Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemistry/Peer review

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This peer review is modeled after Wikipedia:Peer review. It is the result of discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry#Featured Articles/Good Articles.

Contents

[edit] Aims

To identify Chemistry articles which are technically sound and sufficiently comprehensive, in order to promote them to Wikipedia:Good Article or A class article status. The focus here will be on the content of the article, not on stylistic issues.

[edit] Criteria

(to be filled in after discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry/Peer review)

[edit] Candidates

[edit] Theobromine

This article has been certified as a Good Article, and personally, I think it's the best article that I have been involved in. What is needed to bone this up for FAC? MessedRocker (talk) 15:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

This article needs a lot of work. For example, the sections pharmacology, clinical uses, and effects have a lot of duplicate material and I get no feeling of organization. I actually considered applying a cleanup tag to this article because after the lead, it is basically a disjointed list of facts, some of which are repeated several times. This material needs to be written in paragraphs which explain the content to the reader. The article is way too short; it probably needs at least twice the content it has now. Some more specifics:
  • Fill in the Smiles and other fields in the infobox
"It has a similar, but lesser, effect to caffeine, making it a lesser homologue."
  • Be more precise here, specify the similar effects and their severity. I know what a homologue is, but what is a "lesser" homologe? The article mentions that theobromine stimulates the heart more than caffeine but the CNS effects are lower. So why is it a "lesser" homologue?
  • Using clarifications, such as "vasodilator (a blood vessel widener)" you don't have to put clarification in parenthesis after a term, that is what a wikilink is for. Same for "edema."
  • Redundancy, for example "Theobromine is an isomer of theophylline" which is mentioned at least twice, and "Theobromine is categorized as a dimethyl xanthine" which is mentioned at least three times.
  • "Theobromine was first isolated from the seeds of the cacao tree in 1878[10] and then shortly afterwards was synthesized..." How shortly afterwards?
  • Remove redundant words: "It is in the methylxanthine class of chemical compounds,[3] which also includes the similar compounds theophylline and caffeine." How about "It is a methylxanthine, like theopyhlline and caffeine"
  • "Theobromine is known to induce gene mutations..." bad phrasing. Usually when you hear the phrase: "...is known to..." or "...was shown to be involved in..." it means that a single study found a correlation; if many studies confirm the same result writers will not use this weak phrase. I wouldn't take a single study like this very seriously, but if you include in the article you should at least tie it into the rest of the article instead of just laying it out there.
Not to discourage you, but the article really needs a lot of work. Jeff Dahl 23:30, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 00:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Not to sound harsh or anything, but I'm not sure how this got GA status, because I don't really think it meets all of the criteria. Many of the sections seem too short and the article is not very well organized. It might help to review wikipedia's medical manual of style for guidelines on how drug-related articles should be organized. As an additional note, if you want some collaborative help, you might consider nominating this for Pharmacology Collaboration of the Week. Dr. Cash 02:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Distillation

Striking comments carried over from the previous peer review, used for testing.This article was the Wikipedia:Chemistry Collaboration of the Month for Nov 2006. The article has went through quite a few revisions since. From a scientific point of view, it does cover the important parts. The field is too broad for the article to be exhaustive. How about from a non-technical point of view? Tone? Style? Examples? Pictures? Please comment! --Rifleman 82 22:51, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


Nominated by Rifleman 82

I think that some plots depicting Raoult's law would be very helpful, if not here, then certainly in the article about Raoult's law. Itub 14:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

.
How about this image?It assumes an idealized situation at 20 C - no deviation from Raoult's law. Data taken from http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/h2381.htm and http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/h0584.htm. If this graph is okay, I can fix the aesthetics later. --Rifleman 82 16:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the kinds of plots used in http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~rpc25/notes/chemistry/phase_equillibria/index.html are more illustrative, because they show how the total vapor pressure results from the sum of the vapor pressure of each component (each one being proportional to its mole fraction). This site also shows examples with deviations from Raoult's law, and the plots near the bottom of the page show how fractional distillation works, and why it doesn't work when azeotropes are formed. --Itub 11:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Another topic that might be good to mention in the article is the "lever rule". I'm actually surprised to find out that there's no wikipedia article on that topic yet! --Itub 11:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 21:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automated review

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

  • Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.[?]

*There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Biography, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City.[?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually) - not applicable Rifleman 82 08:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 60 meters, use 60 meters, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 60 meters.[?]

*Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called ==The Biography==, it should be changed to ==Biography==.[?]

  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (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 --Rifleman 82 08:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
  • Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, APR t 21:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Azeotropes

There's a large amount of information on azeotropes available through wiki now, but it's pretty fractured and could do with thought being applied to where sections should go to limit redundancy.

