Talk:Alcoholic polyneuropathy

message: http://www.emedicine.com/pmr/topic9.htm ranks #1 on Google for "Alcoholic polyneuropathy"NumberOneGoogle 18:48, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

message: First of all let me say "Wow": this article has made a great improvement. Did anybody of the editors have experience as an editor?, because there are almost none of the usual initial mistakes...
Now some fast comments for further improvements (for the moment centred over format)
*Take a look to User talk:NeuroJoe/BI481 Spring 2011. I have posted there some common mistakes in beginners. Some are present in the article. (Detailed some below)
*There should not be space after the full stop and before the citation
*Titles in subsections should not be reduntant with the section title: instead of "sensory sympmtoms" the title would better be simply "sensory" since the title of the section is already "signs and symptoms" and so on (also occurs in management).
*In see also section there should not be articles that have already appeared and linked in the article: Policy is that when a link already appears in the article it should not appear also in the see also section. In this sense "see also" is the place for connected links not mentioned in text: In this case most of the articles linked in the see also section already appear in the article.
*Since alcoholic gastritis is linked but there is no article for it it would be a good idea to give a short explanation (a line) explaining its meaning.
*Lots of too technical language over the article that should be toned down: An example:An energy deficiency in Schwann cells would account for the disappearance of myelin on peripheral nerves seen in this disease. In peripheral nerves, oxidative enzyme activity is most concentrated around nodes of Ranvier and these locations may be most vulnerable to cofactor deprivation, reducing myelin impedance, causing current leakage and slowing transmission. Disruptions in conductance first affect the peripheral ends of the longest and largest peripheral nerve fibers since the integrity of the body depends on consistent axonal flux. Neural deterioration occurs at an accelerating rate since myelin damage reduces conductance and reduced conductance contributes to myelin degradation. Slowed conduction due to nodal disturbances causes segmental demyelination extending proximally, also known as retrograde degeneration. Do you think an average first year university student would understand anything?
*Differentiation between sensory and motor symptoms is good if sections are going to be expanded. If not they are too short and might be better to eliminate subsections and have all info inside the same section.
More to come as I have time. Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 10:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Some fast comments

message: Thank you for the helpful tips! We are first time editors so even the small things help us out. 
I've made the changes for all of the things you suggested so far except for the technical language issues-my group plans to meet tonight to go over the article and fix that up as well as add a few more things to sections that are still lacking important information.
If you have any more suggestions as we continue the work on the article they would be much appreciated.
Thanks again! Tbaril52 (talk) 13:49, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem... I plan to follow all your class articles and make comments on them both on content and format. --Garrondo (talk) 14:47, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Thanks

message: I have taken a look at the sources you use: There is a mixture of high and medium quality sources: In my opinion
Best source: Koike H and Sobue G (2006): A recent review in the issue in a peer reviewed journal: This should be a great source. Anything sourced to any other of the sources if backed up by this one should be better sourced to this one.
Reviews, but quite old: Mawdsley C and Mayer RF (1965), Shields, Jr., RW (Mar/Apr 1985): Not bad for basic facts, but very old. 
Not peer reviewed: emedicine, medline: They are not peer reviewed but are reliable websites, at least for the most basic facts.
All other: Seem primary sources: Take a look to WP:MEDRS: should be used with great care, avoided if possible and when used always making clear that they are primary (e.g: a genetic study reported..., in a clinical trial patients...)
In summary: you only have one "ideal" source, several suitable for basic facts, and some primary that might be better avoided. At this point (beginning of the project, but with the outline of the article written) it may be a good idea to search for some high quality sources to back up content. Maybe a search in google books would yield some result.
Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 07:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Article would be better eliminating those primary sources, however, there are many other things that can also be improved. Therefore what I would do is to try to substitute them with the secondary sources as the article is improved: to improve the article you would most probably re-read the existing secondary sources and read new ones; if you notice that any line of the article can be referenced with these secondary sources go ahead, add it and eliminate the primary one. --Garrondo (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I also want to add that work over this article is being quite impressive and interaction with editors greater than in other articles. Feedback such as the one above after a review is most welcomed. Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 10:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments on quality of sources

message: Now that you have written most of the article it would be great to add some images. Any image found in commons can be directly added to the article. If you do not find suitable images there, there are other (more complicated) possibilities.--Garrondo (talk) 07:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Images?

