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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 16:37, 24 January 2012 [1].

DNA nanotechnology

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DNA nanotechnology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 04:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is my first attempt at promoting an article to featured status. I have been working on this article for several years, during which it has appeared at DYK and had a peer review. I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it is a comprehensive, understandable treatment of a field of current research, something which would not usually be available to the general public except through Wikipedia. Of course, any feedback is welcome and appreciated, and I am happy to make revisions which further improve the article as part of the FAC process. Thanks in advance for your reviews! Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 04:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape search - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 11:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments for now. - There is no need to give the section headings in the references. I suggest you delete them. I am impressed, on the whole, with the quality and accuracy of the article, but the prose, particularly in the Lead needs some work to make the subject clearer to a non-expert. I don't think we need "molecular recognition" in the first sentence; this will put many readers off straight away. Why not just write, "DNA nanotechnology is a branch of nanotechnology, which creates designed, artificial structures out of DNA." There is also some redundancy here, "DNA nanotechnology makes use of the fact that, due to the specificity of Watson-Crick base pairing, only portions of the strands which are complementary to each other will bind to each other to form duplex DNA." I suggest something along the lines of, "DNA nanotechnology makes use of DNA base pairing, in that only portions of DNA strands that are complementary to each other will bind to form duplex DNA." I would also like to see more inline citations; often sources are not clear. There are many primary sources used, perhaps too many. Are there any review articles that can be used instead of some of these? Graham Colm (talk) 11:49, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments!
  • The tags in the references are to help readers if they want to scan through the sources to find papers on a given topic. I know it's non-standard, but I think it's helpful and should stay.
  • Agreed about the lead, I'll sit down and revise that sometime today.
  • The sources should be perfectly clear; the citations at the end of a paragraph support the entire paragraph. This is standard usage, and it avoids repeating the same citation after every sentence, which clutters the article and reduces readability IMO.
  • Actually, every single paragraph is supported by a review article. The more technical sections (Design, Structural DNA nanotechnology, Functional nanostructures) also cite original research articles. (You can see my opinions on using research articles as sources at this essay.)
Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 19:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Antony, it's nice to meet you. I have read your essay, and I agree with you in parts; but it's an essay and not a policy. If "every single paragraph is supported by a review article", why are the primary sources needed? I disagree that citations at the end of every sentence reduces readability; I find them reassuring. I would be interested to read other reviewers' comments on this, and those "non-standard" tags in the references.Graham Colm (talk) 19:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Pleased to make your acquaintance too. Well, of course it's not a policy, but I've had this discussion before and I thought it would be useful to lay out my thoughts in a slightly longer format than a talk page allows. My main point is that research articles are useful for verifying statements in the text, often more so than review articles, and I think it would be hard to come up with a reason why removing already-present citations to research articles improves the article. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 20:20, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Noleander

  • I agree with user Graham Colm regarding the bold faced section names in the footnotes. That really threw me for a loop, and took me awhile to figure out what was going on. They need to be removed. First, that format is not consistent with footnote standards established by the WP community: if you think it is a good idea, you should initiate a discussion in WP:Citing sources or HELP:Footnotes. Second, a word/phrase like that at the start of a footnote is generally used to identify which portion of the material the footnote applies to. For instance, if there is a sentence like: "Dogs are smelly and hairy[1]", and the footnote reads: "[1] Hairy: Smith, p 23; Smelly: Jones, p 25", then the preface word "Hairy" in the footnote is identifying the specific material the footnote is supporting. Since this article is using the preface word in another way, that leads to confusion.
  • The prose quality seems decent.
  • The content seems to give an encyclopedic overview.
  • "..four-arm junction shown below, .." - figure is at right in my web browser.
  • "Unlike in natural Holliday junctions, in the artificial immobile ..." - sentence does not read well. Suggest re-word, especially eliminate the two words "in".
  • Agree with user Graham Colm regarding citations for every sentence. The fact is that FA quality more or less demands that every non-trivial sentence have its own footnote. Yes, it is a bit ugly, but it has the benefit that as time goes by, and other editors add/remove text from paragraphs, there is no risk that the original citation (at the end of the paragr) will get disconnected from a sentence at the start/middle of the paragraph. See WP:INTEGRITY for details. (Also, I note that for articles on math-related topics, the WP community has agreed that footnotes at the end of each paragraph are sufficient).
  • Agree with user Graham Colm regarding primary vs. secondary sources. I don't doubt that the sources used are excellent, and I'm sure many of the scientific articles are reviews (of more primary articles) ... but if the field was started in 1980 (32 years ago) there should be more overview books out there. Using overview books would reduce the risk of violating WP:OR issues (not that I'm suggesting there are any with this article). I can only find one book referenced the entire article, and it is a single chapter within the book by Pelesko. Are there no other books? Not a show stopper, just asking.
  • "... and thus the number of advancements in the field ..." - suggest "advancements" -> "advances"; advancements could mean job promotions.

