Talk:Agraphia

Some supporting resaearch collections that may be useful

In recent years i have compiled a some online PubMed research paper collections which may be of some value to editors wishing to expand this article.

• Agraphia
• Dysgraphia
• Spelling and Writing

dolfrog (talk) 19:37, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Article Expansion

I am planning to expand this article as a project for my introductory neuroscience class. Ana Minchew (talk) 18:15, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

• User:Ana Minchew/sandbox SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:46, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Our names are Charlotte Wright and Marisa Dreher. We are currently majoring in Neuroscience at Middlebury College. We will be expanding this article over the next few weeks as part of our introductory neuroscience class. Charlotte Wright (talk) Marisa Dreher (talk) 14:11, 12 November 2013

Two editors cannot sign one talk page entry. The above addition was — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdreher528 (talk • contribs) 19:13, November 12, 2013‎

User:CWright93 and User:Mdreher528, it would have been helpful to solicit feedback on your sandbox before adding your proposed text to the article. I am going to have to spend quite a bit of time cleaning up. What is your relationship to User:Ana Minchew? That is, do we have two different groups working here? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:39, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Cleanup etc

I have reorganized the article to conform with WP:MEDMOS, cleaned up section headings per WP:MSH, removed some of the editorializing, and cleaned up the citations to conform with the style originally used (See WP:CITEVAR). I have not checked for copyvio, plagiarism, or too close paraphrasing. This is the version after my initial cleanup, for the commentary below.

Before going on to list the problems, I'll note that the sourcing is good; secondary reviews are mostly used (but a few primary sources should be replaced).

1. The article is severely underwikified. Please see WP:MOSLINK, WP:RED and WP:OVERLINK. Please link technical terms on first occurrence.
2. There is no WP:LEAD.
3. Most of the sources used are behind paywall: I have not checked for copyvio, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing.
4. Characteristics begins with a number of undefined, unlinked terms; then says that agraphia can be divided into central versus peripheral, and then goes on to divide it into aphasic and non-aphasic. What we have, then, is incomprehensible.
5. There are spacing errors too numerous for me to clean up, grammatical errors, and sentences that make no sense. So, between that and the underlinking, what we have is incomprehensible text. I hope someone will clean it up so it doesn't have to be deleted. Sample:

   Individuals have normal quantity of well-formed letters. However they lack of meaningful words.(Wernicke's aphasia is an example of fluent aphasia)

   These sorts of issues are throughout the article; it is not helpful for poorly written text to be plopped into an article on a leading website. Please clean up.
6. The first paragraph in Causes doesn't make any connection to Causes.
7. The section on AD in Causes is not about Causes-- it is about symptoms.
8. Then, in addition to the differing levels of definitions already described, the Treatment section goes on to include even more undefined terms and conditions, and not all of the text in Treatment is about treatment. The article is poorly organized. The sections that should be included in a Wikipedia article are at WP:MEDMOS.
9. Per WP:MEDMOS, try to avoid referring to individuals with agraphia as "patients". I've corrected a few-- there are more.
10. Jargon abounds and text does not flow. The History section includes text that is beyond the scope of this article, and would probably be a good addition to another article, but this article is about "agraphia".
11. For an example of the jargon issues throughout the article, "Six years after Broca's first case of aphemia, ... " We haven't been previously told about Broca's aphemia. In fact, the word "aphemia" hasn't occurred anywhere in the article! For reasons like this, the article lacks clarity and is pretty much incomprehensible to a layperson or in terms of encyclopedic tone.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:24, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Sandy I have been trying to locate good research sources for the article for some time off an on, the major issue is translation from other languages such as Japanese. Much of the recent research originates from Japan, which is probably related to the structure of the writing system they use and its orthography, which is different from the Latin alphabet that we use. I am still updating my Agraphia research paper collection which may provide some useful sources, currently finding reviews can be difficult dolfrog (talk) 13:18, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing up this contradiction/confusion, Dolfrog ... but at this point in the article, aphasia hasn't even been defined, so the layperson still has no idea what that text means. Aphasia is linked earlier, but we have to go back to that link to try to decipher this sentence. And then we have to read through a lot of gobbledy-gook on the aphasia article. So, it would be nice if the two classes working on this article would strive to bring it to something comprehensible to the average reader. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:07, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I have been watching the aphasia article over the years, It has become less muddled in recent times, the problem has been multiple terminology to describe the same issues, and moving the consensus towards the current research, and putting the old terminology models into the history section. If only i had some good copy editing skills. Both Agraphia and Alexia, much like developmental dyslexia and Dygraphia are symptoms of underlying conditons, which tend to be multiple layers of issues from how these issues have been identified in recent times. The symptoms were first identified, and as time has progressed and research technology has improved we are now better able to understand and explain the causes of the various layers of conditions / symptoms. Aphasia is primarily a set of speech related problems which can relate writing and text which are concerned with the visual notation of speech. (I have a developmental equivalent of aphasia which is the cause of my dyslexic symptom and my terrible spelling I use as spell checker) There are various sensory processing and motor issues which can cause various types of problems, and some can be co-morbid. (have a look at multisensory integration my project for the winter months). Not to sure if this helps. dolfrog (talk) 02:26, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Sandy, Thank you for your comments as they will make our article stronger. CWright93 (talk) 01:05, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Response