This information can be found under the page on azeotropes, some on purifying ethanol and the distillation page - there's probably more elsewhere as well.

Since kids should be able to use wiki, and azeotropic distillation is a specialised and tricky to understand topic, I'd suggest migrating the azeotropic content, such as that on breaking azeotropes, to the azeotrope page and then creating a reference to it on the ethanol purification, distillation and other pages mentioning it. This would help condense :) the distillation page so it doesn't look so overwhelming to younger readers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.141.19.29 (talk) 15:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Palladium

Cleaned up the references, using cite.php. Seems to cover the important parts. What else is missing? --Rifleman 82 14:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The history section has too many one sentence paragraphs. In fact, in general, it really needs to go into a bit more detail. Physchim62 (talk) 21:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
For the use of palladium against tuberculosis I only find one tiny note in a pdf listing journal articles from a library [1]. Has anybody mor about this.
The storage of hydrogen should also be mentioned. This revie gives a good summary: F. A. Lewis (1982). "The Palladium-Hydrogen System". Platinum Metals Review 26 (1). 
Medical issues concerning the risc of allergic reaction simmilar to that of nickel:J. Kielhorn, C. Melber, D. Keller, I. Mangelsdorf (2002). "Palladium – A review of exposure and effects to human health". International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health 205 (6). doi:10.1078/1438-4639-00180. 
There is absolutely nothing about the chemistry and the compounds of palladium. It is a huge -! Also the toxicity section is completely missing. Check WP:Elements for format. Nergaal (talk) 06:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pa 107

The article states that Pa 107 is a synthetic isotope, however Pa 107 is found in asteroidal deposits which were clearly naturally deposited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tanada (talk • contribs) 09:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


  • Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 21:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Redox

Important topic; one of the cornerstones of Chemistry. What's lacking? --Rifleman 82 18:14, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 21:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Other examples: The reaction involving iron and hydrogen peroxide is pH dependent. At the right pH (3 to 5 or so) it is fenton's reagent which produces the powerful oxidizing agent called the hydroxyl radical. However at higher pHs does H2O2 spontaneous decompose? Seems like a bad example since it isn't always true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.79.200.162 (talk • contribs) 04:05, 16 March 2007

[edit] Alkane

Mid-2006, this article failed the Good Article nomination. These are the comments:

  • WP:LEAD too short.
  • The names of all alkanes end with -ane. ... why? Talk about the history or where the nomenclature comes from.
  • Trivial names ... again why are these name kept or why do these compound have multiple names.
  • Images imbedded in text isn't recommended, plus they need to have captions.
  • Too many lists, at least in the beginning. - done -- Quantockgoblin 16:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • References missing. Use the Cite.php method if possible because it is recommended.. - done -- Quantockgoblin 21:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The line, Alkanes occur both on Earth and in the solar system, however only the first hundred or so, and even then mostly only in traces., doesn't make any sense ... first hundred of what, alkanes, branched alkanes or unbranched alkanes.
  • methane and ethane are every day gases, at least methane is emitted by animals through their feces. That is much more relevant than knowing it is present on such comet that is not known to the general public.
  • On Titan, the satellite of Saturn, it is believed that there were once large oceans of these and longer chain alkanes: smaller seas of liquid ethane are thought still to exist there. - This is trivia or it pertains tu such articles as Titan or ethane.
  • ... produced primarily by forms of Archaea. - maybe should say ... produced primarily by organisms such as Archaea.
  • Although they cannot be commercially exploited at the present time, the calorific value of the known methane hydrate fields exceeds the energy content of all the natural gas and oil deposits put together—methane extracted from methane hydrate is considered therefore a candidate for future fuels. - This should not be in the occurence section but in the Properties section. - disagree; they are about occurence Rifleman 82 23:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Occurence section and Alkanes in nature should be merged or be one under the other as they go toward a same goal, which is showing where these alkanes are present.
  • In the Occurence section, the Today, the most important commercial sources ... text and what comes after should go into a section that explains why do we have the alkanes on the earth like Earth's alkane and its sources or so. - I'd say it would belong in an article on crude oil or something similar. --Rifleman 82
  • ... within the individual fractions the boiling points lie closely together. - Some explanation on this point .would be greatly appreciated. - done -- Quantockgoblin 21:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • ... although the following demarcation is idealized and not perfect. - This statement is pov unless it is referenced or the word idealized is changed. I won't agree - Rifleman 82
  • The Preparation section is a bit short, needs images of the reactions or needs to be merged with the Purification section. - done -- Quantockgoblin 16:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The reactions should be labeled with names or be traced back to the publications where they were taken from. - done -- Quantockgoblin 16:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
  • trim down on conformation as it is already covered in Alkane stereochemistry, same goes for reactions of alkanes. Also too many subheaders. - done -- Quantockgoblin 21:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)


