Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Uriel Sebree

Uriel Sebree

Just finished this article, have been working on it off and on since March 2007. Sebree was a rear admiral, Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, and 2nd acting-Governor of American Samoa. I am looking for advice on how to improve the article, places where the text needs to flow better, etc. My hope is to bring this up to A/FA standards. Thank you for your assistance!

JonCatalán

I am not one to comment on the grammar, but it looks very nice overall; well-sourced and well-written. I hope that someone offers a better peer review, since this is not much more than an attempt to motivate you to try to get the article featured. Here are some quasi-suggestions, however:

1. Is there any way the early life and career could include more on his life prior to military service? Admittedly, I have not looked over many biographies, and this is one of the best I have read so far, but it seems to me that the opening paragraph is quite short and there's almost no information on his life prior to service. In fact, there is only one sentence!
2. How were those Los Angeles Times articles accessed? If they were accessed through an onine database, I think that a retrieved date should be added. If not, then ignore this!
3. I would suggest to put the article through a Good Article review, as you will get someone to look at it in depth (at least, this was my experience) and may offer you even more help than a peer review.

I'm sorry that I couldn't offer some more helpful criticism, but it really does look good. JonCatalan (talk) 14:01, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Hey Jon, thanks for your comments. To point #1, his early life is somewhat difficult. Most of the writing that has been done on Sebree are from military sources or have a military bent-- that is where he spent most of his life and he did join the academy at 15. I have one source that talks more about his father, but not much about him. I'll keep looking. To point #2, they were ProQuest articles. I can add an accessdate, but I've not had to do that for any of the others since they are scans of the original papers rather than transcriptions. For #3, I hope to put the article through GA (and maybe eventually FA), after it gets a few more eyeballs on it through this peer review process. Thanks for the words of encouragement! JRP (talk) 21:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Jackyd101

A very nice article that would not require a vast amount of work to challenge for GA or even FA. There are however some problems that I have listed below.

• The lead is OK, and does introduce the article, but I am not convinced that the level of detail devoted to his Artic expeditions in the lead is in correct proportion to his career. Undoubtably they were important, but were they significantly more important than his work in American Samoa or the major events of his naval career? When thinking about this consider breaking the lead into three paragraphs and reviewing the prose.
• Prose. The prose lets itself down in places. The article needs one or two thorough copyedits from experienced editors, but I have listed some of the points of issue below. The biggest problems are wayward and excessive punctuation and the tendency to repeat words within the same sentence, which breaks the prose up and makes it much more difficult to read.

• "This rescue mission was successful and gained Sebree and the other officers of the expedition a level of fame." - awkward
• "Two features in Alaska, Sebree Peak and Sebree Island, were named for the admiral." - should be "are named"
• "the group trudged slowly" - I don't think ships can trudge, try sailed.
• "returned to "civilization" at" - the inverted commas a little patronising, try removing it entirely (i.e. "the relief expedition sailed initially to Upernavik, Greenland")
• "Sebree and the other members of the relief expedition gained fame from the voyage." - Again, awkward. Try to think of another word other than gained.
• "his decision was not not act" - Not to act?
• "After caring for his wife," - to me this sounds a little like she died. Try "Following his wife's recovery" or similar. (Unless she actually died, in which case say so)

• Is any greater detail known of his background, upbringing or early life?
• No need to link "riot". It is a common enough word. Only link if there is an article on that specific riot. Check other common words that may be linked elsewhere in the article.
• Link Rear Admiral William T. Swinburne (if one doesn't exist, make one)

Despite these comments, this is an excellent article which could quite easily get though GAN and even FAC with a bit of prose tinkering. Well done.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)