User talk:Kyle.wg3139/sandbox

First off, I would like to say I thought you did a great job on this article. Clearly very well researched. Specifically, I thought the 'hypercomplex cell' section was very well done, clear, and thoroughly explained. I also liked how you compared all the cell types to one another throughout. Your use of pictures was very helpful in explaining the concepts and helping my understanding. I also thought the 'other research areas' section was interesting.

Possible areas of improvement:

I found that the encyclopedic tone was lost at some points in an attempt to make more interesting sounding sentences. I enjoyed the writing, but I think some sentences could benefit from being written more simply (especially when explaining the more technical stuff). Specifically I found the simple/complex cells section difficult to understand because a lot of technical jargon was being used all at once. Perhaps adding more links (if they exist) would help, or maybe organizing some of the points into a bulleted list would make it more organized, and easier to understand. Also, I think this section could benefit from adding subheadings of 'simple cells' and 'complex cells', as well as moving the summary table of the cells to the beginning of the section in order to provide a brief overview of all the cells and their characteristics. I also think it could be more related to our class/cognitive science somehow in the article.

Lastly, I think if you change anything, it should be the last paragraph in the simple/complex cell section. I feel like it lost the encyclopedic tone and came across as more of a personal essay type style of writing. Maybe just state that others do not agree with Hubel and Wiesel's explanation, and go on to list the opposing theories. As well, I think elaborating on the alternatives would make the article even less biased, and provide the reader with more information about other competing theories.

Overall, very well done! - Laura Zielinski

I agree with Laura. This is a high-quality article and I think you deserve to be pretty proud of what you've produced.

I really like how you applied the tools of Wikipedia, and I think your choices drastically improved the article. This is where I disagree with Laura the most. Your use of diagrams and captions in particular demonstrates good judgment and technical skill. Each figure was well-placed, well-chosen and delivered the content in an easy-to-understand way. I am especially impressed by the tables and captions you designed, as they are very effective. The only advice I can give is to move the last table to an earlier location.

Your use of hyperlinks was also impressively done. Your topic requires a solid background in sensory/perceptual neurobiology to understand properly, which could have made it hard to condense into a 2000-word article for a general audience without wasting lots of time retreading basic concepts. By linking readers to other articles that explained the background for you, you avoided that problem nicely. I also feel you placed your links at strategic points where the linked articles first became relevant. It would be really helpful, though, if you highlighted terms introduced throughout the article with either italics or bolding.

In general, I find your writing style and word choice to have a professional tone. At the same time, I agree with Laura's criticism; you can afford to use language that is a bit more concise without compromising content or tone. I believe this will make your article much easier to read without compromising either content or tone. Think of your last paragraph; it was brief, but you said a lot in a few words.

Your introduction in particular could be improved with some simplification. I think the first paragraph needs to be stripped down to a very brief definition of the basic features of hypercomplex cells. This will allow readers to get a basic idea of your concept in a very short time if they do not want to delve into details. Later paragraphs can contain a longer summary of your article. In fact, I think your second paragraph is well-written and fulfills that purpose commendably.

I think that your decision to integrate information on theory and history so tightly was an interesting one. This has its advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, it helps the reader to make connections between different pieces of information much more easily. I feel that this makes your article read somewhat like a story, which gives it a continuous flow. This captured my attention and made your article more interesting to read. On the other hand, it might make it a bit harder for a reader to find a specific piece of information if they don't want to read the whole article. The integration of the content also limits the usefulness of your subheadings, since each one covers so much material.

On a slightly related note, delete the "History" subheading under "Background." It is redundant.

That said, I'm definitely impressed by how you organized the information from your references. The connections you made improved the content a lot. It shows that you reviewed them thoroughly, picked out the most important data, from each one and tied them together, rather than just describing them one-by-one (My article was definitely guilty of that).

On the whole, this is a well-written, well-designed article that could be even better with some minor adjustments. Nice work!

- Justin Toh — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheSilentSong (talk • contribs) 02:04, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Peer Review Response

The major criticism I took away from these peer reviews was to simplify some of the content. There were two areas specifically targeted: the introduction and the simple/complex section. With regard, to the latter, I agree that I should edit those sections in an effort to make the article more accessible to readers. My strongest concern was that it may be too difficult and dense for someone unfamiliar with the content to digest. Thus, I have moved the table to the beginning to offer a simple overview and changed the headings as suggested. Also, I added some more links to make the reading easier to understand. Admittedly, it is quite difficult to get the necessary points across without using some technical jargon because this topic is at a more advanced level. I think anyone reading this article would most likely have some cursory neurobiology knowledge. Finally, I changed the last paragraph in the complex section to a bulleted list instead (to avoid using an essay-like tone). I also elaborated on the two alternative schemes and provided a new citation to make the article more well-rounded.

However, pertaining to the introduction, I do not know if reducing its content is a very wise idea. I wanted to write a lead section that provided a comprehensive overview of the material. Also, I did not want to gloss over the defining features of a hypercomplex cell because much of the understanding of hypercomplexity rests upon a solid grasp on the simple and complex cells. These concepts are all very complicated and every time I mention them I attempt to ease the reader into the content. I do this by providing many examples and extending my writing to offer less critical information all at once. In fact, this is something that Laura mentioned earlier (i.e. to not provide a lot of technical jargon all at once). As a result, I left the introduction as it was, and instead edited what seemed like the most difficult section, the simple/complex ones.

To relate this article back to class (as Laura suggested), I have also added a paragraphs about cognitive neuroscience, in which I explain how the phenomenon of change blindness relates to visual processing areas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kyle.wg3139 (talk • contribs) 18:53, 5 April 2013 (UTC)