Wikipedia:Peer review/Dorset/archive2
Dorset[edit]
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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…from a Wikiproject Dorset point of view it ought to be one of the best articles. It was once a featured article and although that might be a tall order, I would like to do what I can to improve it. Thanking you in advance for your attention and comments--Ykraps (talk) 14:48, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Brianboulton comments
- General
- The link in ref 20 appears to be broken. I cannot access the page.
- The most immediate area for attention is references. Throughout the article there are paragraphs that end without a citation, which gives the impression that many statements are unsourced. The "Education" section carries an "unreferenced" banner because it has no refs at all.
- There are several citations in the lead. It would be better if these facts were cited when they occur in the main text; the lead should be a broad summary of the article, and should contain nothing that is not contained within the main text.
- In the list of citations, formats should be consistent. For example, the retrieval dates in 1 and 2 are differently formatted.
- Arkell, listed in the "references", is not a cited source and should be listed as "Further reading". Likewise Davies, Dwyer, Perkins, Pitt-Rivers and Taylor. Encyclopædia Britannica and West are websites and should be formatted in the same style as the other online sources, though I don't see any citations to these, either. The impression is given that the article has been amended, but that the sources have not been updated.
- Prose issues
I have not carried out a detailed prose check, but from a quick reading it doesn't look too bad. Here are a few points:-
- There is a tendency towards too many very short paragraphs; see in particular "Economy and industry". The "Culture" section has a single line paragraph.
- Awkward phrasing: just a few examples from early on:-
- "The county town has been Dorchester since at least 1305, situated in the south of the county."
- "Dorset's high chalk hills have provided a location for defensive settlements for millennia, there are Neolithic and Bronze Age burial mounds on almost every chalk hill in the county, and a number of Iron Age hill forts, the most famous being Maiden Castle, constructed around 600BC." Everlasting sentence needs splitting and repunctuating. There is a general tendency towards overlong sentences.
- "Dorset was fortified with the construction of..." Should be "by" not "with"
- "The climate of Dorset has warm summers..." Climates don't "have"
- Although tourism is mentioned in the Economy section, one would have expected to see something about the development of tourism as an industry in the History section.
- Images
These look generally Ok, but File:Abbotsbury, Dorset - Tithe Barn.jpg lacks source information and name of author. Not clear that the author was the uploader, and why is the "last version" date earlier than the "first version" date?
These are all areas to work on. I would also recommend a full copyedit and prose check. There is no reason why this should not become featured again, though GA might be a useful interim stp. As you have a limited and very recent edit history with this article it may be appropriate for you to work with other active recent editors, although the principal contributor seems long gone, at least as far as this article is concerned. Brianboulton (talk) 14:56, 11 February 2011 (UTC)