Talk:Spastic quadriplegia

note

This topic is being edited as an assignment in an undergraduate neurobiology course. The course is participating in the Wikipedia Education Program. The revised article will be posted by March 22, 2013. Please leave any comments on sources or information you would like to see on this topic. Andersonmatt1125 (talk) 02:13, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Goal of our contributions to the article: There was a decent amount of secondary review information available regarding spastic quadriplegia, so our goal was to give an overview of the most important aspects of the disease. Arakdpr (talk) 16:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review

Very good article overall. I would suggest that when talking about the causes- you number them in the first paragraph and then have the subsequent paragraphs that describe the respective causes correspond. I think it might help it to read more smoothly. --LDNeurobio (talk) 04:07, 30 March 2013 (UTC)LDNeurobio

Secondary review

Overall I think that it is a very good article. There is clearly a lot of information that can be talked about and I think you did a good job of picking out what was important.

I think it would be a good idea to add a brief summary at the top of the article page to give the reader a little preview of what the topic is. The only other thing is that I feel that the flow of the article is a little disjointed. It seems like the whole article is in bullet form without that format. The information is clearly there, but it doesn't flow together very well. Dotterson (talk) 17:14, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review

As a whole the article is well written and full of information, but there were a few errors that could be improved upon.

First of all there are just some word errors and spelling errors, which just a read through would fix. Under the medical definition section between the first and the third paragraphs I felt as though I was reading the same thing. Also the testing and diagnosis section just felt a bit choppy and not very fluent. Earlier in the article it was mentioned that genetics could be a possible cause but then under risk factors it was not mentioned. Would putting the symptoms earlier in the article make more sense? When thinking about flow of the article, just think more about sequencing and order. Otherwise very nice article. Ckbiology (talk) 01:08, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Peer Review

1. Instead of a “Notes” section change this to a “Reference” section because near the bottom of your article there is a box which states: “This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.”
2. Reordering the sections may be helpful in better organizing the article. For example, “Symptoms” maybe should go before “Causes” to clarify what the disorder may look like or the characteristics the person may present if they have this disorder.
3. There are some sentences which lack punctuation marks at the end of the sentence. Fixing these small errors will make the article look more professional.

Overall, the article was well written and each section was well organized. The language used in the article flowed, so it did not seem like the article was written by multiple parties. The sections were well broken up so that a wide range of topics was covered but at the same time necessary information was presented. At times, however, if felt like I was re-reading the same information (i.e. the fact that spastic quadriplegia is a subtype of cerebral palsy -- this is mentioned several times throughout the article). One other portion which I was confused on was the "Side Effects" section because it talked about the signs and characteristics of a person with spastic quadriplegia and how one may acquire the disorder. The information in this section is important to the article, however, changing the section heading is needed; change the section heading to something like "Other Complications," for example. The use of linking pages was very well executed in the article. Again, overall, the article was well organized and the information presented was informative and concise. Isetem13 (talk) 02:00, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review

This is a well written article overall. The wording is very clear and easy to follow for anyone without medical knowledge. There are a few minor grammatical errors, especially in the medical definition section. Also, this section repeated itself quite a bit. The last sentence in this section sounds a bit out of place. It could possibly be eliminated by incorporating "muscle spasticity" as a link in the first paragraph.

I would suggest putting the History section later in the article since readers are usually looking for a definition first when they come to the page.

Lastly, to help the flow of the article a little it might help to combine some of the small one sentence paragraphs into bigger ideas. I really liked the clarity of the article overall though. Good job! 8712NeuroBio (talk) 02:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review

This is my peer edit review of the article going according to the guidelines for a good article on Wikipedia.

1) This article is well written it complies with the manual style guidelines. There were a few issues with grammar and coherence. For starts the medical definition section should possibly come before the history. Readers like to get right to the point when looking on Wikipedia. There was also a lot of unnecessary use of the word “also” throughout the article. Some areas that could be looked over include:

-In the history section where it says “His work on the disease was so groundbreaking that it was first known as Little's Disease” a possible change could be "Due to his groundbreaking work, the disease was firstly named Little’s disease."