Hi Sandy, Thank you for your input regarding Wright and Dreher's submissions. It seems as though you are quite well versed in Wikipedia language and we are grateful for your input. As the students state, they are working on this for a class project and will certainly take all comments into account. We hope that you will make comments and allow them to make corrections. It will be a great experience for them. Also, it seems that multiple users are working on this page simultaneously: Ana Minchew. We are not related to Ana in anyway, but hope that we can all work together cooperatively to create the best page possible for this topic. We thank you for your patience and for your advice. Kim Cronise —Preceding undated comment added 23:14, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for (finally) engaging talk; I wish you had done it before beginning to work on the article. I imagine User:Ana Minchew and her class wish the same. Perhaps you all can put hour heads together, and get organized. That is why we have talk pages, that should be used. Will you (Kim) be helping to clean up the problems in this article? Can we count on them being cleaned up by term-end? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:19, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct Sandy. We will all be working together to generate a quality product. This was to be a draft submission for exactly this purpose: to see the responses, benefit from them, and to help them learn to manage their submissions. I hope that we can all provide a positive Wikipedia experience for students with the ultimate goal in mind: that they will feel welcome, now and in the future, to share knowledge and expertise with the public (of course, within the appropriate Wikiguidelines). Can I ask what your role is for Wiki and if we can use you as a resource? Your expertise would be helpful. User:Midd Intro Neuro

I am a regular editor here, who is not happy at being an unpaid TA for professors who are trying to teach others to edit Wikipedia when they've never done it themselves. We should all have a positive experience, and we shouldn't be dropping incomprehensible text into articles. That is a disservice to our readers, and assuming that other regular editors will clean up is disrespectful. Have you and your students read WP:ASSIGN? It is ironic that another student, who did notify this talk page, has lost all of his/her work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:25, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, this is Ana Minchew. All of my work is still in my Sandbox (it's still a very rough draft, and I didn't want to upload it until I'd had a chance to clean it up), so if you guys don't mind, we can share the responsibility of writing the article. It shouldn't be too confusing, since Wikipedia keeps a record of who wrote what. Ana Minchew (talk) User:Ana Minchew/sandbox 02:53, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Good on you, User:Ana Minchew for using the talk page early on; I wish the other group had, and commend you for taking the first step in using Wikipedia appropriately. I hope, if much of your work has been eliminated, your professor will take into account that you did it right. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ana, Thank you for your willingness to collaborate on this article. Marisa and I really look forward to working with you to make this article stronger. CWright93 (talk) 01:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Coordination of inter-related issues

There are a number of issues which require coordination between the various related Wikipedia articles concerning Aphasia, Agnosia, Alexia, and Agraphia concerning a wide range of inter-related issues. These issues need to be addressed by all editors, including student editors. These issues all part of continuing research to increase our understanding of human communication how we learn to communicate, and how things can go wrong. It would be a good idea of the students who are attempting to edit these related articles could actually communicate with each other, and other Wikipedia editors who have an interest in and contribute to these articles in order to provide some continuity. Wikipedia is about collaboration, and consensus, and working together. dolfrog (talk) 13:04, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Dolfrog: Thank you for your constructive comments on how to further improve this article, as well as linking Agraphia to related topics. We look forward to incorporating your suggestions into future edits. Marisa and I welcome any further contributions or comments that will make this article stronger. CWright93 (talk) 01:14, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I have a sandbox or more like sandboxes regarding agraphia and the related issues User:dolfrog/sandbox which may help dolfrog (talk) 02:46, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Tags removed

I've removed the cleanup tags from the top of the article, as we now have a fairly decent article: nice collaboration !!! However, there are still issues that should be resolved.

