Talk:Myoclonic epilepsy

NOTE I've removed the article text (some of which was copyright copy/paste) from this talk paeg and reformatted the references so they show up here. Please use a sandbox for experimenting with large amounts of article text, rather than the talk page. Copyright text can't appear anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages. Colin°^Talk 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Guys, check your roosevelt email accounts, I figured out referencing and sent you a cheat sheet. VWBeetle23 (talk) 05:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Instructor comments

• Group, you have a nice list of secondary sources of information in your bibliography section
• The section on Lennox-Gestaut syndrome doesn't seem to fit in this article on myoclonic epilepsy. It's appropriate to have a brief reference to this syndrome and to provide a link to its own Wikipedia page. Are textbooks classifying Lennox-Gestaut as a myoclonic epilepsy?
• Your preliminary outline looks like each of you have done a bit of research, which is excellent. More work needs to go into organizing all of this info together into a coherant article. Continue the good work!

Neuropsychprof (talk) 18:01, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

R.EEGbrittry and group, please see this Referencing: Wikicode handout to learn how to cite the same reference multiple times. Neuropsychprof (talk) 15:34, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Schandler91

I think that overall you'll have really great information. The flow of the article is also done really well a lot of useful information. Some sections could have a little more information, but overall Good Job.! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schandler91 (talk • contribs) 17:32, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Smallman12q

• You need to cleanup the formatting of the page.
• Add wikilinks such as to Neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis.

A lot was added, though it needs some cleanup/formatting in order to be properly reviewed. Smallman12q (talk) 23:29, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Peer comments

• Wow, you guys added a lot of new material! I think you might have favored quantity over quality, though. Make sure to proofread everything that goes up; you have multiple misspellings, missing and repeated words, etc. Some of the sentences are even difficult to understand. I know it's a lot of work, but when writing something in a group it's often helpful to either work closely together and really hash everything out so that you all have equal say or designate one person to be in charge of style. It will be a big job to rewrite all of this material so that it doesn't read like it is written by three different people in three different sections in the time we have left in the semester, so I might suggest that you pare down your length quite a bit. The formatting of your contributions needs to be consistent, your attention to detail needs to be consistent, and your style of citation needs to be consistent.
• In the overview paragraph of the 'Progressive myoclonic epilepsy' section, there is a parenthetical reference to WebMD. This is a very unreliable source to use, and it certainly isn't peer-reviewed. Also, it doesn't appear on your reference list. What's going on?
• Going from what you wrote about Lennox-Gestaut syndrome -- that it presents with myoclonic seizures only 30% of the time -- I agree with Neuropsychprof that you go into disproportionate (and unnecessary) depth about the syndrome. As the author of that section seems most in command with Wikipedia formatting procedures, perhaps he or she should be a leader in getting the article formatted in an acceptable manner. Right now, you seem to be confused about what belongs on your talk page (banners, comments, etc.) and what belongs on your article page (only the article content and references). Also note that because your references are not in the correct format, Wikipedia's automated systems believe that the article has no references. I repeat that fixing all of this will be a big job. It might be more approachable if you revise so that you have a total of 6-8 paragraphs (including, perhaps, a more fleshed-out overview paragraph at the very beginning) with only around 20 references.
• In formatting your article, pay attention to other Wikipedia articles of the same type. As I understand it, Wikipedia generally favors prose over bullet points or lists. Make sure that your headings aren't redundant, are capitalized correctly, and are somehow set apart from the rest of the text. Placing an equals sign on either side of the heading will give you a nice bold font and a line underneath the heading. To indicate levels of organization, add more equals signs. Right now, I'm typing under a heading with three equals signs on either side of it. Find formatting you like and take a look at the edit page of the article to figure out what was done.
• You have done a lot, but I think that some of your accomplishments were misdirected. You have a good deal of work left. I know it's the third time I'm saying this, but please consider cutting some of your content in addition to reducing the size of the Lennox-Gestaut syndrome section. If you do that, I think you can afford to take the time to make the article of higher quality. Shorter, but better!
• Sorry to have been so critical!

FutureSocialNeuroscientist (talk) 02:32, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'm back, and apologize for being a big pain in the neck. Now I'm going to pick on content a bit. You have a section on progressive myoclonic epilepsy, so would it be appropriate to have a section on juvenile myoclonic epilepsy as well? Is the content actually there and I just missed it because there wasn't a heading? If that's the case, then you're golden. That's it! :)

FutureSocialNeuroscientist (talk) 02:39, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Critique

This article is very nice laid out maybe your group could add some more secondary sources, the ones you have are great, but it would hurt to add so more. The content is a bit lengthy, but overall it covers the bases, and organized detail jtrice11 (talk)

Peer critique

• In the first paragraph first word in the third sentence has to be capitalized: " Myoclonic jerks are....."
• The organization of the article does not seem to respect the Wikipedia formatting.
• The section “What is myoclonus?” – does not seem to me to be appropriate for an encyclopedia format (to state a question openly, and then answer it). Also in this paragraph you state that “….can be classified physiologically as epileptic and nonepileptic”. While you explain the epileptic part, the non epileptic is not addressed at all afterwards.
• Maybe you would want to consider inserting the “etiology” section as second section. I think the article will flow better that way.
• I can tell you worked very hard on putting this article together. MariusCuciulan 69.38.189.54 (talk) 18:22, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

peer comments

A lot of good information. You really beefed up the sections!

The only thing that really jumped out at me is the format. Is there a reason why it was done this way?