-On the first line of the medical definition section there should be an “is” after the comma.

- In the causes section there should be a colon after “quadriplegia” instead of a period where is says “there are four types of brain damage that can cause spastic quadriplegia. Damage to the white matter, etc…

- In the symptoms section the sentence that says “ It can be detected due to the abnormal development of motor skills, and symptoms can present themselves as early as three months and are generally seen before the child reaches two years of age” can possible be split into two sentences with a period after “motor skills”.

2) The article is verifiable and contains a list of references with inline citations from reliable sources. It appears to contain no original research.

-I also checked the source (http://www.marchofdimes.com/baby/birthdefects_cerebralpalsy.html). It qualifies as a secondary source and was published by a major health organization. The source was correctly cited in the article and did not misinterpret the source.

3) The article is broad in its coverage although were some areas that could be possible revised or even omitted. These include:

- In the Medical definition section, the sentence beginning in “in summation” sounds repetitive. The fact that is also a subset of cerebral palsy can be added to the first paragraph.

- The first two sentences of the side effects could possibly be omitted. They don’t really speak on side effects.

4) The overall article is neutral. Each author should read through the whole article to make sure they are not repeating information.

5) The article is stable.

6) The article is properly illustrated, by an image on at the beginning of the article.MinnieMee (talk) 02:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Response: We all re-read the article aloud and corrected the grammatical errors we found. We also reorganized the sections in a more logical order, combining the introduction and history section. The in summation section was removed from the medical definition section and the first two sentences of side effects which discussed the age of onset were relocated to the diagnosis and treatment section. Arakdpr (talk) 17:44, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary Review

Overall, This article was well written and very easy to follow. The information provided was presented in such a way where the reader would be able to understand the overall concept of Spastic quadripelgia. However, there were sections of this article where information was too repetitive. There were a few grammatical errors throughout the article such as adding an "and" to the third sentence in the "Causes" paragraph. By adding this change in as well as making that sentence a complete sentence, the article will flow better and allow for the reader to go through the article without any hesitation. I feel that it would better benefit the flow of the paragraph if certain sections were rearranged. For example, after the "Causes" paragraph, it would be more logical to have the "Symptoms" paragraph come afterwards followed by "Risk Factors" and "Testing and Diagnosis". Having the symptoms paragraph along with the risk factors paragraph would create a build of information for the Testing and Diagnosis section. Dkoallpro (talk) 03:00, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review

Well Written

I think that the medical definition and history should be swapped. I think if people are looking up this disease to find out what it is, they are not going to want to scroll past the history.

Also, in the Medical Definition section the different types of Spastic triplegia, dipelegia, ect. are talked about, but if they are not part of quadriplegia then maybe remove that part completely.

The “in summation” paragraph is also too repetitive and probably don’t need to have that since that section should be a general summary of what’s to be covered in later sections.

Here is also some grammar problems or sentences I believe need to be revise:

-and {is} medically defined in 1861 by Dr. William John Little

-It is distinguishable from other forms of "'cerebral palsy'" in that sufferers display stiff, jerky movements, and have hypertonic muscles. – maybe use a different word then “sufferers”

-Muscle tone is sometimes used to make the diagnosis for spastic quadriplegia – reword this part of the sentence

-reflexes include the rooting reflex, the sucking reflex – generally explain what these two reflexes entail in parenthesis

Verifiable with no original research

I noticed a couple of sources were form cerebralpalsy.org, it seems like a good secondary source, but I would advice contacting them to double check. It can’t hurt to be sure and also will also avoid any problems in the future. I know my group had a useful site just like this and we had to email them to make sure, too.

Broad in coverage

The group did a nice job of covering information. However, some sections seemed really detailed compared to others. If there is not enough information for a certain section, maybe state that and talk about possible research that is being developed in helping with this lack of information.