Even as late as yesterday, new primary sources were being added. I've left some of the text cited to primary sources as it can probably be cited to secondary reviews (please upgrade the citations if you are able).

There are also still some patches of confusing that could be cleared up, and the lead should probably includes one, at most two, sentences on treatment, and a sentence on history (the lead should be a summary of the article, see WP:LEAD).

A more substantial problem is that there is some text in the table in "Characteristics" that belongs in a "Causes" section. That needs to be sorted out.

Long term, I suggest that it might be better to present the Characteristics section as prose rather than table format. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Peer Editor Comments

Peer reviews from fellow students
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Good page, comprehensive look at agraphia! The formatting of the different types is different from the usual "bulletpoint" formatting in Wikipedia, not sure tables are the best way...That said, they present a clear way to find which symptoms/causes apply to which specific type of agraphia. Also the causes paragraph could use a more clear formatting, in contrast with the tables it's a little messy. Maybe setting up a table for them according to the type would be clearer. I would also label management differently, and call it rehabilitation or something similar. The history of discovery section is great, very complete, though maybe you guys could include more on 20th century headway? All in all, good job, excellent overview of the disorder. Chabz333--Chabz333 (talk) 03:58, 26 November 2013 (UTC) General Intro • Reread for small language errors in paragraph one. Characteristics • Consider relabeling first 2 paragraphs of section, perhaps, “sub-categories”. • In “Global” section, rewrite so as to not refer to “deep agraphia” above. They should all be able to be read independently. • When referring to problems with reading, you could link to alexia. I am not sure if this is the only disorder certain types of agraphia are related to. • Good use of tables Peripheral Agraphia • Check wording in “Apraxic agraphia” description. • Interesting motor disorders involved with apraxic agraphia. • In “Reiterative apraphia”, it would be helpful and interesting to have an example. • More info on “Hysterical agraphia” would be helpful Causes • Put each type of agraphia that you mention in bold for easier skimming and reading. Alzheimer’s Disease • Nice section. • Clarify first sentence of second paragraph. Management • The last bullet point seems out of place in this section. General Comments • Nice job. This is am easy article to follow and presents ideas clearly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarMarBla123 (talk • contribs) 16:03, 24 November 2013 (UTC) Wikipedia Peer Review Assignment: This review is for only Ana Minchew's work. 1. Quality of Information: 1 The quality of the information is good; however, I think you should make use of more sources. For example, everything in the "Management" section, except one sentence, is from the same source. 2. Article size: 1 by the time you began editing the article it was already 16,815 bytes. Your contribution was about 11,000 bytes. 3. Readability: 2 4. Refs: 1 There are only 15 references on the page, but 9 of them were already on the page before you started editing it. 5. Links: 1 could use more links, especially red links to help others expand Wikipedia 6. Responsive to comments: 2 7. Formatting: 2 8. Writing: 2 writing is good. no typos or grammar issues that I could find. 9. Used real name or has real name on User TALK page: 2 10. Outstanding?: 1 could use more media, more references, etc. _______________ Total: 15 out of 20 I think it would've been beneficial for you to choose an article that no one else was working on. It is difficult to review only your contribution. The whole article looks pretty good overall. You should add some red links to give others opportunity to expand Wikipedia. Add more references and try to incorporate more than only one source into the sections. Morgan Merritt (talk) 18:13, 24 November 2013 (UTC) Wikipedia Peer Review Assignment: This review is for Ana Minchew's work. 1. Quality of Information: 1 The information looks good overall; however as Morgan Merritt stated you could make use of more sources in individual sections such as Management as well as "Lexical and surface", "Deep", and "Global" all come from the same source without any other supporting sources. 2. Article size: 1 Your personal contributions were approximately 12,800 bytes by my counting 3. Readability: 2 4. Refs: 1 There are 16 references on the page, and 9 of them were already there. 5. Links: 2 6. Responsive to comments: 2 7. Formatting: 2 8. Writing: 2 9. Used real name or has real name on User TALK page: 2 10. Outstanding?: 1 Maybe add a couple more pictures to it, and definitely more sources _______________ Total: 16 out of 20 Overall comments: It was challenging to narrow this down to what you added alone Ana making it harder to grade. Try to find more sources on the subject, so that you can have multiple references for each topic within the article. MatthewMiller71 (talk) 21:55, 24 November 2013 (UTC) 1. Quality of Information: 2 2. Article size:1 11649 (by my tally) out of required 15000 3. Readability:2 4. Refs:1 5. Links:2 6. Responsive to comments:2 Good job with this part 7. Formatting:2 8. Writing:2 9. Used real name or has real name on User TALK page:2 10. Outstanding?:1 Good job overall. You were working under somewhat difficult circumstances with multiple people editing the same page, and you did an excellent job engaging on the talk page. Not outstanding because of the lack of content and extra pictures or diagrams would be helpful _______________ Total: 17 out of 20 Mac Merritt (talk) 10:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC) Introduction provides a comprehensive overview of the topic. Central verse Peripheral forms of Agraphia are differentiated clearly. Other important information including the disorder’s neurological basis and primary symptoms are described deeply but economically without overwhelming the reader. Whether the disease is congenital or acquired nor is its treatment is mentioned, which might be necessary to add. The characteristic sections seems crowded with terms that might confuse the reader. The list is comprehensive but does not provide equal information about each type of agraphia. Perhaps categorizing the description into qualities like causes, symptoms, treatment ect... would aid comparisons. The descriptions do, however, mention differences and similarities between the various types of Agraphia, which I liked. Making the underlying logic to the list’s ordering would also be an improvement. . Further dividing the list into subgroups, not just central and peripheral, might enhance its readability. Consistent citations and links to other pages makes it a good platform for further research. For the causes section. You delve into the neural basis of writing and then connect it to the disorder instead of integrating the neural background into the discussion of the disease, which makes it hard to get through the background section because we have no idea how it will connect. I think the management section would work better as a paragraph or a few, instead of a list. Sometimes the result or relative effectiveness of the management strategy is not clear. Perhaps move the history section up to the beginning. Otherwise, a well written and intersting section. David Ullmann 1994 (talk) 18:14, 26 November 2013 (UTC) Please see WP:MEDMOS#Sections; history is last. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:40, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Comments from Fellow NSCI Student

