Talk:Alternating hemiplegia

Public domain
Some text was taken from http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health_and_medical/disorders/alternatinghemiplegia.htm (public domain)

Course assignment
This topic is being edited as an assignment in an undergraduate neurobiology course. The course is participating in the Wikipedia Education Program. The revised article will be posted by March 22, 2013. Please leave any comments on sources or information you would like to see on this topic.Tnasci1313 (talk) 03:44, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Welcome Tnasci1313! Here's my comment on sources: Wikipedia is not an academic paper or essay, and one of the important differences with academic work is that WP:primary sources should be avoided. Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources (for instance, journal reviews and professional or advanced academic textbooks) and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources (such as undergraduate textbooks). WP:MEDRS describes how to identify reliable sources for medical information. With friendly regards,  Lova Falk     talk   10:23, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Page history
This article was the subject of a history merge on 23 March 2013; the neurobiology class wrote a new article in userspace, and it was then moved on top of the existing article. That's the reason for this edit's odd content and edit summary. Nyttend (talk) 20:23, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
Overall the article was very well written. The article delivers concise information, however as mentioned by previous reviewers the introduction could be a little bit more concise so it’s easier to read and provides quick information. The first thing a reader reads is the introduction and too much information there may make the reader skim ahead. You have a lot of good information in the introduction so I would just move that in another category so that it can be read and not just overlooked. The article provides mostly easy to read information that readers can understand, and in dept information to better understand the disease. --Tayaba.ahmad (talk) 05:54, 8 April 2013 (UTC)tayaba.ahmad

resposne
Thank you for your comments about improving our article. We have condensed the intro a little bit but we wanted to keep enough information so the reader would be able to get a general idea about the disorder and the article. We apprieciate your comments.Marqyank27 (talk) 23:18, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review
As a whole, the article is well written and very informative.

The first time I read this article I was a little confused due to the formatting. One suggestion I would make is to clearly state that Weber's Syndrome is a form of alternating hemiplegia. It's confusing when you say that "Weber's syndrome (also known as superior alternating hemiplegia)" and later say that "Weber's syndrome is one form of alternating hemiplegia". I would suggest keeping the same language throughout the article.

The source "Neuroanatomy: an atlas of structures, sections, and systems" was reviewed based on its creditability, contextual information, and plagiarism. The information pulled from there was very informative when trying to understand this article. However, I'm a little concerned on the creditability of the source. As seen in the past, answers to multiple choice questions are not always right so there is no guarantee that the information pulled was entirely correct. The online version of this google book does not include what page this information was pulled from. Perhaps, finding the text and citing it down to the page would improve the article. Also there are no copyright/plagiarism issues.

I came across another google book: http://books.google.com/books?id=m7Y80PcFHtsC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=superior+alternating+hemiplegia+weber%27s+syndrome&source=bl&ots=LBqMxDVPN4&sig=6ykg5d7xMRDaF61CaZCmbMMO0F4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=EQ1eUfDqBYWzywHk_4GABg&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=superior%20alternating%20hemiplegia%20weber%27s%20syndrome&f=false

By using this source you will be able to add creditability to the Weber's portion of the wiki page. Also on page 165 there is a great brain lesion diagram you can use. Adding that diagram will help viewers understand symptoms.

One more thing I would do is use "Medical treatment"header instead of "management". Doing this will actually give your article more hits on google because of the word choice. Just a suggestion.

Overall this is a great article. These suggestions may make a it a little better. Hope they help. --Gigs4 (talk) 00:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Response to Primary Review
Thank you for the great suggestions to improve our article. The introduction now includes explaining there are multiple forms of alternating hemiplegia that will be discussed throughout the article. The source was reviewed and though we see where your concern is, the source helps us explain the symptoms and it provides great information for the article. The suggestion to change management to medical treatment is a great idea and it has been changed. Once again thanks for the great ideas to help improve our article.Marqyank27 (talk) 23:51, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Peer Review
Overall, the article was very well organized and the sections were concise and well worded (except for the few errors in the "Symptoms" section). Also, for your references, to make a reference only appear once in the reference list (instead of each time it is referenced) used. Again, the article is very well organized and the sections are to the point and easy to read. Isetem13 (talk) 01:17, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Minor grammatical errors in “Middle Alternating Hemiplegia” section
 * 2) It may be beneficial to write a one or two sentence blurb about the subtypes or other syndroms with similar symptoms in the “Symptoms” section for clarity. Also, the last sentence in “Inferior Alternating Hemiplegia” may be more suited if it were removed from this section and placed in a separate paragraph which is just under the “Symptoms” sections.
 * 3) For “Causes” – summarize the findings of the study you are talking about. Talk about the different types of mutations found on the genes but I do not think it is necessary to detail the number of patients with each type of mutation. Make a generalized statement about the controversies of the causes of Alternating Hemiplegia because this is supposed to be an encyclopedia-type article where users go to find information quickly and that is direct and to the point.