End of Noleander comments. --Noleander (talk) 21:08, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review!
  • I was not aware of that particular footnote format; I've never seen that done in scientific publications, so I suspect it might be a humanities-specific usage. Nevertheless, if the overall sentiment continues to be that the bolded tags should be removed, I'll do so.
  • For paragraphs where different sentences come from different sources, I agree. But having the exact same citation after every single sentence in a paragraph gives it a very unprofessional appearance, and I routinely remove these if I come across them in my editing. Imagine what DNA nanotechnology#Fundamental concepts would look like if the exact same citation was used fifteen times, one for each sentence, instead of once for each paragraph. Also, WP:INTEGRITY only talks about references within sentences, and it does actually explicitly allow collecting references for aesthetic reasons (at the end of the sentence, but the same principles suggest that collection at the end of the paragraph is allowable if there aren't too many sources cited).
  • Again, research articles are not primary sources in the same sense that the term is used in humanities. In review articles the focus is generally on providing a very brief overview of an article's approach and establishing the context in which it relates to other articles, rather than including detailed technical analysis. Review articles are often inadequate for verifying the more technical statements in an article like this, and citations to research articles have great usefulness in directing technically-minded readers to papers that contain these details.
  • Actually, there are no textbooks specifically about this field, although I've heard of two which are in preparation and may or may not be published eventually. Although the field started in the early 1980s, Nadrian Seeman was pretty much the only researcher working on it until 1999 or so, when Winfree and Rothemund picked it up, and it expanded from there. It's still a small, esoteric field, and it hasn't quite had the time to develop the expansive big-picture kind of sources that other fields have yet.
Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 22:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I've taken a closer look at Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines, and it supports both the inclusion of research articles, and for collecting citations at the end of a paragraph for uncontroversial knowledge. WP:SCICITE#Attribution specifically supports "supply[ing] the original source for an idea" to "provide attribution for experiments, theorems," etc., and WP:SCICITE#Uncontroversial knowledge says that for statements "widely known among people familiar with a discipline" such as those "contained in multiple references in the research literature (most importantly in review articles)", "it is acceptable to give an inline citation for one or two authoritative sources... often inserted either after the first sentence of a paragraph or after the last sentence of the paragraph." Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 22:45, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk) 21:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've tackled the prose points brought up above. My sense of FAC is that prose reviewers get stricter on more technical material ... and this is about as technical as it gets, so I'm going to do some pruning. Feel free to revert. - Dank (push to talk) 21:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's common in scientific articles to stuff a lot of terms the scientists will be familiar with into the first paragraphs ... but most of our readers aren't scientists, and I've removed a few of the terms so they don't have so much to swallow all at once. I'm down to just one paragraph in the lead now, and it may make sense to pull more material out of the text for the lead. I added a sentence to the lead that's partly my own ... possibly unsupported in the article, I haven't read it yet ... but if we can support this, I think it may answer a question that some readers are going to be asking: "The same properties that make DNA useful as the carrier of genetic information in living cells serve it well as an engineering material: complementary portions of DNA strands bind together to form a wide variety of strong, rigid molecules of duplex DNA." - Dank (push to talk) 21:44, 2 January 2012 (UTC) tweaked 02:46, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I thought I would enjoy working on this article ... I know a little about how to write for FAC and about DNA nanotechnology ... but I'm feeling lost. With every choice, I don't know when explaining terms would be an unwelcome digression and when it's necessary for the target audience ... I guess I'm remembering now why I don't usually work on science articles. Some readers will ask: what's bionanotechnology? molecular self-assembly? DNA computing? FAC reviewers are going to want the lead to at least touch on things in the table of contents, but how do we do that without completely confusing the general reader? I guess I'm saying, I just don't know what I need to know to review this for FAC. I've worked on the lead some, and I think it's tighter than it used to be, so I'm hoping that helps. - Dank (push to talk) 02:40, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, I absolutely think the lead has been improved by the tightening you've done. The sentence you added is definitely supported in the literature. I agree with the points about avoiding technical terms in the lead and trying to explain them elsewhere in the article, and I'll take a second look at the prose with that in mind. Thanks for the edits! Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 05:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 14:04, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Iridia (predominantly prose; I have academic-paper expertise but do not work in this field, so can only make 1a comments)