Neutral

The article was definitely neutral all the way through. I could not detect any bias while reading.

Illustrations

I was happy to see you guy include a picture because that can really strengthen an article. However, since the picture is just of the disease founder, another picture should be included of a person suffering from this disease or even a CT/MRI of a person who is suffering from it.

Conclusion

This article is very well written. Aside from some section rearrangements and grammatical changes and adjustments, I believe this article is off to a good start. I would advise emailing about that one broad website that you used to double-check the exact sourcing.

Caseymunger (talk) 05:14, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Reply to review: Thanks for the feedback. We're going to use some of your advice. As for the pictures, I did include a picture of a sufferer of the disease, but some user who does nothing but take down suspect copyright images decided to delete it, and I haven't gotten it back up yet. Thanks again Andersonmatt1125 (talk) 06:17, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary review

The article was very well written. The introductory paragraph was clear and concise. The article was not too specific nor too broad. It was nice to see the picture of the discoverer of the condition. I already said it, but it was very well written-- I was impressed with the professionality of the writing and I did not detect any grammatical errors. The definition was referenced several times during the article, which served as a good transition between sections. Great job authors!! Birdy1224 (talk) 00:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Primary Review

The article is well-written, but I think that there are a few mechanical errors and awkward phrases. I think the article could start with an overview of the disease and then below go into detail with the "Medical Definition", "Symptoms," etc. In my opinion, specific words might be substituted with better ones, for example, "patients" instead of "sufferers."

Also, transitions between paragraphs and individual sentences could be a bit smoother to contribute to a more flowing article. This would also prevent the article from sounding as if four different people wrote their own individual sections. Some words are links twice, and I think that Wikipedia tends to link the first word only once, such as in the case of "spasticity" and "periventricular leukomalacia." Also, I would reword the first part of the first sentence in the "history" section because it had already been stated that quadriplegia is a subset of cerebral palsy and it seems redundant. The second sentence in the "symptoms" section, which starts as "It can be detected due to the normal development..." might not quite be a run on sentence, but it is still long and drawn out, and could be revised.

The "Scientific Classification" section seems to be isolated from the rest of the article. It might be included at the top of the article in the upper right hand corner.

I checked the two references from "ncbi.nlm.nih.gov" and "formsofcerebralpalsy.com" and they seem to be solid secondary sources.

On the other topics such as neutrality, verifiability with no original research, and its broadness, the article seems to be acceptable and well done. In conclusion, other than a few mechanical errors, the article has been done well and off to a good start. MACKXIMUS (talk) 03:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Response: Thank you for the suggestions, we reorganized our subheadings in a more logical manner to allow for a better flow of information. We also substituted patients for sufferers to eliminate the negative connotation. In addition, we reread for flow and clarity and removed the words that were linked multiple times. The "Scientific Classification" section was not removed because it was initially part of the article before we began editing and we felt as through someone put it there for a reason and we didn't necessarily have the right to delete it without knowing its purpose. Arakdpr (talk) 17:48, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Secondary review

The article was very well done overall. I found the formatting and appearance to be exceptional. With the amount of information now on the page, it is a very good starting point for expansion when more information is available. Grammatically the article was pretty strong but it would be worth it read over your work another time. Nice Job! IJWMarq (talk) 04:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Faculty Review

Very nicely written! I had no problem following the ideas throughout your article. I did a couple of minor edits and added some links.

The one part I thought could use some cleaning up is the "Causes" section. The last 4 paragraphs are short and somewhat repetitive. Many of the listed causes could be directly related - i.e. strokes can lead to hypoxia, etc.

In the testing and diagnostic section it might be useful to explain what one might see on an MRI or CT scan that would lead to a diagnosis? The rest of your article is all about the physical symptoms so I wasn't sure what one would see on an MRI.

MMBiology (talk) 20:35, 8 May 2013 (UTC)