Talk:Single nucleotide polymorphism

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[edit] "fair use"

I'm new, and before charging into anything, I'd like to understand better what is considered "fair use" in the Wiki world. To me, this article exceeds "fair use" guidelines, as the information is straight offf of this page:

 http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/snps.shtml

The source is not directly credited, with only an oblique attribution. Is this considered legit and consistent with Wiki guidelines?

Regards
--Daffyd 10:55, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

"Fair use" usually refers to a specific legal definition within copyright law. The content in question is provided by the US Government and is not copyrighted at all, so legally there's nothing wrong with copying it verbatim. Not that it's polite. --Mike Lin 17:27, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, makes sense. --Daffyd 17:55, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

It is unethical to use the material without crediting the source. If I had run across this in a student paper, the student would be charged with plagiarism. What is even worse is that the definition is wrong and misleading. The author(s) clearly don't know the meaning of polymorphism, and confuse cause and effect (e.g., "...a SNP might change the nucleotide sequence...." or "SNPs are generally considered to be a form of point mutation....").Ted 01:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The only problem there is that the author(s) get(s) SNP confused with what would be true of a UEP. Nagelfar 01:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

In science, sources must *always* be sited. In addition, it is important not to copy things when you do not understand them fully. Generally, if you don't understand the material well enough to write your own description, you shouldn't just copy the information here. Thank you for contributing, but more care should be exercised since some of the information was not interpreted correctly so was misrepresented. I corrected a few of the errors but it would take a while to fix so I will try to return when I have more time. But I wonder, how many readers came to this page and walked away with wrong information in the interim? Ed 27 Jan 06

Folks, Wikipedia is not a scientific publication. The purpose of an encyclopedia is not the claim and exposition of our original work, but merely the accurate presentation of fact. The article in question is in the public domain and, though flawed, was written for this same purpose, so its copying here, from a reasonably trustworthy source, is in fact appropriate.

It is a separate issue that the original article was itself written with somewhat sloppy language, and certainly we will improve upon it.

Finally, I'd point out that it is quite rare for encyclopedia articles (even those on scientific subjects) to cite sources beyond the level of "for further reading", so many Wikipedia articles are already quite extraordinary in this respect.

--Mike Lin 07:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Plagiarism is a problem in all areas, not just scientific publications. As a stub, reproductions of material from other sources is OK if it is properly cited. Wikipedia is an academic publication in the broad sense of both 'academic' and 'publication'. Ted 13:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Daffyd, in answer to your question, yes, this is considered "legit and consistent" because the source website is linked in the "References" section, and the use does not violate copyright law. -- Reinyday, 17:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Correction: allele

Quoting from this article - "For example, two sequenced DNA fragments from different individuals, AAGCCTA to AAGCTTA, contain a difference in a single nucleotide. In this case we say that there are two alleles : C and T."

This definition of allele is incorrect. C and T comprise a nucleotide pair. DNA molecules are chains of nucleotide pairs. Many nucleotide pairs are not located within a genetic locus. Here is the definition of allele from the glossary section of the Human Genome Project Information website <http://public.ornl.gov/hgmis/external/search_term_action.cfm>

Allele: Alternative form of a genetic locus; a single allele for each locus is inherited from each parent (e.g., at a locus for eye color the allele might result in blue or brown eyes).

Lgfree 01:52, 17 June 2006 (UTC)lgfree

The rub is that SNPs are not related to loci in the classical sense. SNPs can be located within (expressed) genes (possibly giving rise to alleles) or between genes -- it makes no difference for the SNP. Or, if you want, because we are simply looking at single nucleotides, every nucleotide is a possible "marker locus." In that case, differences between alternate forms of that single nucleotide marker locus take on the four possible nucleotides. I'd hate to put something like that in the lead paragraph. Maybe it can be explained better somewhere else in the article. Ted 02:40, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition query

I'm not sure if this statement is correct:

Almost all common SNPs have only two alleles

My understanding is that there are only two possible options (alleles) at a single nucleotide locus. If I'm wrong, would it be useful to have an example of a SNP that has more than two alleles?

Buzwad 11:59, 22 March 2007 (UTC)