a citation for this information as well.
• Citations: Under "Participation in the urea cycle", you don't cite any sources for the sentence you wrote. The sentence also lacks a period at the end, and has unnecessarily capitalized words. This section is very sparse, so organizationally you may want to append this to another section, such as a new section, "Biological functions", under which you can put the "Metabolism" section as well.

3. What's the most important thing the author can do to improve the article?

Mainly make sure your citations are thorough, and de-capitalize words that aren't proper nouns. Also, organizationally you could make things easier to understand (see above). But otherwise, all of your information is helpful to understanding this amino acids and its functions. The biosynthesis section is very important, and I'm glad you added it, but I think it could be expanded on.

4. Did you find anything about this article that could be applied to your own?

My article concerns allosteric cooperativity, so I unfortunately couldn't find anything. But, I find that your addition of the section on supplements is very helpful in picturing how this amino acid is used. I think my article could use more examples. But anyway, great work!