Thanks for the review. I think that we have fixed all of the grammatical errors. Also, the inferior alternating hemiplegia paragraph was completely revised. We chose not to write about other syndromes as that might seem like a tangent, and wanted to focus on alternating hemiplegia, itself. We also revised the Causes sections, and kept the study and types of mutations as suggested, but kept details about the number of patients in the study. MACKXIMUS (talk) 03:37, 27 April 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MACKXIMUS (talk • contribs) 03:35, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
Overall I think this is a very good article that is both not too difficult to understand, but also very informative. One suggestion I would have would be to perhaps break up the introductory paragraph into two or more, as it is the largest and attempts to convey the most information. It might be easier for the reader if the information were spread out just a little more. It also has few citations, relative to the rest of the article, which is otherwise cited very well. The other categories are well broken up into logical categories, I believe. --Riegern (talk) 03:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

We have made changes in the introduction to make it more clear for our readers although we did not separate it into two paragraphs. Thank you for reviewing. Mickey0987 (talk) 05:27, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
This article had a few grammatical errors but overall was well written and easy to follow/understand. There is a good use of sections and subsections, particularly in the “Symptoms”, “Management”, and “Diagnosis” sections, that attribute to the article’s clarity. One suggestion I would make would be to remove the unnecessary information in the “Causes” section and make it one section instead of having a subsection. It seems to me that subsection “Controversy on Causes” is unnecessary and this information can just be under “Causes”. Overall the article is well written and researched. Gfolan (talk) 17:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

response
Thank you for your suggestion we have removed the unnecessary subsection. Tnasci1313 (talk) 21:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
This is the most organized article I have seen yet! I think your article will make more sense if you don't have Symptoms as your overall heading and then each different spectrum of the disease. Saying "symptoms" is misleading for me when directly after that it is a description that includes symptoms of Weber's syndrome, middle and inferior alternating hemiplegia. This is a lot more than symptoms and should be treated as more. This is just a suggestion! This article definitely covers the main points a person would want to know about the disease in a short amount of time. Great job! Linzjay (talk) 21:34, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Response
Thank you for your suggestions on the article. The reason why labeled this section symptoms is because it discusses symptoms for each form of alternating hemiplegia. Each form is catagorized based on its symptoms where would explain why it appears this section is more than just symptoms. We appreicate your suggestions for making our article better.Marqyank27 (talk) 23:29, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
This is a very informative article, really well done. I especially liked the use of subheadings. I have just a few mostly grammatical suggestions to improve the reading of the article: Overall, great work! CK3501 (talk) 04:30, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I would shorten up the introduction to just include the vital information. Keeping it short will also help to hold the attention of the reader.  I would suggest possibly including some of the more technical information under Causes.
 * Check the use of periods under the last to categories of Symptoms. In the first a period is used twice ".." and in the second the period that is within the parenthesis (.) should lie outside.
 * There is an unnecessary comma in the second to last sentence of the Criteria for Diagnosis subheading.
 * Try revising the second sentence under Sleep and Diet to make it more coherent and understandable.

response
Thank you for your suggestions. The punctuation and grammar errors have been fixed thank you for catching them. Tnasci1313 (talk) 03:05, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
This article is well written and exhibits a high degree of organization between the various subsections of the article. The article covers a broad range of information and is stylistically cohesive; that is, it doesn't seem as though three or four people wrote the information. Your group did a well job of making it sound as though the information came from one author. There seems to be little grammatical errors, all of which have been mentioned by previous reviewers above. One suggestion that I would like to reiterate is to go back to the very top overview and consider condensing it down some. It's nice that a casual reader can browse your article and get most of the vital information at the very top without having to read the entire article in depth, but it seems a bit wordy and too far into detail. Consider making it a bit more general and only hitting the most vital points in that introduction area. A common omission that I've seen on many articles is the lack of an illustration. Simple ideas for an image to include could be making a graph in Excel showing the percentage of patients diagnosed with this disorder versus standard hemiplegia, or a diagram that shows the various nerves affected by this disorder. A simple addition like that would really add the extra polish to your article. Other than these few critiques, your group has done a fine job of authoring this Wikipedia article, and did so in a scientific and encyclopedic format. Following these suggestions will surely make your article grade "A" material! Noahgford (talk) 21:10, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your review. We tried to condense the intro and fix the grammatical errors there. We have looked for a picture but with little success, which is why we chose not to use oneMACKXIMUS (talk) 03:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review
This article is incredibly informative and well organized. I think everybody is suffering with this problem but the article could be a little more layman-friendly. A lot of the writing is very technical and could use a bit of explanation or some rewording to make it easy to understand if one has no background in the neurological sciences. I noticed a few occasions where a description of a symptom or a nerve was placed in parenthesis next to it. I think a few more of those descriptions would go a long way.

