Talk:Macromolecule
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Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit ยท refresh) Rated "top" as high school/SAT biology content; applies to many biomolecules such as DNA and proteins. - tameeria 01:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC) |
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[edit] IUPAC recommendation
I have removed the following text from the article (currently in a hidden comment):
According to IUPAC recommendations the term macromolecule is reserved for an individual molecule, and the term polymer is used as to denote a substance composed of macromolecules. Polymer may also be employed unambiguously as an adjective, according to accepted usage, e.g. polymer blend, polymer molecule[1].
The reasons are as follows:
- The sentences are lifted verbatim from a 1996 IUPAC report. The citation is not noted in quotations and may constitute plagiarism. Original Source
- The IUPAC recommendation appears to be an attempt to disambiguate the usage of the term polymeramong polymer scientists. The full report (here) suggests that the terms macromolecules and polymer molecule are indistinguishable. This may be true for the narrow purview of polymer science but ignores the well-established practice of describing large biologicall molecules (such as proteins, which are rarely described as polymers) or lipids (definitely not polymers) as macromolecules.
That being said, the referenced IUPAC report has some valuable information which should be added in future revisions to the article. Irene Ringworm 18:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
