User talk:2spooky/sandbox

Peer Review

I think that this article has a lot of good information, and that most of the work that needs to be done is in making sure that the organization, and writing is optimized for wikipedia. The first think I noticed is that in the introduction you talk about anterograde tracing in the second sentence, with out fist completely defining retrograde tracing. I would suggest that you talk about retrograde tracing being used for visualization and mapping of neurons within the first couple sentences as often this is all the information reader needs. Once completely defined you can then mention that anterograde tracing is also used in the same way but tracing in the opposite direction. Another small point is that I am not sure if in the first sentence "plot" is the best word to use, I understand that the original word "trace" may not be great either, but I think works better.

One of your major focuses I think should be on simplifying your writing and making it more concise. There are sentences in your article that start with "however" and "further more" which are not usually seen in wikipedia writing. I would suggest you get rid of these extra words an make sure each sentence presents a clear fact. For example instead of saying: "Furthermore, by pseudotyping the G protein and putting the gene under Cre-control, transsynaptic spread of the virus can be limited to monosynaptic transmission to a neuron of origin" I would suggest: "transsynaptic spread of the virus can be limited to monosynaptic transmission to a neuron of origin by pseudotyping the G protein and putting the gene under Cre-control." Simplifying your sentences to state clear facts will make your article a lot more effective. I would also make sure that you use language that is not biased. in the techniques section you say: "rabies is particularly useful for this system" I don't think this is language appropriate for a wikipedia article. Instead I think you can say something like: "rabies have been shown to be effective at circuit tracing due to its low level of damage to infected cells." I also don't think that the small paragraph where this sentence comes from belongs in the introduction of the techniques section, but rather should be under the sub header of "rabies virus" as it has more detail specifically about rabies. This leads me to the next important edit, organization.

I think that in general (other than what I just mentioned) your article is well organized and the heading make sense, however you need to look at what is being said on the talk page. Some one there has writen that the article should be edited "preferably with same structure than Anterograde tracing" article. For this reason I would suggest going to the anterograde tracing article and try and use their organization of headers and sub headers. For example can you split your techniques into categories of genetic tracers or molecular tracers? If not, what kind of general tracer is it? If you strongly disagree with this kind of organization you will need to justify your choice not to follow the anterograde tracing article on the talk page.

Other than that you seem to have a lot of good sources and information so the main thing left to do is to refine your writing and organization to make the information even more digestible. Humanpersonfromhere2 (talk) 21:38, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Peer review

Overall, the article is nicely written. However, it doesn't start with a clear description of the subject, as the lead seems to be focused on the comparison between retrograde tracing and anterograde tracing. For example, anterograde tracing - though it is connected to the main subject - is an entirely different topic. I would suggest discussing this subject in the later sections, and elaborate more on the main topic instead to avoid going off tangent. The fourth sentence of the lead section would transition well from the first sentence.

In the techniques section, I would write the sentence, "This virus was only capable of infecting a single cell, and only capable of jumping across 1 synapse; this allowed the researchers to investigate the local connectivity of neurons" more carefully, as "only" is a strong word which may not fit Wikipedia's guidelines in keeping a neutral and unbiased tone. Also, in the sentence, "The pseudorabies virus (PRV; Bartha strain), for example, may be used as a suitable tracer due to the propensity of the infection to spread upstream through a pathway of synaptically linked neurons, thus revealing the nature of their circuitry.", I would suggest using the word "tendency" instead of "propensity" to make it more understandable for non-experts. Keeping this in mind as you work on this article would help you choose the appropriate vocabulary when writing for a general audience.

Lemontree96 (talk) 18:12, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Peer Review by blueboombox

This article follows stylistically its counterpart anterograde tracing. The information is factual without the weight of detectable bias. No areas in need of major revision are observed. Some minor edits that could be addressed are: Discussing anterograde tracing in the opening section is confusing as the article is about retrograde tracing not the relationship to anterograde tracing. It could be referenced in the technique section or another point, but if this information is important then it can stay where it is. The sentence "Rabies has been shown to be effective for this system of circuit tracing because of its low level of damage to infected cells, specificity of infecting only neurons, and strict limitation of viral spread between neurons to synaptic regions.[3]" can be simplified to "Rabies has demonstrated effective for this system..." to enhance readability and efficiency with words. Quoting "mapping" in the first section should be cited, otherwise explained as a simplified term for comprehension. "Partial list of studies" section in anterograde tracing is "Partial list of studies using this technique." This should be adjusted on either page to ensure consistency across pages. In the fluoro-gold section "immunohistochemistry" should have a link to the page similar to the section above. Overall the article achieves the purpose of explaining the concept to the level that a strong article on Wikipedia is expected to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboombox (talk • contribs) 16:40, 18 April 2017 (UTC)