Though Gigs4 touched on it above, I was a little uneasy with the use of “Neuroanatomy: an atlas of structures, sections, and systems”. Many of the quotes used seem to be direct quotes but the formatting of the information does not seem to reflect that. Though I think you should stay away from direct quotes in the article, I realize that some of the information presented can be very technical and specific so it can be difficult to reword. Another thing that I noticed was the continuous use of this source throughout the article. Every time it is referenced, a new citation is used. There is a way to combine the references so that the same number appears in different parts of the article and links to the same source. The first source did this successfully but the citation ended up having no information YunShui helped me out with the same problem. I am just going to copy and paste what he wrote on my talk page:

To combine these refs, replace the, and replace it (note the slash at the end). This tells the software to create an inline citation to the pre-existing reference named "Custodio&Basford", so that instead of the same article appearing twice in your reference, it will appear only once with two footnote links to it. (you may have to view this part on my talk page or in 'edit' view because Wikipedia thinks I'm trying to cite something instead of showing the text)

The diagnosis section could use a sentence or two describing the differences in diagnosis for the types of alternating hemiplegia. The criteria for diagnosis does not mention which type of alternating hemiplegia it is referring to if it is referring to all three of them (though one is led to believe it is not after reading the section about Weber’s syndrome).

I read the “Cause of Alternating Hemiplegia Identified” mostly because it caught my eye that it was a news publication. Though it is on a reputable organization’s website, it would probably be better to find a definition of ‘de-novo mutations’ from a journal or reputable publication. I noticed that they linked the article “De novo mutations in ATP1A3 cause alternating hemiplegia of childhood” as their source. I think it would be useful to mention in your article that they believe that ATP1A3 mutations are thought to account for 74% of cases of typical sporadic alternating hemiplegia in children, leaving room for alternative causes.

Finally, the references could use some work. The first one has no information, a few others can be compacted into one and reference 7 does not link to the actual article. These are just little changes I found that could make it a better article but I think you guys did a fantastic job overall. Good luck with the changes! Alphabetfood (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Response
Thanks for all your great suggestions. we have condensed the references and added page numbers to many of the sources in attempts to make our ref list easier to navigate. As far as diagnosis I tried rewording it to emphasize the criteria is for a general diagnosis of alternating hemiplegia and that the only form of AH that can be diagnosed via test is weber's syndrome due to the port-wine stain. For the reference you reviewed we did not add info from the linked source because that is a primary source therefore cannot be referenced. The reference itself does not mention 74% so we are choosing to leave that out. Thanks Tnasci1313 (talk) 17:45, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review
This review is going to sound very repetitive to the rest, so I am going to focus on the major issues that need to be touched up on and point out new things as well. Overall I thought the article was extremely informative and well written. The article absolutely needs a lot more wikilinks, which was the first thing I noticed. There were way too many words that did not have links on them, so I had no idea what you were talking about at some points. As well making some of the paragraphs a little easier to understand would go a long way because this is not a science article, but wikipedia.

The opening summary could be shortened. There is a great deal of information being described, and only the most important facts about the disease should be talked about here. Minor grammatical errors should be fixed (mentioned in other reviews). As well, try to find at least one picture that can be used somewhere in the article.

The diagnosis section should be more detailed. You have three subtypes, but you only give two diagnoses. A separate diagnosis for all three subtypes would be more organized and would make the article sound more informative.

The management section is good, however, it is organized in a strange way. I would say to not have subsections for the management. And just have separate paragraphs. I believe that will look and flow much better. If you don't like that idea just read over the section and try to clean it up a little to your liking.

I read "The treatment and management of alternating hemiplegia of childhood." It seemed like adequate information from this article was used. The only thing that I found in the article that I believe will help your wiki page is that you can add more detail from this article to your management section. There was valuable information such as other medicines that can be used to help the attacks, as well as he side effects of these drugs.