  • The lead needs a fair bit of work to be accessible to a general audience as well as interesting; eg. using the phrase 'rational design' in the lead does not add understanding (eg. could be 'with a design philosophy of incremental changes to successful structures'). It also does not cover the content of the article: no mention of the history, no mention of the structures that have been able to be built to date.
  • I'd change out the title image for one like [File:DNA nanostructures.png] which is used further down, to connect more clearly that the purpose of the technology is model > physical structure.
  • The paragraph structure throughout needs to begin with more basic concepts and lead into the technical detail. eg. in Fundamental concepts: "The intent of this branch of nanotechnology is to create structures useful for engineering applications that are nanoscale in size. The material used is DNA. The physical properties of DNA that make it more useful for constructing structures than the metals etc used in its parent engineering field of nanotechnology are that it has specific allowed base pairing (and segue into para)." This should be more gentle on the unfamiliar reader, while retaining the good level of technicality. Otherwise reads quite clearly and well.
  • Re. sourcing: I'm happy to accept that you've done 1c due diligence on the lit search, since I'm not reviewing that aspect; I will note that expecting review books in a field this young in tech sciences is quite optimistic. My field's about that young, and the first review book (as opposed to articles) only appeared in 2008.
  • In History, expansion or a note on why the field didn't get picked up until recently would be good; just mention of technical difficulties etc might be enough. (or even: what made the money arrive?) The final paragraph might be better split and half moved to the front of the section.
  • (Oh my gosh this makes physical Wang tiles? So cute!)

I'm happy to provide a 1a support following these changes. Also, ping me if the review still needs a spot check after a few weeks have passed; I have academic library access to Nature etc for that. Iridia (talk) 04:44, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, and you last comment made my day! I've done some work on the lead, and I'm going to try to soften Fundamental Concepts and some of the other sections as well. I'll have to check the literature again to see if there's any reason anyone gives for the field's rise at that specific time. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 00:29, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have written a modified version of the lead here, since the current one has prose problems remaining and keeps catching reviewers. Nice job fixing the citation issues below. Be careful also in body text for universality. I saw a mention in the History of something happening in "fall": use a month in preference to assuming all your readers are in the N. Hemisphere. Looking forward to seeing how it goes! Iridia (talk) 02:02, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from EdChem

Preface
Antony-22, first let me conrgatulate you on your first FA nomination. I think the article can reach FA level, though I believe some work is needed. Given the FA process is meant to improve an article, my comments necessarily focus on areas of weakness and are meant as constructive criticisms; however, please know that there is much in the article that is praise-worthy and I hope all that fellows is useful to you in being granted an FA.

I am dividing my comments up under several of the FA criteria and they will take me some time to complete. Therefore, I will sign at the end of each section once I have finished typing, so that you know it is done and to facilitate you adding whatever responses / comments you see fit.
Criterion 1(a) – well-written
I have some issues with the language / writing in the article:

