Wikipedia:Peer review/Neurotoxin/archive1

Neurotoxin

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…

As a specialist in the field, I have made significant contributions to this article, improving it from just a few paragraphs to nearly its current form. It has been edited now for a few months by other users on Wikipedia, and I think it could now benefit from a review by those with significant knowledge in the field. I am specifically looking for comments about ways to improve the material presented. I have included what I believe to be a rather thorough presentation of the pathologies and treatments involved with each neurotoxin exposure, but I'm sure there is some primary research that will be missing. Suggestions on other material that should be included would be helpful (including other possible neurotoxins).

Thanks, Rysin (talk) 00:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

• A few things, not a full review by any means:
  • The automated checker found a few things - I have to agree with it that the table of contents is too long, which in this case probably indicates a need to split the article up into subpages, with summaries of the subpages on the current page.
  • The alt text checker also found some images without alt text.
  • If you're wanting a review by others with knowledge in the field, this isn't the best place for that - try the pages of the neurology and toxicity task forces first, then the larger WikiProjects it's a part of.
  • Primary research is not what is emphasized on Wikipedia, but information interpreted by secondary research (e.g., review papers).
  • For ways to improve what's presented, you may wish to also check with the Guild of Copy-Editors (WP:GUILD).
• Again, not a full review by any means. Allens (talk | contribs) 18:21, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• Oh. One other thing. It is not clear exactly why "inhibitors" and "receptor antagonists" are divided into two sections. Receptor agonists are easily understandable as being separate (and admittedly there are compounds that act as both agonists and antagonists).Allens (talk | contribs) 21:00, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• A few possible additional toxins, such as strychnine, can be found in the Category:Neurotoxins and its subcategories. Allens (talk | contribs) 18:29, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: I can't provide the kind of expert comment on the content that you would like, but I have a few suggestions for improvement. This is an interesting and important article with FA potential.

• Claims in the lead generally do not need inline citations since the lead is a summary of the main text, where the claim is already supported or should be. For example, citations 6 and 91 support the claim that lead is a common neurotoxin. You don't need citation 6. I'm guessing that the same consideration (redundancy) applies to all of the citations in the lead, though I did not check each to be sure.

• Technical terms are generally linked in this article in a helpful way, but I would unlink a few common words already well-known to most readers. Two candidates for unlinking in the lead are "cell" and "memory". Candidates for unlinking in the "Background" section are "plumbing networks", "brain", "blood" (which is linked twice), "scientist", "physician", "cell", and "skeleton". If you comb through the article looking for common words to unlink, you will find at least a few more such as "mouth" and "limb" in the "Tetrodotoxin" subsection, "arrow" and "dart" in the "Curare" subsection, and "paralysis" and "death" in the "Botulinum toxin" subsection.

• I would add inline citations to reliable sources for all of the claims added to the ends of paragraphs that have sources that cover only the claims in the middle of the paragraph. Otherwise, these claims seem to be afterthoughts or conclusions coming from Wikipedia.

• I enjoyed watching the external video about anatoxin-a. However, it probably belongs in the "External links" section rather than embedded in the main text. The Manual of Style advises against linking to an external site from within the main text. See WP:MOS#External links.

Background

• "As a result, the nervous system has a number of mechanisms designed to protect it from internal, and external insults, including the blood brain barrier." Would something like "has evolved mechanisms that protect" be better? The word design might lead to a kerfuffle.

• "Additionally, in-vitro systems have increased in use as they provide significant improvements over the more common in-vivo systems of the past." - Link and italicize in-vitro and in-vivo on first use. For many readers, an English translation in parentheses might also be helpful.

Applications

• "As the nervous system in most organisms is both highly complex and necessary for survival, it has naturally become a target for attack by both predators and prey." - Perhaps "for attack by predators and defense by prey"?

Mechanisms of activity

• "The time required for the onset of symptoms upon neurotoxin exposure can vary between different toxins, being on the order of hours for botulinum toxin and years for lead." - Tighten to "The time between exposure and the onset of symptoms varies among toxins; it may be hours for botulinum toxin and years for lead"?

• The abbreviations in the table (K and so on) should be spelled out on first use, though you might also abbreviate them; i.e., "Potassium (K)".

Tetrodotoxin

• "the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor Neostigmine or the acetylcholine antagonist Atropine," - Lowercase "neostigmine" and "atropine".

Tetraethylammonium

• "in a manner similar to that of curare" - Link curare.
• "Additionally, through chronic TEA administration, muscular atrophy would be induced." - Would this be better as "Additionally, chronic TEA administration induces muscular atrophy"?
• "other ion channels such as voltage gated sodium channels" - Link and hyphenate voltage-gated sodium channel]]?

Curare

• "though it has matured to specify a specific categorization of poisons" - Recast to avoid repeating "specific".

Conotoxin

• "Conotoxins represent a category of poisons produced by the marine cone snail" - Link cone snail?

Botulinum toxin

• "which are produced by the bacterium Clostridium Botulinum" - Lowercase "botulinum"?
• "Botulinum Toxin" - The subhead says "Botulinum toxin" with a small "t". That looks right to me. If so, the big T should be changed in the first sentence of this subsection and in the associated image caption.
• "to induce an insufficient tidal volume" - Link tidal volume?
• Link tetany and unlink both instances of "muscular contractions"?

Anatoxin-a"

• Rather than creating a text sandwich between images on opposite sides of a page, it's better to rearrange them. The subsection is big enough vertically to accommodate both without a sandwich effect.

Ammonia

• "This mitochondrial transition is a direct result of glutamine activity a compound which forms from ammonia in-vivo." - This sentence does not make sense to me. Maybe it should be: "This mitochondrial transition results directly from the action of glutamine, a compound which forms from ammonia in-vivo." Or something like that.

Lead

• Unlink "adult" and "child".
• I would try moving File:Trinkwasserleitung Blei.jpg down two lines to avoid displacing an edit button.

Ethanol

• File:Photo of baby with FAS.jpg needs a caption in the normal place (below the image). I'd be inclined to use image-manipulation software to clone out the caption that appears on the image itself and to replace it with "Baby with fetal alcohol syndrome" as a caption.

Endogenous neurotoxin sources

• "such as nitric oxide" - Link nitric oxide on first use.

Notes

• Citation 105 and 106 should include the author's name, Stephen McDonell
• Citation 107 should include the publisher, Chicago Public Media, and This American Life should appear in italics.
• I would use Occupational Safety & Health Administration for the publisher in citation 108.
• Citation 108 needs a date of most recent access.
• The date formatting in citations 105 through 108 should be consistent. Do them all the same way.

References

• Since one of the books in this list has an ISBN with hyphens, the Yang book should probably have them too. A handy converter lives here.
• 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) 03:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)