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Cell (biology)

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This article already has GA status, but there is definitely plenty of room for improvement. I believe the subject could defitely accomodate a featured article. However, I haven't worked on it before and don't really know where to start. At first, general comments on what the weakest sides of the article are would be most welcome. Peter Z.Talk 02:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question (due to possible javascript errors/uniqueness of articles).
  • Per WP:MOS#Headings, headings generally should not repeat the title of the article. For example, if the article was Ferdinand Magellan, instead of using the heading ==Magellan's journey==, use ==Journey==.
  • Done Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18 mm.
  • Per WP:MOSNUM, when doing conversions, please use standard abbreviations: for example, miles -> mi, kilometers squared -> km2, and pounds -> lb.
  • Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at WP:GTL.
  • Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) maybe too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per WP:SS.

This is pretty old, but I just stumbled across it and thought I'd put in an idea or two.

  • Even for an article targeted to a general audience, the lead is very simplistic ("Some organisms, such as bacteria...") and sounds a bit high school textbook-y. This sentence should also define prokaryote and eukaryote since they're later used in the article with only wikilinks for explanation. On the other hand, the cell theory mention needs to more explicitly state that it is of historical interest (there's always a few creationists who wave that "cells come from other cells!" thing around).
True, I will try to reword and extend the lead. Peter Z.Talk
  • The section on the lipid bilayer is confusingly worded. "Double layer of lipids" and "hydrophilic phosphorous" are not only technically wrong, but make it sound like the membrane is made of two separate components rather than phospholipids.
True again, will sort this out later today. Peter Z.Talk
  • If you're going to include a mention of transfection (which I don't really think is that central of a topic for such a deiberately general article), it should be better explained. The casual reader has no reason to expect that foreign DNA might be integrated into a cell's genome.
  • Write out and wikilink "messenger RNA" the first time it's used.
Corrected. Peter Z.Talk
  • ATP is not "a form of energy" - this is confusing wording. "energy is stored in a high-energy chemical bond in ATP" or something would make more sense.
  • The products of cell division are always called daughter cells, but the originating cell is rarely (ever?) called the "mother cell" as claimed.
Budding yeast geneticists definitely speak of mother and daughter cells, but its only that bud that's the daughter cell. The much bigger cell that "did the budding" is the mother cell. I'll check if the term is ever used in other organisms. Peter Z.Talk
Really? That's interesting, I didn't know that. I haven't heard "mother cell" used for generic cell division, but I don't work with yeast, so maybe I'm not up on the terminology. It just sounded to me like an overgeneralization of the term "daughter cell". Opabinia regalis 17:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Somewhere (in cell division after binary fission?) the exchange of genetic material by prokaryotes should be mentioned (unless I missed it).
I am not sure, which place in the article you mean. Not only prokaryotes exchange genetic material horizonally. Peter Z.Talk
Looking at it again, I think the "creation of new cells" section should be called "reproduction" or similar (I think most people will know what that means). I was thinking that bacterial gene transfer in particular would be useful to mention after/close to the sentence on reproduction by binary fission, because gene transfer's role in drug resistance might be interesting to the reader. I don't personally know of any cases where a type of horizontal transfer created drug resistance in eukaryotes, but it doesn't sound impossible. Opabinia regalis 17:34, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose "reproduction" is good for being easily understood by the lay person, although I think "proliferation" is more technically correct. Reproduction to me implies the producing of new autonomous individuals. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relative to the generality of the rest of the article, the "origins of cells" section is much too detailed. This may have come from a prior edit war or something, but speculation on cellular origins (which we know nothing about really) shouldn't take two or three times as much text as any of the "cell functions" sections, about which we know much more. Spin it off into an "origin of cells" article separate from the existing Origin of life if necessary.

Overall it's a pretty good generalist guide; I just think the tone and technicality is uneven and there are some inconsistencies in the text. I didn't look in great detail at the images but it looks like this article is excellently illustrated - they're very attractive as well as being useful. Opabinia regalis 08:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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