User talk:Smcewincarr

Dominance
Kudos for your good work on the Dominance article. Just one quibble: As far as I know, it is not alleles that are dominant or recessive, but phenotypes (see the example I gave on the talk page). Also, (and this is just a small remark, not even a quibble) as a quantitative geneticist, I don't call a situation where the phenotype of a heterozygote is intermediate between the two homozygotes "semidominant". To me, that's "dominance is absent" and "inheritance is completely additive"... :-) Happy somebody is improving this article! It would be great if you could work in some references here and there. Happy editing! --Crusio (talk) 16:32, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi again, have a look at User:Crusio for some helpful tools to generate templated references. I'm not sure about the use of your lecture notes, they would probably no be deemed to be reliable sources. You should have a look at the links in the welcome menu on verifiability, reliable sources, and citing sources. I'm kind of busy at the moment, but let me know if I can help. --Crusio (talk) 17:13, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I've now edited the Dominance article to have a coherent beginning, middle, and end, with cross- and external references. One thing I can't seem to do is edit (eliminate) the first block of material under the main title, which does not have an associated (edit) button, and move my first block upward as the introduction. I suspect this might also jiggle the content box in an unexpected way. How do I edit that first bit?


 * Aha. That'd be the lede. There is no edit button for that bit; there are three possibilities;


 * You can click "edit" at the top - to edit the entire page
 * You can edit another section and 'manually' change the URL; for example, if you edit the 'Dominance: fundamental concepts' section, the URL will be this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dominance_(genetics)&action=edit&section=1


 * ...if you change the number on the end to a zero, and press enter, it'll be the lede

How does one change the name of the entry title?
By way of avoiding starting work on the grant proposal, I edited the article on 'Klinefelter's Syndrome' to correct all instances of Klinefelter's to Klinefelt in conformance with modern practice. (See eg usage in the references). The same should be done, if not already, for such as Down, Turner, Edward, Patau, etc.

I did not find an easy way to change the name of the article itself, which I realizes would have secondary consequences throughout the cross reference system. Is there a general fix for this kind of problem? Smcewincarr (talk) 14:38, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Move lets you 'rename' an article; it's in the little drop-down thingy.  Chzz  ► 14:55, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * P.S. Don't worry about the 'consequences' stuff; it'll leave a redirect from the old title, and a bot will fix things up at some point.  Chzz  ► 14:57, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * In Special:Preferences, Gadgets, User interface gadgets, click the checkbox to "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page.


 * For more help, you can either;


 * Leave a message on my own talk page;
 * Use another here,;
 * Talk to us live, with this or this.


 * Best wishes,  Chzz  ►  18:49, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, the obvious step of looking a little harder for the Edit button at the top of the page worked fine.

Welcome
Welcome to Wikipedia! I noticed in your first edit summary of the article on genetic dominance that you're an experienced professor in the subject matter. As you may be aware, Wikipedia lags behind many other online encyclopedias (e.g. Britannica) in editors with expert knowledge, so your contributions are especially valued. Wikipedia has communities of editors (organized into "WikiProjects") focused on improving important articles in various branches of biology, as well as helping new editors interested in building content. If you haven't done so already, consider taking a look at WikiProject Genetics,  WikiProject Evolutionary Biology, and/or  Wikiproject Molecular and Cellular Biology. Hope to see you around, Emw2012 (talk) 00:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Help with some Wikipedia-related research?
Hi Smcewincarr. My name is Sanjay, and I'm a 1st-year PhD student working on a project aimed at improving the quality of scientific articles on Wikipedia by providing easier access to relevant published refereed articles. I found you on the list of Wikipedians with access to Web of Science and I noticed that you are a professor of Genetics who contributes to those topics in Wikipedia. If you are interested in lending your expertise and advice to this research effort, I have posted a set of questions on my talk page - I would greatly appreciate your taking the time to answer any or all of them. The answers will help inform the design of a tool which I believe will benefit the Wikipedia community. Thanks! Sanjaykairam (talk) 18:32, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Editing Existing Articles

* What are the most common tasks that you perform when editing articles? Are these tasks different for articles on scientific topics than for other types of topics? >Correcting obvious scientific errors in non-authoritative articles. Correcting minor misstatements that I know to be untrue, based on my fund of trivia

* Do you have any specific process that you follow when refining an article? > With respect to articles on genetics, I proceed from my on-line lecture notes and produce a narrative version. It is helpful to do so after delivering the lecture, when my brain cells are appropriately aligned.