  • The lead sentence is "DNA nanotechnology is a branch of bionanotechnology that designs and engineers artificial structures made of DNA." Designing and engineering are human activities, they are not undertaken by a branch of bionanotechnology. Perhaps this is meant to be something like "DNA nanotechnology is a branch of bionanotechnology in which artificial DNA structures are designed and synthesised" or "DNA nanotechnology is a branch of bionanotechnology concerned with the design and synthesis artificial structures made of DNA"? I am also not sure that the definition should include the engineering of nanostructures but not their synthesis or manufacture.
  • The next sentence has a similar problem, with DNA nanotechnology rationally designing structures. The caption under the figure has DNA nanotechnology seeking to make structures. In fact, this anthropomorphising is inappropriate in formal science writing and I suggest that the entire article be reviewed to alter sentences which are written in this way.
  • The "Design" section uses the word 'disign' or variants on it about 20 times, the writing can surely be improved.
Criterion 1(b) – comprehensive
Criterion 1(c) – well-researched
The major issue that I have in this area is not about coverage of the area (which seems comprehensive to me) but about putting the work into context.
  • The whole field of DNA nanotechnology involves the preparation of multi-molecule aggregates held together by weak interactions like hydrogen bonding. This is a subset of supramolecular chemistry, a huge field of chemical research that has grown large enough to be considered its own separate branch of chemistry. Yet, there is no indication in the article that it is a part of the field of supramolecular chemistry. Surely this is a critical part of the context within which DNA nanotechnology exists.
  • On a related point, the broader field goes back much further than the early 1980s. Jean-Marie Lehn shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of supramolecular chemistry. Having four molecules assemble into a single aggregate (as in the second diagram) may not have been done with DNA before but it was certainly not unprecedented in the literature. The DX structure with a central (blue) molecule the goes around another molecule is an example of a rotaxane, an arrangement known to synthetic supramolecular chemistry long before this DNA-based example was prepared.
  • Catenanes are two or more mechanically-interlocked cyclic molecules. One example is Borromean rings which have been prepared both with metal complexes (by Fraser Stoddart's group) and with DNA (by Chengde Mao and coworkers at NYU - Nature (1997) 386, p. 137). This could be part of a paragraph on comparative methods where DNA-based work reflects other chemical work. Exdamples would include tetrahedrane and cubane at the molecular level reflecting the larger (but still nanoscale) DNA structures for a tetrahedron and a cube.
  • This brings up a point in response to Antony-22's comments above, where he says that DNA nanotechnology is "still a small, esoteric field, and it hasn't quite had the time to develop the expansive big-picture kind of sources that other fields have yet." Good wiki-practice involves use of secondary sources where possible, and I suggest that these sources can be found by looking for books on supramolecular chemistry and review articles that reference the DNA work referenced on this page. For example, the book Supramolecular Chemistry by Steed and Atwood mentions the DNA work in the preface to chapter 15, and I suspect other recent comprehensive texts on the field will also include the DNA-based research.
  • In searching for articles that cite frequently-cited articles by Seeman and then restricting the results to review articles, I found the following that may provide useful macro-level perspective on the broader significance of DNA nanotechnology within the ongoing research literature:
    • DNA origami: a quantum leap for self-assembly of complex structures, an 11 page review published in CHEMICAL SOCIETY REVIEWS in 2011 - doi:10.1039/c1cs15057j
    • Nucleic Acid Based Molecular Devices, a 33 page review published in ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION in 2011 - doi:10.1002/anie.200907223
    • Binding Mechanisms in Supramolecular Complexes, a 54 page review published in ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION in 2009 - doi:10.1002/anie.200802947
    • Applied chemistry of natural DNA, a 13 page review published in CHEMICAL SOCIETY REVIEWS in 2008 - doi:10.1039/b801433g
    • Metal-Containing Nucleic Acid Structures Based on Synergetic Hydrogen and Coordination Bonding, a 67 page chapter in the volume 55 of the PROGRESS IN INORGANIC CHEMISTRY book series in 2007 - doi:10.1002/9780470144428.ch8
    • Chemical Topology: Complex Molecular Knots, Links, and Entanglements, a 31 page review published in CHEMICAL REVIEWS in 2011 - doi:10.1021/cr200034u
    • Supramolecular DNA assembly, a 10 page review published in CHEMICAL SOCIETY REVIEWS in 2011 - doi:10.1039/c1cs15253j - in fact, that whole issue of Chem. Soc. Rev. (v.40, i.12) appears to have potentially relevant articles
    • DNA as supramolecular scaffold for functional molecules: progress in DNA nanotechnology, an 11 page review published in CHEMICAL SOCIETY REVIEWS in 2011 - doi:10.1039/b820255a
    • DNA nanomedicine: Engineering DNA as a polymer for therapeutic and diagnostic applications and DNA Self-assembly for Nanomedicine, collectively 20 pages published in ADVANCED DRUG DELIVERY REVIEWS in 2010 - doi:10.1016/j.addr.2010.03.004 and doi:10.1016/j.addr.2010.03.005
    • Unconventional nanofabrication, a 34 page review published in ANNUAL REVIEW OF MATERIALS RESEARCH in 2004 - doi:10.1146/annurev.matsci.34.052803.091100
      • NOTE: I have not read any of these papers, this list just comes from me looking for reviews that cited Seeman's work. Some of these may be irrelevant to the DNA nanotechnology article, but I believe strongly that good secondary review sources are available for this subject, and I suspect that there are also good sources for the placement of DNA nanotechnology within the broader context of supramolecular chemistry.
  • On "supported by inline citations where appropriate", I agree with other reviewers that citations only at the end of paragraphs is less than ideal. I would also suggest to Antony that entire paragraphs based on a single source are less than ideal. If you use a variety of sources (and cite them for each relevant sentence) then there is more likely to be a broad and balanced coverage. For example, the first paragraph of the "Fundamental concepts" section is almost entirely about basic DNA strucuture. Surely there are better sources for this written by an author other than Seeman. This material must be in virtually every Biochemistry text written in the last 50 years, going back to Watson and Crick's work in 1953.
Criterion 2(c) – consistent citations
I don't care particularly about how the references are formatted, but I do care that the formatting is consistent. Whilst a generally similar format has been used, I notice the following issues. Please note that I have not listed every example of every issue, just an example, but similar issues in other references should also be addressed.
  • Authors should be shown consistently:
    • Some references have surname, first name + initials (e.g. Seeman, Nadrian C. in reference 3), others have surname + initials (e.g. Goodman, R.P. in reference 1)
    • Some references have spaces between initials (e.g. Niemeyer, C. M. in reference 4), others do not (e.g. Goodman, R.P. in reference 1)
    • An ampersand (&) is shown before the last author in some cases (e.g. in references 10, 13, and 15) whilst others do not (e.g. in references 1, 6, and 7)
    • Not all authors are always listed - for example reference 16 lists 11 authors, reference 19 lists 8 authors and then "et al."
