User:76ahundred/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Ectoderm

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
I have taken Human Anatomy & Physiology and Neurobiology courses already in undergrad, so I am somewhat familiar with the function and structure of the ectoderm. I often feel that these sorts of simple concepts are poorly defined, so I decided to investigate the Biology WikiProject and found this page. My initial impression is that the article is of somewhat poor quality, despite being well-structured. I have access to a couple of textbooks to aid my rewrite of this article as well.

Structure & Content
The overall layout of this article is quite good; we have sections on History, Development, and Clinical Significance, akin to the narrow-to-broad approach of an essay. Many sentences are poorly structured, and could use a rewrite. In addition, some statements are imprecise, such as: "the less dorsal ectoderm which surrounds the neuroectoderm". What is the less dorsal ectoderm? What distinguishes it from the more dorsal ectoderm? Is this an active area of research?

Related to this, the links to articles on "medial hinge cells (MHPs)" and "dorsolateral hinge cells (DLHPs)" do not exist. Are these not generally accepted terms, or are they only relevant to the development of the ectoderm? If so, we must define them in this article, which they currently are not. An additional sentence or two could alleviate this problem.

The description of many other processes is poor as well, including gastrulation, which is currently described as: "During the process of gastrulation, a special type of cells called bottle cells invaginates ahole on the surface of the blastula which is called the dorsal lip of the blastopore." This is needlessly longwinded and could be easily made more concise, e.g., "During gastrulation, a special class of cells called bottle cells invaginate on the dorsal surface of the blastula, forming the blastopore."

In addition, from my personal experience, I know that differentiation of the epidermis and neural tissue depends on gradients of signalling factors around the neural plate, and this concept has been poorly alluded to in the article as is. An additional paragraph or so describing the specific signalling molecules and pathways by which they mediate their actions could improve the article. This also has implications for the Clinical Significance section, which currently only contains ectodermal dysplasia.

Citations & Talk Page
Sources in this article are typically cited as needed. There are a few areas in which citation is unclear, or may need to be added. The Talk Page was last updated in 2013, so this is very likely the case. There are a few statements where it is indicated that "it is accepted" without indicating who by, which necessitates a rewrite.

Relating to the nary updated Talk Page, most of the sources for this article are over a decade old. Fortunately none of the links are broken, but a reassessment of the literature is likely called for. I know that details on the process of neurulation could certainly be added, or at least linked to.

The article is at least completely neutral. Some of the language in the Clinical Significance section is in poor taste, but this is likely due to the last editors being students, given the quality of the article overall. It is sometimes unclear whether we are talking about vertebrates or invertebrates specifically, and there is likely a predisposition towards the former. I would have to investigate invertebrate ectoderm more before I commit to an opinion, but this is something I could do when rewriting the article.

Summary
The format of this article is quite good, and the sections naturally follow each other. I would change some of the language used for the headers, as well as the organization of sentences, but much of the article is editable. A complete rewrite for conciseness is likely required. The citations are appropriate, but do need to be supplemented. Given the quality of the article, I would recommend investigating each source independently when rewriting, in order to validate whether the information cited is indeed in the linked article. As this is a low-importance C-Class Biology article, this is not urgent, but given that the ectoderm is such a fundamental concept in anatomy, it does need a rewrite. I would also add on to the clinical significance section, perhaps about disruption of the signalling gradients.