Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/JHU MolBio Ogg 2013/Group 81C

Group 81C

This is the Wikipedia page for 410.602 Molecular Biology, Spring, 2013, group 81C. This group will be working on the article Cyclic nucleotide.

Use the talk page here to collaborate as a group, when learning to use and navigate Wikipedia, assessing articles, or for any other topic.

Use this page (not the talk page) for article assessments; rationale for selecting an article; etc.

Please create a new section here for each of those assignments.

Initial article assessments from Dugalmaguire

Cyclic nucleotides

Points for improvement

Not a whole lot of information, definitely the readers digest version of an article. There's no discussion on the talk page, so it would be kind of a clean slate as far as development.

• Could generally use more detail, maybe some more biological information: pathways, regulation, biosynthesis, etc. (see adenosine triphosphate as a very good example)
• Needs referencing and additional resources added
• Organization of material into logical sections, with some supplemental media would be nice

Potential References

1. Cyclic nucleotide research — still expanding after half a century
2. Cyclic nucleotides

Fluorescent tag

Points for improvement

Again, a pretty bare bones stub article. Nothing on the talk page, so a scratch start.

• Additional information with references needed, could particularly get into the spectra, mechanism information
• Organization of sections, possibly a chemical, biological, mechanism, current use sort of layout?

Potential References

1. Fluorescent probes
2. Keeping tabs on fluorescent tags

Initial article assessments from Davidwhanks

Lysogenic Cycle

Overall, this stub-class article appears to be well-written, is neutral, and, based on its "Talk" page, is stable in terms of a lack of activity. Most of the activity, minimal as it was, occurred in 2007. Areas for improvement include:

1. Reduce the use of jargon and overly-complex descriptions for the layperson
2. Improve the use of images. The lone image currently on the page compares the lytic and lysogenic cycles, but it is not very good. The page could use a larger image specifically addressing the lysogenic cycle, and then a second image comparing/contrasting it with the lytic cycle.
3. Improve the citations, especially in the first half of the article. Overall, it is not heavily-cited.

Nonsense Strand

Unfortunately, this article has several challenges ahead of it:

1. It only references lecture notes from a Biochemistry class, and so, is not exactly verifiable.
2. It contains a lot of jargon that the average layperson (the target audience) likely won't understand. The article especially needs to introduce concepts, terms, and acronyms better.
3. The article strays a bit from the immediate subject matter.
4. It contains no in-line citations.
5. There are no images, which might help the reader understand (visualize) complex subject matter, especially if he/she is not a student of cell/molecular biology.
6. No work has been accomplished to improve the article recently. The last input/modification was September 2012.

Article selection rationale - Cyclic Nucleotides

We chose the article Cyclic nucleotide.

• There is very little information available in the article, with the subject matter being so central to the field. There is a lot of reference information available on cyclic nucleotides, as well as very nice Wikipedia articles on specific cyclic nucleotides. This article would provide the general overview of the material before users require more detailed information of those cNMPs.
• Revising this article would be a valuable contribution. There is a lot of room to contribute to this article: i.e. synthesis, biochemistry, chemical signaling. This is an opportunity to provide an overview for the layperson of the biological significance of these compounds, as well as information and pointers to additional resources for more advanced users.

Working sandbox link

Cyclic Nucleotides

Unit 9 progress report

1. Contributed mostly prose
2. Added tabular list of cyclic nucleotides and associated biological significance

Unit 14 progress report

1. Contributed more content to biochemistry and disease section
2. Added two original images for generic reactions using chemaxon's online marvin sketch
3. reworded awkward passages based on peer critiques, especially History, Structure, and Biology
4. Added summary overview sentences in biochemistry section based on Ppelletier's suggestion
5. Added/corrected inline citations where appropriate