Portal:The Science Behind Parkinson's/For Parkinson's Research Hounds

A wiki for those wanting to find out about progress in current Parkinson's research If you are eager to find out as much as you can about progress in current Parkinson's research you should find this wiki useful. You can see what others have already put together on current Parkinson's research progress Already a lot of work has been put into ferreting out and explaining much of the research progress over the past few years. Most of this is in Section 1 - Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research. Here summaries of recent research are organised under topics to help you find what you are interested in. Section 1 includes the Magazine Section whose purpose is to hold articles which highlight and comment on recent significant results and research progress. The articles contain links to further sources of relevant information including pages in the main part of Section 1. There may also be links to Pages in Section 2 - An Introduction to Parkinson's Science to point you to background information with which you may not be familiar explained in straightforward language. Many of the main pages of Section 1 have a search facility that enables you easily to search PubMed, PubMed Central and Google Scholar for relevant publications that may have appeared since the page was written. How about contributing material? You can use this project as a satisfying and even therapeutic outlet for your interest in Parkinson's research It could provide you with a medium for sharing with like-minded people what what you have discovered through your own investigations. The beauty of a wiki is that you can share what you find out and help build it up as a valuable and lasting resource for others. Also you can start in small, uncomplicated ways and then build up to making more substantial contributions. To give you practice and gain confidence you can start by making small changes, such as correcting spelling or grammar mistakes or rephrasing something to make it more intelligible. Then it takes only a further small step to add a snippet of new information that you have come across and this leads on to making increasingly bigger additions for improving and then initiating articles for the benefit of other readers. Are you able to translate complex scientific concepts into straightforward language understandable by non-specialists? You will probably answer "No". But have you tried? A lot of people surprise themselves with what they can do after, for example, someone has asked them to write up a talk they have attended or to summarise an article they have read. Interested? Read on ...

We are looking to build up a community of contributors to this wiki project because we want to create a globally accessible resource for people who, however reluctantly, have joined the Parkinson's Club. So be bold, start small and see what we can achieve together! You can make small changes or additions anywhere in wikiversity projects. But there are three main things you can help out with in this Parkinson's Science project and these correspond to the two main sections plus the Magazine section of Section 1: Section 2, paradoxically, could be the best place for you to start. Do browse through this section. You might find something that does not come across very clearly to you. If so, can you work out how it could be clarified? If so, why not change it there and then or add something in? Maybe you could add a link to material elsewhere on the web that has been helpful to you. Section 1: Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research is the 'guts' of the wiki. It is where we want to summarise where Parkinson's research has led so far. Progress is being made all the time and we want to keep it up to date. In some senses it is encyclopedic and it would be good if it could be comprehensive. But it does not have the strictures that are appropriate for wikipedia. But, like wikipedia, it can only be properly useful if we have a community of contributors adding material all the time. It is hard work to search through the scientific literature pulling out all the most appropriate relevant references. But don't be put off because this section, too, can benefit from small additions and minor edits. Moreover, if you are not ready to help work on this, you could go to Section 1's Magazine Section. The Magazine Section, as its name implies, is for interesting articles about current research. So it is as acceptable to write a short article on a small topic as it is to write a more substantial piece on a whole area of interest. It is a way you can say "Hey, look at this!" And you can also advance ideas and ask others what they think of them. Parkinson's is devastating and therefore is important. And because it is important Parkinson's science is of profound interest and can be fascinating. Both the Magazine Section and the rest of Section 1 allows you to say "This is important" and "There are some important implications of this new piece of work". You might even say "I am a person affected by Parkinson's and this is what I think", which may present a completely different perspective from that of the laboratory scientist. If you feel you cannot yet do any editing as described, you can leave a comment on the associated 'Talk' page of any page by clicking on the 'Discussion' tab at the top left and someone else could provide the necessary improvement. So do join us! Be bold, start small and see what we can achieve together!

Things you can do Contributing to the Science Behind Parkinson's learning project Anyone may contribute material to this learning project. Please create a Wikiversity account first. Go here for Specific Things You Can Do. Please go to the Project Development subpage to work with us on how the project should develop. Please access the project's discussion page to comment on the concepts behind this project.

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Help with getting started

Get help with editing here

We are developing a User Guide here

Improve your technical writing skills and techniques here.

Occasionally you may want to upload an image or a file. An uploaded file must not be subject to copyright. Help with uploading files is given here. A text file has to be in .pdf format and is actually stored in the Image section of wikiversity.

A useful glossary of terms relating to Parkinson's is the We Move one: http://www.wemove.org/glossary/

Note that contributors are expected to provide references to back up what they say.

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Quick Links: --- Section 1: Progress and Prospects in Parkinson's Research --- Magazine Section --- Section 2: Introduction to Parkinson's Science < Back to the main page of The Science Behind Parkinson's