• Hi! Overall I think you've done a good job on the article. The history, connections to ALzheimer's, and methods of management are very well written. I was wondering if perhaps the history should go earlier in the article? I don't know if you'd be able to find any, but some possible pictures or videos of some of the treatment methods might be helpful as well. Any other connections to other disorders would be really interesting as well
• Really nice job linking to related pages. That should help a lot with additional explanation of more specialized topics that don't go on this page. Is there anything else you can add to the "related pages" section at the bottom?
• Overall, I though you defined the different categories okay. There are a couple things that could use even just a single sentence for clarification. For example, it might help to explain motorific, fluent vs nonfluent aphasia, orthographic memory, lexicality effect, etc. Also, there are a few spots where the phrasing could be clarified, such as "sparse, brief writing," "normal quantity of well-formed letters," etc. Some of the earlier types could use a bit more explanation in general. Overall, you did a good job though. Are there any pictures/videos that might illustrate some of these types?
• The visual showing some of the brain areas is especially helpful. Are there any similar pictures for other involved brain areas? It helps that you separated the damaged areas by type of agraphia. It might help visually to use subheadings or bullets to separate this out a bit more so someone can easily locate the type they're looking for.

Joy1818 (talk) 19:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:MEDMOS#Sections; history is almost last. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:41, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for all the comments. We changed the Characteristics section from a table to prose format. In the process we took into consideration the comments about clarifications needed. We recognize that there is some causes information in the characteristics section, but we are having difficulty explaining the characteristics without some measure of causes. Additionally, we have added a few sentences to the lead about management and history. We will be keeping the history section at the end of the article to follow the guidelines established by Wikipedia for Medicine related articles. Thank you again! Mdreher528 (talk) 23:26, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Mdreher528 you've done a nice job! I did some additional prosification to make the text less listy; please review my work to see if a different organization or better prose flow is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:52, 4 December 2013 (UTC)