Talk:Lorne Mendell

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 1 May 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): BISCquick, Alyne123, KevinKicmal.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:16, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Important
While we we greatly appreciate the reviews and edits thus far, this page is a group project that ends on the 25th of April. Please refrain from making major edits to this page until after April 25th but still feel free to leave suggestions and reviews in the talk section. Thanks and all the best, BISCquick (talk) 19:41, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Images
Hi! We couldn't find any pictures of Mendell that were approved, so unfortunately we do not have any photos of him. (As a side note we will be including other relevant photos at a later time!) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alyne123 (talk • contribs) 21:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Secondary Review
Hello authors! Very good job on your article. After reading through it I only have a few minor suggestions. One question that I had was is nerve wind-up the same as pain wind-up? If so you could add a link to wind-up in the first paragraph. The second suggestion I had was maybe combining the Early Life and Education paragraph with the Personal Life section. Both paragraphs are fairly short and cover similar topics so I think they would fit nicely as one. Finally, maybe add the daughter's name in there just to give more information about their family. Overall, an excellent job! ~Sawyer Mentink

Secondary Review
Hello! Overall, great job on your article. I think you did a wonderful job providing useful links, as well as being clear and thorough. I agree with the suggestion that the link for wind-up should be in the introductory paragraph, as that is when you first mention it. I also saw your note that no approved pictures of Mendell are available and that you are planning on adding other relevant photos. I definitely think including photos/diagrams to some of the more specific neuroscience topics you discuss could be helpful for readers who do not have a background in the field. However, I think your article is overall very strong. Great job! -Gabriella Lorance

Secondary Review
Hello Authors! I think the article you’ve put together is quite good! Other than the suggested corrections made by the previous reader, I don’t have any further minor suggestions. But a suggestion I strongly encourage is possibly combining the personal life + early life & education paragraphs.

Something I really enjoyed reading and learning about from your article was Mendell’s research focus. Studying the role nerve growth factors play in inflammation and pain is quite interesting. I would be interested to see what Mendell has found in his research concerning this.

Overall, I think the article contains really good information and it is very well written. - Akunna Korieh

(1) This is a well written article Mendel's research contributions were covered very well. Some very complicated research topics were covered in this article and they were simplified well. One thing that could be added is more information about his personal life like where he grew up, and his birthdate. (2) This is a verifiable article it does not use original research or plagiarize. It does a good job at paraphrasing his research. A quick note consider adding a citation for the first sentence under Major Works and Contributions. (3) The coverage is very broad and does not go into unnecessary detail, but instead paraphrases. (4) This is a neutral article no opinions or unnecessary comments are made. (6) It is mentioned that they were not able to find any approved pictures so that is understandable. Adding other relevant phots of his life or research is a good idea.

Evaluation of source 5: Windup and Central Sensitization are not Equivalent. This is a verifiable source that qualifies as secondary. The source is correctly cited in the article, and paraphrases the findings well. There were other points in the source that could be included in the article. The article could include that the windup plays a role in the generation of pain hypersensitivity and that windup is a form of synaptic plasticity. Including a few more details from the article may help the reader understand the context of this research contribution. GOC2020 (talk) 19:32, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Primary Review
Very nice work on the article so far! You guys definitely hit all the major points in appropriate detail, especially relating to his research. You were fairly clear and concise, though the introduction felt a bit wordy. Most of my suggestions are grammatical/syntax-based. I recommend while you continue to edit to change some of your sentence structures to make them a bit more clear and fluid. For example, in your first paragraph under "Research Focus", you write, "and what the effects are when the synapse that is involved in transmission between stretch receptors and motor neurons is altered." This part of the sentence is a bit difficult to read, and I would suggest rewording it as such: "and the effects of altering the synapses involved in transmission between stretch receptors and motor neurons." To me, small syntax-based edits like these will dramatically improve the flow and clarity throughout your article, even if it is as small as a single word change. I would also suggest limiting the number of "be" verbs like was, is, etc. because this also helps flow. Regarding organization, I would possibly merge some of the early sections, since there is not much information in these and it looks empty, but that is a minor point. You do well to accurately present the information provided by the sources and stick to what is given. Also, you maintain an unbiased viewpoint and address the importance of the research appropriately. You mentioned not being able to include pictures of Mendell, and including other pictures in the future. If you could find one, a picture of a neurotrophin would be excellent or perhaps a picture showing the stretch receptor/motor neuron pathway or synapse. I looked into the 3rd source listed, named "Inflammatory Mediators of Pain". The source is very clearly a secondary source as it does not provide any new experimental research and only summarizes previous studies. You accurately describe how the source relates to Mendell's work, though you could also add something about the importance of NGF in the survival of neurons. Other than that, there is not much else to add. Keep up the good work! --TristanAB (talk) 22:14, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Reply to Primary Review

