User talk:SDSChem/sandbox

Polyacetylene Peer Review 1

 * Overall the content regarding poly acetylene has been vastly improved over the previous version of the polyacetylene page. The page contains a large amount of high quality and relevant information without the information being technically overwhelming.  There are a few adjustments that could be made that would improve the quality of the page.

Content

 * Overall the content section contains a lot of new information that elucidates the history, synthesis, and properties of polyacetylene. Each section contains appropriate length, and  the vast majority of the information here is accessible to a non expert reader. There are a few things that could be improved though.
 * In the introduction section of the polyacetylene article the final sentence of the introduction introduces the idea that there are some limitations of polyacetylene preventing their widespread use and production, however this point even though it addressed, the limits and applications could be its own paragraph in and of itself with a figure showing how the oxidation of the fibers happens and the production of the carbonyl, epoxy, or alcohol group.
 * The thoroughness of the synthetic methods could be improved. In synthesizing polyacetylene via the ROMP method there are some advantages versus synthesiszing polyacetylene from acetylene such as, avoiding the violent polymerization process from pure polyacetylene.
 * The doping and properties section seem pretty good with a lot of good and relevant information there, however when you discuss the differences in conductivity between cis and trans type poly acetylene why is there a 4 order of magnitude difference, and does this carry over to once the various polyacetylene molecules are doped? In addition how prevalent is the cross-linking in the polyacetylene fibers? Does the cross-linking depend on the structural isomer?
 * The history section has a vast array of information attached to it, this entire section should be relocated to the top of the paragraph as the paragraph introduces many of the ideas discussed in the article. In additions some figures would improve this section of the article, such as cuprene?  In addition this section discusses that shirikawa worked on ways to further improve the conductivity, could you elaborate in the history section one or two of the methods he went on to develop to improve the conductivity?  Finally the history has some limits of polyacetylene applicability, these limitations seems to be in multiple paragraph throughout the article, removing the duplicate phrasing would help the cohesiveness of the article.

Figures

 * The figures could use some improvement. In the Durham synthesis please replace the delta with heat, as many non scientific users would most likely be confused by the delta sign for heat. In addition the size is too small to clearly make out the identity of some of these pictures, re-sizing some of the images would help readers out. For the Grubbs synthetic route, if the various R groups that have been studdied, or even just a few different identifiable R groups would help clarify to a non-chemist reader that R could be a variety of groups.  For the cis and trans isomers could you re-do these images in a 3-D model program such as, avagadro, to allow for some image variety.  Please ensure that the chemdraw images are all aligned and centered relative to one another.
 * In addition a cuprene image would improve your history section as that was the first iteration of polyacetylene.

Refereces

 * There are at least 10 novel references present, however a vast majority of the references are technical journals, some non jornal sources would help. In addition a lot of resources present come from the Heeger, Shiriakawa, MacDiarmid group.

Overall Presentation

 * Overall the article represents a good start. The major concepts are all linked to their respective wikipedia page.  The content provides a thoughtful background to polyacetylene and a sufficient introduction to its synthesis and properties.  In addition the figures support the structure and synthetic scheme of polyacetylene very well.  Some areas for improvement include reorganizing the page so that the introduction leads into the history, which can then lead into the structure and properties of polyacetylene, as the current organization is a bit confusing. Some of the figures present in the article are rather confusing and could use additional clarification, such as identifying the R groups in the Durham synthetic scheme, and replacing the delta with "heat" in order to keep the figures accessible to everyone. In addition possibly incorporating the applications and limitations of polyacetylene such as its stability into its own section would be a good transition doped properties from  Finally a chem draw representation of cuprene, or some image of a heavily cross-linked polyacetylene would add a lot to visualizing early polyacetylene. In addition read through the content to remove duplicate phrasing such as the limits of polyacetylene being in both the history, properties, and doping.  A significant amount of your references are from Shirakawa, and Heeger who won the Nobel prize, diversifying your references to include additional authors wouldnt be a bad idea.  Finally check the language and grammar to ensure the article meets wikipedia's standards.Asimov1951 (talk) 00:06, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Peer Review 2
Overall, I really liked the page.

Content
The sections are comprehensive and of good length. The chemistry is accurate as far as I can tell. The pages and items that need linked are generally done. It would be good to add a link to cis/trans as it is used often and also, is a fairly important concept for the article. The examples are very nice and well discussed. They supplement the material very well to aid in understanding. I poked around a bit on Wikipedia and the material seems to be specific to the page and the only stuff that does appear elsewhere is necessary to be in multiple places.
 * Introduction- The introduction is very thorough, but too dense for an introduction. It would be best to break up the content into another section with the introduction only being about 6 sentences. A lot of the material in the first paragraph relates to doping so maybe move that material to Doping subsection. The second paragraph, though informative, could be trimmed down in the Introduction and the rest moved elsewhere.
 * Synthesis- Outlining the various synthetic routes was good, but I also think it would be useful to more clearly state why some of the methods are more advantageous than others. I do see that you did it for the ROMP section, but adding a sentence or two to the other two sections would make it more clear why there have been multiple methods developed.
 * Properties- This was a really interesting section. I'm not sure if all of these properties and their origin have been thoroughly investigated, but some additional chemistry would be good. Maybe what sort of reactions are occurring when the PA is exposed to air.
 * History- I thought this was thorough and interesting. The flow is a bit odd, mainly due to were paragraph breaks occurred. Just give it another read before publishing the site.