And that it all I have to say about that. Good article!!!Daner33 (talk) 02:08, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your review, you had some good suggestions. We added many more wikilinks that could better explain the technical term in laymen's phrases. The diagnosis was broken up into two parts because there is a general diagnosis ( b/c the disease is so hard to diagnose) and a more specialized diagnosis specific to Weber's syndrome. We rearranged the management section so that it might flow a bit better. We only mentioned flunarizine as a treatment drug because it seemed to be a mainstream drug of choice versus a fringe/experimental drug mentioned in other articles. We read through the article and revised the introduction and tried to fix all the grammatical errors MACKXIMUS (talk) 03:20, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review
A very well written article. As mentioned by other reviewers, it is important for your categories and sections to provide quick and clear information for readers who view a Wikipedia for a specific piece of information. This article does this very well. One suggestion I would make is to make the introduction as concise as possible. A long paragraph for an introduction may seem intimidating and prevent the reader from reading any further, if they randomly wandered onto the page. Otherwise, the article provided useful information about the disease and covered many areas about the disease. Well Written! Raziffra (talk) 03:36, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the review. The reason that the introduction was written in a long paragraph is that we do not want to leave out any important facts of alternating hemiplegia. We did some changes in the introduction in order to make it easier to understand for our readers. Mickey0987 (talk) 05:23, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review
As a whole, the article is pretty good. There are some things that make it slightly difficult to read however. This is obviously specific medical condition, but the introduction uses very in-depth terminology that is hard to understand. I don't know if it is possible to reword it without losing too much information, but it should be considered. Like some of the other reviewers said, the use of Weeber's syndrome and alternating hemiplegia to describe the condition is rather confusing, and should probably be consistent throughout the article. The causes section starts off talking about primary research, and summarizes their findings. It seems that this is not really appropriate considering that the articles are supposed to cite secondary research. Additionally, the source that is linked is inaccessible, and I am unable to see it for myself. The article is broad in it's coverage, and seems to be very neutral.

There may not be very much imagery that relates to this condition, but if there is anything available, it should probably be added.

I tried to view the source "Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood: No Mutations in the Glutamate Transporter EAAT1" to check it's information. The only information freely available was the abstract, which does contain the information cited in the article. Unfortunately, I could not access the article to confirm my suspicions, but it appears to also be a primary source, which shouldn't be used here. Unfortunately, this means that both of my big issues are with sources in the "Causes" section, and their removal would essentially remove the entire section. The section may need serious work if the sources are in fact primary research.

Andersonmatt1125 (talk) 04:27, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for notifying us on our mistakes. We already made changes to the Cause section and the unreliable source has been removed. We also reword the introduction paragraph in order to provide more clarity of the paragraph to the readers. Mickey0987 (talk) 05:12, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Faculty Review
I am not quite sure where to go with this article. First, although I listed the neuroscience stubs on the course site, it was the responsibility of the group to vet these topics. The list is constantly changing and people are adding articles all the time. The first thing most people would do is a quick Google search even if Google may not give you the final sources you can cite within your article. This would have led you to the Wikipedia page alternating hemiplegia of childhood, which is exactly what you wrote your article on, unless I am mistaken. Much of the information is the same but you also provided some new information as well. For example, the other article does not break it down into Weber's syndrome, middle, and inferior AD. You have a lot of information on Weber's syndrome that is definitely not represented in the other article. Ideally it would probably be best if they were merged somehow.

The second issue is with your genetic information. The OMIM number of 602481 is for familial hemiplegic migraine (the diseaseDB number is also incorrect). It turns out that there is overlap with these diseases in that they may affect the same gene ATP1A2 but there is a different OMIM number for AD (104290). The NIH website actually lists potential mutations in 3 different genes, CACNA1A, SCN1A, and ATP1A2, which you never list under causes at all. It was right there on the front of the website you used as a source so I am not sure how you missed this. In addition, for causes you discuss information from a single study implicating a different gene, AT1PA3. Your reviewers commented on your inclusion of this primary source, and in response you put in a news brief from the University where the study took place. This is not a secondary source. A secondary source uses information from many primary sources, not one. In addition, this "causes" section is in need of major editing to make even this one study understandable. Most of the rest of the article is only in need of minor editing.

The other source I have issues with is the atlas that your reviewers mentioned. Did you get the book from the library? If so, cite it as a real book, not the information found on Google, which is not complete. Also, with a book citation, you need page numbers. You put those in for a 3 page review where it was not necessary but for a 280 page book, you must give page numbers.

I left the "causes" section untouched because it really should be deleted due to it being from a primary source. The rest of the article needed a bit of grammar editing for clarity.

MMBiology (talk) 19:27, 9 May 2013 (UTC)