I think the unit in IR spectroscopy should be cm-1 (wavenumbers) not nm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.225.50.186 (talk) 05:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I've striked out those points which have been fixed, though opinions may differ. It appears that much remains to be done. What other comments are there? --Rifleman 82 20:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 21:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Organic chemistry

There are some outstanding issues on the todo list:

  • Verify: Much greater use of inline citation is needed along with a wider source of references
  • Expand: Add images to beautify article (see Inorganic chemistry for an excellent example)

Apart from that, what else needs to be done? --Rifleman 82 20:11, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I fear that we might go too far with pictures: it should demonstrate something essential, as conciseness is more important. The old Engish adage comes to mind: "Is your question really necessary?" I feel that a drawing to show single, double, and triple bond compounds and about alicyclics in the same block as the aromatics to show the comparison would help, but I am not sure about the swimming beauty

LouisBB 13:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 21:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Awadewit

  • I do not know what audience you were aiming for with this page, but I can tell you that for someone with only a passing familiarity of chemistry, I found this page a bit difficult to follow at times (particularly beginning with the "aliphatic" section). There were so many undefined terms that one would have to click on to understand the material. It is almost as if one has to have taken organic chemistry to understand the page. I will point to just one example - covalent bonding. While that is taught in many advanced high school chemistry classes, how many people remember exactly what it is? Since it is easy enough to describe in a sentence or two, why not do it? If you are aiming only for chemistry and biology majors, though, I am sure that it is more than acceptable.
  • The history section should also probably have a consistent verb tense. It is a little jarring otherwise.
  • Perhaps an illustration of a line function in the nomenclature section so that those unfamiliar with it will know what it is?

Awadewit 06:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I fully agree with your remarks, and I shall make one or two suggestions

LouisBB 13:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Silver

This was nominated for FA in 2004. The main thing was its shortness. History was mentioned to be poor; that has since been fixed. The applications section should be turned into prose, rather than a list. I've tried to do that with palladium. Referencing can be improved. Otherwise, I think it's not a bad article. --Rifleman 82 20:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Three additional references have a good compilation of the history of silver: [2], [3] and [4].--Stone 11:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for that, Stone. Have some reservations about the first link because while the page itself is fine, the site promotes the use of colloidal silver, and that is not without controversy. I've cleaned up the list, turning it into prose. Perhaps someone can take a look and improve it where needed? Link #2 seems excellent. I'll look into that one in more detail again. --Rifleman 82 02:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
  • It has some good content, but I think it needs a little more work. You might want to take a look at how the Hydrogen featured article is organized, starting with a history. The introduction seems too short; it doesn't really summarize the article. You might mention the actual percent reflectivity of untarnish silver in the optical spectrum, and also the use of transparent quartz overcoats on silver mirrors to prevent tarnishing. Overall I'd say it needs more citations. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 18:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I've improved the introduction. Are there any areas which might be lacking (for the intro)? --Rifleman 82 04:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 21:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic peer review

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

  • Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.[?]
  • Consider removing links that add little to the article or that have been repeated in close proximity to other links to the same article, as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and WP:CONTEXT.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?] from template --Rifleman 82 08:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • See if possible if there is a free use image that can go on the top right corner of this article.[?] -- not applicable Rifleman 82 07:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Biography, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City.[?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually) -- not applicable Rifleman 82 07:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 25 kg, use 25 kg, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 25 kg.[?]
  • Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at Wikipedia:Guide to layout.[?] done --Rifleman 82 08:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
    • allege
    • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).[?] checked - not applicable --Rifleman 82 07:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • While additive terms like “also”, “in addition”, “additionally”, “moreover”, and “furthermore” may sometimes be useful, overusing them when they aren't necessary can instead detract from the brilliancy of the article. This article has 19 additive terms, a bit too much. reduced --Rifleman 82 07:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.” done --Rifleman 82 07:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

*As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?] done --Rifleman 82 07:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, APR t 21:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)


The silvering has to rewritten, the description of aluminium sputtering is longer than the famous Liebig silvering which is still used for high qualizy mirrors. I added the references to the original publication in the silvering article.--Stone 16:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Noted. I'll take a look at that later, thank you. --Rifleman 82 04:03, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Much better than when I nominated it, but then FA criteria were much, much weaker back then. Still a lot of work to do. This one is on my list but I'm currently working on getting Uranium ready for FAC. Please look at that article to get an idea of how a metal element article should be organized and cited. --mav 03:27, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Organometallic chemistry

Covers description, characteristics, concepts, applications, history. What else is missing? What needs to be improved? --Rifleman 82 16:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR t 21:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)