    • Authorlinks: some authors are (sometimes) linked to their wiki-articles, others aren't - for example, Nadrian Seeman's name is not linked to his article in any references, Paul W. K. Rothemund's name is linked to his article in references 8, 20, and 34 but not in references 33, 35, and 57
    • In the case of chapters from edited books (like references 53 and 57) there is usually an (Eds) (or similar) after the names of the book's editors
  • Dates generally only need to show the year of publication, yet day, month and year are provided for many references (e.g. 1, 13, 14, 15, ...), just month and year for others (e.g. 2, 3, 17, ...), and just year for others (e.g. 4, 5, 6, ...)
  • Capitalisation in titles is inconsistent - some references only capitalise the first word (e.g. references 1, 5, and 7) others capitalise every single word (e.g. 2, 4, and 6)
  • Some journal titles are linked to their wiki-articles in only some references (e.g. links to the Journal of the American Chemical Society article are provided in references 14, 15, 20, and 22, but not in reference 39. Both Angewandte Chemie (reference 41) and Angewandte Chemie International Edition (references 4 and 42) should link to the Angewandte Chemie article, as do references 30 and 32.).
  • Page numbering ranges are inconsistently formatted (e.g. abbreviated as in 1641–7 (reference 6) or 318–22 (reference 9) or fully stated as in 1661–1665 (reference 1) or 763–772 (reference 7)) and in some cases (e.g. reference 4) only an initial page is given
more to come... EdChem (talk) 13:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the rigorous review! My responses are below
  • 1(a): I'm about to rewrite the lead, and I will take your suggestions to heart.
  • I ran a spell check and found no misspellings. Could you locate a specific example? Never mind, I misunderstood your comment. I've copyedited that section so that the word "design" isn't in every other sentence.
  • 1(b/c): While DNA nanotechnology may fall under the formal definition of supramolecular chemistry, in my experience the two fields are (today) fairly distinct. While there is a conceptual connection, the methods used are so massively different that the results of each field are not generally useful in the other, so that supramolecular chemistry results are not widely cited or used in the modern DNA nanotechnology literature. As a case in point, the 54-page review Binding Mechanisms in Supramolecular Complexes  which you mentioned contains exactly one sentence mentioning DNA nanotechnology in passing.
  • It might however be important enough for historical conceptual context to have a paragraph in the History section, but any intellectual connection between the two fields needs to be based on what is mentioned in the early literature rather than a non-contemporary observation. I would have to take another look at the early literature to see if there is such a connection; I think there might be, but I can't say without textual evidence.
  • As I've mentioned earlier, currently every paragraph is already supported by review articles. I appreciate your efforts to identify further review articles and I will examine these to see if they are useful for expanding the article, both for the supramolecular chemistry connection and otherwise.
  • I agree with your point that more sources can be added to Fundamental Concepts, and I will do so. Note, however, that WP:SCICITE#Uncontroversial knowledge does allow collecting references at the end of the paragraph for this type of section. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 20:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just as a technical point, a DX molecule is not a rotaxane. The central strand is not kinetically trapped, it is thermodynamically bound to the other strands through base pairs. Also, the central strand is mechanically interwoven with the other strands, rather than being a simple ring around them. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 22:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – regrettably, for the simple reason that it fails WP:FACR 2a. The lead is too brief and doesn't adequately summarize the article. I saw other issues as well, but there's already enough comments above. I hope the nominator will bring it through again after resolving these concerns. Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 04:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The lead is in the middle of being rewritten based on previous comments in this FAC. I will have a revised lead sometime tomorrow. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 05:28, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have rewritten the lead; I would appreciate your comments on the revised text. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 00:10, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes the lead is improved, and I thank you for that. However, I still think the article still doesn't satisfy the FA criteria. It has numerous issues. For example:
  • The article has too many short sections, per WP:BODY.
  • It uses unexplained jargon, such as "transient dynamics" and "thermodynamic minimum".
  • There are numerous uses of "which" without a preceding comma, rather than "that" for example.
  • Unnecessary additive terms such as "also" and "In addition" are scattered throughout.
  • The phrase "much computationally simpler problem" needs to be rewritten, then given something to compare against.
  • "More recent work" and "but only recently" are dated statements.
  • In the sentence "While the idea of using...", the "but" is incongruous.
&c. Regards, RJH (talk) 00:19, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I find these suggestions to be very helpful. I have fixed all of these issues except the first point; while the subsections within Structural DNA nanotechnology and Functional nucleic acid nanostructures are on the short side, I feel that merging them or converting them into bullet points would be unwieldy. WP:BODY does not provide guidance about what counts as a "very short" section is; I think these sections are short, but not very short. I look forward to any further improvements you might suggest to the article. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 01:51, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Question. Just a quick first question, should the work by Mirkin et al be included (very highly cited paper). Is it in your topic? [2] TCO (Reviews needed) 03:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not really; I'm familiar with the work, but it makes disordered aggregates rather than precisely-defined structures. Compare this to the nanoparticles hosted on DX arrays discussed in the Nanoarchitecture section. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 04:39, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK.TCO (Reviews needed) 05:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Update from nominator I'm going to put in some more time over the weekend to further deal with some points that have been raised above. These will include:
  • Adding more context as to how the field relates to other fields of nanotechnology and chemistry, as suggested by Iridia and EdChem.
  • Looking into the extent of any historical connection with supramolecular chemistry, as suggested by EdChem.
  • Moving citations from the ends of paragraphs closer to the specific sentences they support.
I'm hoping that with these changes I can start to get some supports for this FAC. I have found these reviews to be extremely helpful in improving the article, but I'd like to avoid a situation where I get a lot of comments that I've acted upon, but few clear supports or opposes, and thus have no idea what to change to be more successful at FAC the next time around. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 05:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comments. Aren't we lucky to have a specialist writing in this highly technical field. The prose does need careful sifting through. Here are random comments on the lead. FA material if worked on, yes.