* Are there editing/refining challenges which are specific to scientific articles? > It has never been clear to me whether Wikipedia wants in-depth technical articles, or accessible articles a la Britannica. The most common criticism I encounter is that my Wikipedia articles are 'not useful' to laymen

* Do the standards for the quality of a scientific article differ in your mind from those for other types of article?

>I have never started a new article; I have extensively revised existing scientific articles, and having started to do so feel obligated to carry it through to the end.

* When you are writing on a scientific topic, who do you imagine your audience to be? >See above. For articles on genetics, I imagine I am addressing someone in my 2nd year University class.

[edit] Adding Citations to Scientific Publications

* What is your typical process for adding a citation to a scientific publication? When in the editing lifecycle are you most likely to add such a citation? > I don't over-cite the literature. For general genetics topics, I speak as one with authority. If I wanted to write a review article, I would do it for a peer-reviewed journal and not Wikipedia.

* How do you decide whether to add it as an official reference or put it in another section such as "further reading"? > Same basis as extra links to my teaching webpage: if there is an interesting reference that will clarity the main article, I cite it.

* When adding an in-line citation to a published article, are you more likely to find the publication first and then look for a way to cite it or to look for a publication that supports a claim made in the article text? > The latter. I am trying to clarify, rather than prove.

* How do you find these sources? Can you describe the process that you use to search for these sources? > In my noodle.

* How do you measure the relevance of cited articles? How do you measure the importance of these articles? And how do you balance these two to decide which to add. > Based on 33 years of University teaching, I do it by instinct.

* How do you address published articles which contain conflicting information? > "that contain". Whether there are differences of opinion or interpretation, cite both. Where there is an error of fact, correct it (e.g., 'Dominance' is a relationships between allele pairs, not phenotypes, irrespective of what somebody thinks or was taught incorrectly.   * What is the biggest obstacle for finding good published articles as sources to include? >Time. Wikipedia is not a priority [edit] Requirements for a System for Suggesting Publications to Cite > General response: Wikipedia is not a peer-reviewed journal, nor an online-publication. Excessive effort taken to make it appear otherwise is misspent. Smcewincarr (talk) 19:06, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I have proposed that Hyperphenylalanemia be merged into Phenylketonuria. The underlying metabolic errors are the same, only varying in degree, and the classification schemes are far from settled. I believe that discussion of either one isolated from the other is less illuminating, and that it means an extensive duplication of discussion of the metabolism with updates possibly resulting in internal contradictions.Novangelis (talk) 15:12, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I support the merger. A combined discussion would simplify my discussion in 'Dominance' Smcewincarr (talk) 17:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I plan to leave the discussion open for the full week unless there is overwhelming support. I'll try not to collide with your work after the move and restrict myself to modest housekeeping changes for the first few days.Novangelis (talk) 17:35, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J1_(Y-DNA)
Please review the map, the work of Tofanelli et al, Hassan et al, and comment in the discussions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HG_J1_(ADN-Y)

http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/AJHG_2004_v74_p1023-1034.pdf http://ychrom.invint.net/upload/iblock/94d/Hassan%202008%20Y-Chromosome%20Variation%20Among%20Sudanese.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC384897/figure/FG1/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_J1_(Y-DNA)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Haplogroup_J1_(Y-DNA)

John Lloyd Scharf 09:19, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

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Notes to self regarding sections to be edited, last updated March 2015
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Article on Trofim Lysenko includes a large bolus of revisionism that presents his pseudo-scientific claims as fact, also neglects entire history between 1935 and 1948 when he did his worst damage. I am preparing a lecture for my Advanced Genetics course on the period, and will update as that material matures.

I was reviewing my course notes on Eugenics, sliding from the humorous (CB Davenport's 1919 study of heredity in naval officers, which is not cited) into the dangerous. I hadn't realized that Davenport was an active idiot rather than a merely passive one. On review of the Life article cited for his attack on Goebbels, it is equally clear that he also attacks President Roosevelt as a cripple, where Goebbels and Roosevelt are alike in overcompensating their physical limitations by becoming leaders who tax and spend.

I'll go back and edit the Davenport entry when I have time.