I would suggest cleaning up the format and adding them in as sections (with the bold title and everything)

It gives a cleaner appearance, and it will have a better flow.

maybe a little more on treatment can be added

ALSO, FutureSocialNeuroscientist has a lot of great suggestions!

good luck peers

(ThatsSoAleks (talk) 16:51, 30 October 2012 (UTC))

Big problems with this article

There are some serious problems with this article. It may be best to revert to this version even though that is very short.

• The text on "The Myoclonic Epilepsies" is appropriate for this article but unfortunately is essentially a 100% copy/paste of the text of Wyllie, Elaine (2006). The Treatment of Epilepsy. Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins. ISBN 0-7817-4995-6.. It needs to be completely removed, I'm afraid. Another attempt could be made to expand this article but much more care needs to be made to avoid plagairism. Generally, it is best to work from several sources. Unless the editor is also a subject-expert, the resulting text is necessarily going to be a condensed version of the sources. Please see Wikipedia:Plagiarism.

• The text on Lennox–Gastaut syndrome doesn't belong here at all. This is a different syndrome. We already have an article on this: Lennox–Gastaut syndrome.

• The text on Progressive Myoclonic Epilepsy also doesn't belong here, in anything like this much detail. We already have an article on this: Progressive myoclonus epilepsy. This article is on myoclonic epilepsies in general, and would only briefly mention the characteriscs of the PME group. See Wikipedia:Summary style for the approach to follow with a hierarchy of articles. I note that this text has made some attempt to rewrite the source material and avoid plagiarism. Perhaps the authors could use their sources to improve the related appropriate articles, if there is material not already present in them.

I think it is possible to expand this article from the tiny stub it was, using sources that discuss the myoclonic epilepsies in general, keeping in mind the Wikipedia:Summary style advice. Wikipedia is a hyperlinked encyclopaedia so we don't expect all the information on a subject to be contained in one article page. Text should draw on several sources as that makes it much easier to write a substantial amount of text in one's own words. The sources used, particularly the textbooks, are absolutely fine.

I suggest the students working on this page contact their teacher for advice on how to proceed. You are also welcome to ask for help with Wikipedia on my talk page or at WT:MED. Regards, Colin°^Talk 09:32, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I have decided that the best approach is to revert. The previous text is available here. Please note that attempting to re-insert copyright text is a serious offence. The other text, which is not a copyright problem, may contain material that can go elsewhere on Wikipedia. I may have a chance to look into that later sometime, if nobody else does. However, I felt keeping it on this page would confuse readers, as the subjects are adequately covered in their own articles: Lennox–Gastaut syndrome and Progressive myoclonus epilepsy. Colin°^Talk 09:40, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

(e/c) I concur with your reversion. I am unclear exactly which sections are copy-vio's but they should be removed from this talk page as well.
Personally, I think the entire duplicate article should be removed from the talk-page. Arjayay (talk) 09:45, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I've removed that too. It is all present in the history should someone need to look at it. Colin°^Talk 09:57, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Instructor recommendations to "Big problems with this article"

Group, I agree with Colin's decision to revert the article back to its original state due to copyright violation. I'm also thankful for all the helpful feedback from both online editors and peer reviewers. I offer this solution: Because there are already existing independent articles on some of the topics you've undertaken (Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, progressive myoclonic epilepsy) as well as some related topics (myoclonus, juvenile myoclonic epilepsy), your article should summarize and clarify some main points while clarifying the relationship between these related articles. For example, clarify the relationship between myoclonus, myoclonic seizures, and myoclonic epilepsy. Within the myoclonic epilepsy section, you can make brief references/summaries of epilepies that are related to myoclonic epilepsy (e.g., juvenile myoclonic epilepsy, progressive myoclonic epilepsy). Lennox-Gastaut seems to be its own syndrome although your textbook classifies it under myoclonic epilepsy. If you include it in your article, it seems like you also need to include other syndromes that also have unpredictable repeated myoclonic seizures as part of its syndrome. I don't know what they are; you'll need to dig to find out. Throughout this new article that you will write from scratch, you want to provide wikilinks to these other articles and summarize them them in very concise way. I think you can achieve this in 4-6 short paragraphs. Neuropsychprof (talk) 14:07, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

The Progressive myoclonus epilepsy article is quite a good example of summary-style where it gives an overview of a topic and summaries of each sub-topic, each of which have their own article. So that style might be appropriate to copy.

I'm just a layperson with an interest in epilepsy. I have a copy of "Epilepsy: A Comprehensive Textbook" by Engel, et al. and "Epilepsy (Oxford Specialist Handbooks in Neurology)" by Alarcon et al. I have very limited journal access. Since this article isn't about one well-defined disorder, but rather a classification of a group of disorders, one needs to be careful to use up-to-date sources when dealing with this classification. The ILAE periodically update their classifications of epilepsy syndromes. We should aim to be current with our classifications too. As the understanding of genetic disorders improves, some disorders are merged or separated or renamed. It can get very confusing. It is worth searching for recent journal articles by the ILAE folk where they outline the latest classifications.

My understanding of LGS is that it is a varied syndrome with multiple seizure types, some of which are myoclonic. If I get time, I will check with my sources to see how they classify this wrt myoclonic epilepsy.

Whoever did the LGS section appeared to be making a good effort to write in their own words, though probably limited by using just a couple of sources. It isn't easy, particularly if one isn't already an expert and one is concerned that using a different word will change the meaning. It is much easier to be original when summarising a source or several sources. Since Wikipedia is for a general audience, some of the text in textbooks is at too expert a level (so might not be appropriate) or needs rephrased to make it understandable. The science of genetics, proteins and cells can be impenetrable. These pages may be read by medical students but may also be read by the parents of a child newly diagnosed or their school teacher. Good luck. Colin°^Talk 14:47, 31 October 2012 (UTC)