  • I boosted the top image from 220 to 240px. Why not, especially as the caption is like a skyscraper. In fact, subsequent images have enormous captions; can't they be rationed and the text partly shifted to the accompanying main text? And/or the images widened a little to 240px? Also, A's, T's ... MoS says not to insert an apostrophe; so do the major style guides.
  • "making it an example of bionanotechnology and supramolecular chemistry"—does "it" refer to "information"? (Probably not.) I think you need to spell it out and/or recast.
  • English is such a pain when it comes to logical relations between clauses and phrases: "The field is occasionally referred to as nucleic acid nanotechnology, as structures incorporating other nucleic acids such as RNA and peptide nucleic acid (PNA) have also been constructed, although DNA is the dominant material used." What is the relationship to the last, "although" phrase to the foregoing part of the sentence? Clearly the main statement in this complex sentence isn't "The field is occasionally referred to as nucleic acid nanotechnology, although DNA is the dominant material used." At least I don't think it is. Split with semicolon or period?
  • Is it possible to remove "is used to" ... just "generates"?
  • "DNA nanotechnology was started by Nadrian Seeman in the early 1980s" ... you mean the field of ... was initiated/created/first developed by ...?
  • I'm for 2D or 3D rather than the expansion ... without explanation. Everyone knows it. But that's up to you. It's already a pretty long sentence, so as well, perhaps bin "that have been"? The semicolon doesn't work grammatically. Better as a comma.
  • "provides one of the only ways" ... I don't think this works. "few ways"? Tony (talk) 09:37, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review, these are all good recommedations. I've made revisions to the lead incorporating the changes you've suggested. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 00:54, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Media review