Hello, I took your advice into account, I added a picture of an example of a neurotrophin to give the reader a better understanding of what they were reading. I also changed the specific sentence that you requested we change, and I will keep looking for other ways to make the article more fluid. I did merge the early life and education section with the personal section so that it does not looks so bare. Thank you for your review. KevinKicmal (talk) 15:50, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Secondary Review
Overall, it was a great article! I only have a few suggestions on editing. 1) I think the personal life and early life and education can be combined (because the personal life section is pretty small). 2) In the research section, I had to reread a lot of sections to truly understand what his contributions are. I think that some of the wording could be changed to make the article flow better (mentioned by another reviewer too). 3) Based on how I interpreted it I thought maybe some of the research sections could be combined as well. I think both of those edits would greatly improve the overall clarity of the section.

I did really like how you bulleted the awards and honors, as it was very clear and easy to see chronologically. Great work overall!!

HannahPNeuro (talk) 01:00, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Primary Review
Hello! The article was well-written, and with a few minor edits (like breaking up some longer sentences), the reader will easily understand without having any sort of scientific background. I think focusing on the research section of the article and really taking the time to parse down some of the longer sentences and clarify pronouns to remove ambiguity will greatly increase the readability of the article.

If there was a way to expand upon the first three sections of the article, providing more of a background for Mendell, I think the article would greatly improve. If sources are sparse, I agree with the other primary reviewer that these sections could be condensed. One way of possibly expanding the education section is to talk about what his thesis dissertation was at MIT if there is a way of finding that information, or possibly noting his advisor in the process. It’s noted that Mendell received many awards and achievements, and I think these could be listed in a separate section as well to add to the article (especially since that first source has the awards listed out).

This next comment is a bit nit-picky, but I would be extremely careful about stating that a study was conducted at a specific time— instead, published might be a better word (specifically referring to the July 2011 research study).

One thing that I noticed when conducting the verification of a source used (I looked at the fifth source listed) was the similarity in language between the source itself and the Wikipedia article. For example, from the source “… they noticed that when a peripheral nerve was stimulated at sufficient intensity to activate C-fibres, repetition of the fixed stimulus at low frequencies resulted in a progressive build-up in the amplitude of the response…” is very similar to what is written on the page. If there was another way to describe this concept, I think it would benefit the comprehension of the reader (and also help avoid plagiarism). I do love how the source is a review of the work done by Mendell. It might be beneficial to the article to include how this research was done while he was at MIT working under Pat Wall (maybe it could even go into the education section!)

Other than those changes, I thought that the article covered a wide range of topics and delved just deep enough into the research without getting too technical. There was no opinionated language, which is awesome, and I can tell that you did a lot of research to cover a wide breadth of resources. If there was any way to obtain a picture from Mendell himself (emailing him might be a great way to do this) as it is noted that there are no public pictures, that would be a great addition.

Muneuro (talk) 03:00, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Reply to review
Hi Muneuro, Thank you very much for taking the time to write a detailed primary review. I appreciate your honesty and suggestions. I did complete a fairly large edit with a lot of sentence restructuring. I hope that this can add to the clarity of the article. Unfortunately, there is not a great deal of information on Mendell aside from the publications he is involved in and little bits of personal information here and there. Hopefully the future brings more info that can be added to strengthen the first few sections. Also, thanks for being meticulous in your review - the nitty gritty details are important! As I did further proof reading, I changed the language we used to describe Mendell's involvement in research (from conducting the study to things along the lines of "contributed to a publication"). I also rephrased the questionable sentence from the source that you verified. I am going to look deeper into how the research was performed and into who Mendell's advisor was to see if there isn't something we can add to bolster this page. We did reach out in an attempt to gather more information and to acquire a picture however we were unsuccessful. Thanks again for the detailed review, your insights and suggestions have been most helpful! All the best, BISCquick (talk) 23:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Secondary Review
Hello! I like the article as a whole, well formatted especially, but I think some of the 1 line sections might be better off as a combined section, unless they can be expanded upon. Z-VanS (talk) 03:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)