message: *Another way of aiming to a general audience is to use as less as possible the word "patient", since it is considered that such term is more appropiate in medical language. Since talking about a disease to eliminate it completely is impossible. However it is usually a good idea to alternate it with "individuals", "individuals/those/subjects/people with polyneuropathy". In other cases the term can be simply eliminated. Take a look if you have time to Parkinson's disease, an article that was very recently promoted to Featured article and in which I was the main editor to get a gist of this kind of editing.
*When everybody writes an article it is common to overuse the article title (in this case alcoholic polyneuropathy). However in most cases it is clear that we are referring to it. When I finish an article I search for the title all over the article and in each occasion I rethink if it is really necessary or it can be eliminated. You would probably be surprised by the number of times it is uselessly used.
:The sensory symptoms are just manifestations of paresthesias so we did change the beginning of that paragraph. We also went through and changed a lot of the "patient" uses to other words. We did the same with "alcoholic polyneuropathy" but it was a bit more difficult-so if you think we should remove some more of those (or have suggestions on how to) let us know. Thanks! Tbaril52 (talk) 03:56, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No need. It is much better now. I have been bold and added another image to the history section. If you do not think it is appropiate you can eliminate it. --Garrondo (talk) 06:34, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: More general comments

message: *Are we sure that impotence only occurs in men? As an educated guess: I do not think that having paresthesias would leave indifferent women...
*difficulty swallowing: how about a link to dysphagia?
*speech impairment: how about a link to disarthria?
*sufferer: many people think it is even worse word than patient. I would rather use individual or patient.
*may also show other clinical features: it may be more correct to say "may also show other related disorders. Since Wernicke-korsakoff is a clinical syndrome.
--Garrondo (talk) 06:47, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem: Interaction with motivated editors is one of the most rewarding experiences in WP, and the work you are doing is great.--Garrondo (talk) 07:18, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Signs and symptoms-motor

message: *and they therefore can go for long periods of time without consuming normal foods. Sentence may be misleading to a non expert: it almost sounds as if "alcohol is better: you do not need to eat because it has many calories...". I would add a sentence on why not consuming normal foods is a problem. 
*I do not know if you have seen anything (in sources) on the social aspect of alcoholism as a aggravating risk factor. Alcoholism may also result in loss of appetite, alcoholic gastritis, and vomiting, which decrease food intake is obviously true but I would think that also an alcoholic is less likely due to his addiction to prepare fresh, rich foods, go in an ordered way to the supermarket... If you have a source for it it might be worth adding a line.--Garrondo (talk) 07:27, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Causes-nutritional

message: More in this section is related to saying why it is not probable in comparison to the previous one. Taking into account that most of the time both theories (nutrition or toxic effect) are touced together and that both sections are quite short it might be a good idea to combine them together into a sole section.--Garrondo (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have addressed the issues in the nutritional and alcohol sections. I have also combined them-I agree they are too short to really stand on their own and there is overlap between them as well. I also took out the wine sentence, again I agree that since it is only a primary source it's not very reliable because it is more hypothetical. I found another source and added in a bit on the social aspect of alcoholism. I also removed some of the Vittadini, do you think I should take out more and try to find other sources to cover that? Thanks for the input! Tbaril52 (talk) 23:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well done, it looks much better now. I have nevertheless summarized a bit the social issues to the most relevant point and fully reordered the section into a what I think is a more logical organization. I hope you like it.--Garrondo (talk) 07:13, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Regarding Vittadini: I have taken the ref from the lead (it is usually not neccesary to cite refs in the lead). That leaves only two uses of the source along the article and the two of them for quite general statements. I think it is a reasonable use of the source.--Garrondo (talk) 07:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I have also eliminated the heavy metal line in the lead since now it does not appear anymore in the body of the section.--Garrondo (talk) 07:18, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Alcohol's toxic effect

message: This is usually one of the most complicated sections to make accesible. However this is reason to have extra care when writting it. I believe accesibility can be improved:
*beginning with segmental thinning and loss of myelin on the peripheral ends of the longest nerves: This sentence should be expanded. What does segmental thinning mean? what does refer to? Why the longest?...Right now it is quite obscure.
*A link to carbohydrate and metabolic?
*ATP: at no point in the article it is specified what does this abbreviation refer to.
*A link to conductance?
*This results in damage to or loss of nerve function seen in this disease: isn't something missing in the sentence? damage to what?.--Garrondo (talk) 12:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi we've fixed your suggestions, the Schwann cell sentence was pretty confusing, does it work better now the way we reworded it? Also, does the clarification for the segmental thinning and longest nerves make sense as well? Thanks!Tbaril52 (talk) 12:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Much, much better. While still a difficult section it is probably as good as it can get.--Garrondo (talk) 07:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: We did some further editing, trying to improve the grammar and the flow of the Pathophysiology section.  Hopefully, it makes some more sense now. Chouda (talk) 22:45, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Pathophysiology

message: Nice job Tess, David and Kelly. The article is in great shape now compared to the starting point. I would have liked to see the research directions section written in the normal style instead of presented as a list, but aside from that very good. NeuroJoe (talk) 19:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Boston College BI481 Project End