—Andrewstalk 21:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestions.
  • I've reformatted the Mao image description using {{Information}}.
  • I've made edits to the captions, but in some cases where there is a sentence fragment followed by a full sentence, the fragment does get a period, as is standard usage.
  • WP:NFCC doesn't specifically say 300px, and as the image is currently 311px across I think it's small enough in any case.
  • The abbreviation "DNA" is universally used, and that is in fact the title of that article. It's not currently listed in the abbreviation exceptions list, but it should be.
Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 22:45, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotcheck I am checking for instances of close paraphrasing and support by the source for the statements given. I made one check in each of the first five article sections.

  • Para ending "Unlike in natural Holliday junctions, each arm in the artificial immobile four-arm junction shown at right has a different base sequence, causing the junction point to be fixed at a certain position." Seeman, Nadrian C (2004): "complementary bases in the corresponding order". Article: "complementary to each other in the correct pattern" - suitable paraphrase. Content supported. Seeman, Nadrian C (2010): no matches, content supported.
  • Para containing "This is done using a nucleic acid hairpin structure as the starting material, which assembles in a cascade reaction in a specific order." Yin et al (2008): no matches. Pinheiro, A et al. (2010): no matches. I'm going to assume content supported by both (Nature letters are super-dense!); both the articles are appropriate to the paragraph.
  • Para containing "There have been multiple schemes for constructing DNA nanotubes, one of which uses the inherent curvature of DX tiles to form a DX lattice to curl around itself and close into a tube." Rothemund et al (2004): no matches, (again I think) content supported. Yin et al (2004): "program the tube circumference also as an emergent property". Article: "for which the rigidity of the tube is an emergent property" - use of phrase in unrelated way. No matches, content supported.
  • Statement "A later system extended the concept of DNA walkers to walk upon a two-dimensional surface rather than a linear track, and demonstrated the ability to selectively pick up and move molecular cargo." Lund et al (2010): no match, content supported.
  • Para containing "DNA origami rods have also been used to replace liquid crystals in residual dipolar coupling experiments in protein NMR spectroscopy; using DNA origami is advantageous because, unlike liquid crystals, they are tolerant of the detergents needed to suspend membrane proteins in solution." Seeman, N. (2007): no phrase match. Service, R. (2011): no match. Content supported.

I conclude with no problems found in these spotchecks. Iridia (talk) 06:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: per Tony1's comment, we are fortunate to have someone writing on such a complex topic and I regret having to close this nomination, but we are at the three-week mark with no Support or consensus to promote. As a nomination grows lengthy, it becomes less likely that reviewers will engage and support, and the fastest route to the bronze star is bringing a fresh nomination in two weeks. Good luck, and hope to see this article back in two weeks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]


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