Figures
There are many new figures added that are informative and support the ideals presented in the text. They are easy to read once clicking the link. I would suggest making some of the items as centered and larger instead of thumbnails. Here is the general format to center and enlarge your pictures: (take out the "'s and replace the info in the *'s to use it on your Wikisite) you can change the 2.5 to get the size you want. Also some of the figures span two sections. You can fix this by pasting picture links at the end of a paragraph instead of at the end of the section. It might be nice if the Doping section and History had a small picture to break up the text. The “Durham precursor polymer” picture is a bit odd. It would be best to try and put the bonds in back as broken up instead of the bonds in front. Also, the original page had a pretty nice picture that could definitely be used again.

Overall Presentation
Overall, I actually enjoyed reading the page, which in itself says something about the quality. I thought the material was well presented and also at a level that was appropriate for anyone coming to this page (people with at least basic chemistry knowledge). The page was well linked for any non-science people making it a great Wikipedia resource. I also learned quite a bit about PA and was entertained throughout (History was one of my favorite sections and I liked the properties and learning that the different structures actually are visually different). The content is great. A few changes should be made to really polish up the page. There were a few awkward phrasings that were ultimately okay, but could be improved by reading through it again before putting the site live. Adding a few more references that the general public can easily access would also be really helpful and make the page more impactful. A little rearranging needs to be done with both the pictures and content to make the page flow better and more visually appealing to draw in a person just browsing the page. In general, the page was greatly improved and really interesting. 5402013SD (talk) 02:51, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Instructor Comments
The peer reviewers did a good job overall. I agree that the intro is too dense and too long and that the figures need to be larger, and consistently placed in the text. I agree with most, if not all, of the peer reviewers comments. I look forward to seeing the revised site! UMChemProfessor (talk) 22:11, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions from ChemLibrarian
Nice additions to the article. A few suggestions here.
 * I agree that the History section should be moved to the first or second section in the article.
 * Sources cited could be more diverse. E.g. When Nobel prize is mentioned, citing the Nobel prize site may be better than just citing an article.
 * To re-arrange the pictures under the synthesis section, please see Picture tutorial for different location and size changes you can make.

ChemLibrarian (talk) 15:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Response to Reviewer 1
All sentences discussing the potential applications and limitations of polyacetylene have been moved to a paragraph in the “Properties and Applications of Polyacetylene” section. We also added a figure to this section so that the products of oxidation can be visualized. We expanded the synthesis discussion and added more detail to the discussion of the ROMP method, including more information about the R groups. We also edited the figures based on the reviewer's suggestions. A few sentences have been added to the properties and doping sections to further elaborate on the differences between cis and trans isomers. We added a statement concerning the characterization of polyacetylene specifically in terms of the extent of cross-linking. We had difficulty in finding data on the extent of cross-linking in polyacetylene; we believe that this characterization might be difficult due to the insolubility of this polymer in most solvents. Again, we did not include a figure of the structure of cuprene for the same reason. A few sentences were also added to the comment about Shirakawa’s future work in the history section to elaborate on what was already written. A ball-and-stick figure of the isomers of polyacetylene was also added to both add variety to the types of figures we used as well as give a better visual for the page. We added a few other websites to our references sections. WFurthermore, we believe that many of the articles we already cited (Norden et al and Hall) are very easily accessible to non-scientists. Also, only about half of our references are from Shirakawa, Heeger, or MacDiarmid. While we recognize that this is a significant portion, we chose to focus our page on the history of polyacetylene which will inevitably lead to a lot of citing of these scientists who made the most significant impact on the field. The page was restructured such that the flow of the text is better, having the history section appear sooner on the page.

Response to Reviewer 2
The introduction has been revised, removing many of the details to further simplify it in an attempt to make it more approachable to a general audience. We added more information about advantages and disadvantages of various synthetic methods, and edited the figures to be clearer. We rephrased our sentences about what happens to polyacetylene when it is exposed to air and linked the appropriate words. We hope that it is more clear how oxidation of polyacetylene occurs and what results. We also added a figure so that the products of oxidation can be visualized. We remade the ball and stick model of polyacetylene that appeared in the original page and incorporated it in our page. We added a few other websites to our references sections, including the suggested source. We’d like to thank our reviewers for the suggestion. We fixed the arrangement of the sections and hope to have alleviated some of the awkward wording present in the site.

Response to Instructor
We have edited the introduction to make it less dense and more approachable to a general audience. We have improved the quality of the figures as well.

Response to ChemLibrarian
We moved the history section to the second section of the site. We would like to thank the reviewer for the suggestion of using the Nobel Prize website as a reference, and we have included that in our final site. We have also improved our figures.