Talk:University of Waterloo/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: EricEnfermero (talk · contribs) 23:49, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll be happy to review this nomination. On an initial read, I'm a little concerned that some passages in the article may closely paraphrase the source, but I need to read a little more to determine how extensive the issue is. Thanks to the nominator for the work on this so far. I'll begin with a section-by-section analysis soon. EricEnfermero HOWDY! 23:49, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Some initial checks

 * The article appears stable.
 * Images are appropriate and tagged correctly.
 * Will address the paraphrasing issues within the relevant sections.
 * The toolbox shows no disambiguation links, but there are broken external links.

More to come. EricEnfermero HOWDY! 02:27, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Lead

 * opening sentence: "commonly referred as" - change to "commonly known as" or "commonly referred to as"
 * "whose main campus" - change to "with a main campus located..." since UW is not really a "who"
 * "a wide variety of academic programs" - would change to the actual number or "offers academic programs administered by six..."
 * "the university traces its origins" - seems inconsistent with the history section, which says "may trace" and mentions 1925
 * "had formally separated" - just go with "formally separated"; check rest of article as extra uses of "had" creep in periodically
 * "fill the need of" - may go with "need for"
 * re: alumni in ____ countries - article lists two different numbers and the source lists two different numbers (best to leave out?)
 * In trying to clarify the 151st-200th rank, that URL seems broken.

I notice that a copyedit request at WP:GOCE seems to have been helpful to you before a previous nomination. Since we're running into fairly frequent issues of wording and we aren't very far into the article, one option would be to close this review and submit a copyedit request there, then to evaluate the article again. I'm certainly willing to continue the review, but if you're finding this to be a cumbersome process already, that option might help. Just let me know. EricEnfermero HOWDY! 14:42, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm certainly willing to press forward with the review. I also followed through with suggested changes above. As for the 151st-200th rank (I'm assuming the ARWU one in the lead), I fixed the refcode to the correct page. As with the situation with the alumni page, I simply changed it to "over 163,000 students" and "over 140 countries (both pages seemed to conclude at least this amount or more). If that still is unacceptable, I will remove it. Thank you for your effort anyhow. Leventio (talk) 17:35, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * No problem. This section looks better. There is one repeated word (offers offers - first paragraph) and one extra "had" (second para), but we're pretty much good to go for the lead. The alumni bit would sound more professional without the "all across Canada" and "around the world", but it's not a huge deal. I will leave some feedback for the next section as soon as I can. EricEnfermero  HOWDY! 03:22, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

History

 * "the university may trace" - Is there a doubt about this? The "may" is confusing to me.
 * Is there a source for the last part of first paragraph? Suspect it may be Scott p. 25.
 * "By the end of the same year" and "on 3 December" - only need one of those phrases.
 * This section is pretty detailed for the 1950s and 1960s, but relies largely on a single source.
 * Third paragraph: "link between the two bodies" - close paraphrasing of the source
 * I don't think we should use italics for legislative acts.
 * "the college would not be formally federated" - change "would not be" to simple past tense ("was not")
 * "The dispute centred around..." - overly long sentence, portion after the semicolon is a fragment
 * Department of Economic - should that be Economics?
 * "In spite of this..." - would get rid of either "in spite of" or "however"
 * The history seems to jump from the 1960s to 2001. I'd like to take another look at this section after filling in this gap.
 * "comprehensive partnership between the university..." - close paraphrasing
 * "Sybase would be" - Change to "Sybase was" and check the rest of the article for this issue.
 * I would mention the original name of the research park earlier to avoid confusion.
 * "From 2009 to 2012, the university also previously managed..." - confusing, may be best to leave out "also previously"
 * Same sentence: I can't find Dubai International Academic City mentioned in the source.
 * The next sentence is present tense but seems to refer to the past.
 * "first emerged" - change to "emerged"
 * Same sentence: "and was officially launched" - change to "and classes began" or "and the Dubai campus was officially launched"
 * That same sentence does not seem to be supported by the source.
 * "an undergraduate degree" - change to "undergraduate degrees" - also, the reference for this is a broken URL. (See WP:WBM)
 * "The university did not operate" - extra comma here, also doesn't appear supported by the information at the listed URL
 * "The decision to close the Dubai campus" - close paraphrasing, except that the source provides a different date for the decision.
 * Once again, sorry for the late reply I've been busy this past week. I made corrections to the items suggested as well as changed the sentences/sources to better reflect it. As for the section's centrality in the 1960s to 1970s, most of the section was based off one book (the university's history to the end of the 1960s), and I don't have any access to sources describing the university's history post-1960s (the university's own history page even sort of jumps from 1969 to 1993...). I can try to find stuff to fill in the 30-40 year void however.Leventio (talk) 20:22, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Campus

 * "to the south by Waterloo Park" → "by Waterloo Park to the south" for consistency
 * "Three numbered roads..." - place a colon after campus instead of a comma.
 * For the Campus Master Plan Update reference, I would add a page number because it is a huge source.
 * Second paragraph - "divided up into three major areas;" → "divided into three major areas:"
 * I think the first reference links to the wrong URL
 * "The Dana Porter Library" - overly long sentence
 * "shared program of library collections and services" - close paraphrasing
 * Earth Sciences museum → Earth Sciences Museum - also another broken link in that reference
 * Last sentence in Libraries and museums section seems unsupported by source.
 * In the library image caption, library should be uppercase.
 * Take out "currently" from same caption per WP:WTW.
 * At least one of the refs in the housing section links to a WP user sandbox.
 * End of first paragraph of same section: residents → residences
 * Second paragraph of that section: another "first emerged"
 * "would soon surface" → surfaced
 * "was not been resolved"
 * Off campus facilities → Off-campus facilities
 * I think we are missing a word in the second sentence of this off-campus section.
 * "The facility is a year-round research, and teaching." - clarify
 * Third paragraph of off-campus section: remove "currently" and check rest of article.
 * business-owners → business owners
 * Kitchener, Ontario, Ontario - is this repetition intended?
 * "The opportunity to work at the studio..." - seems unsupported by reference.
 * "The first building of..." - same problem.
 * Under Sustainability, first sentence seems unsourced and contains currently. Leave out?
 * "The university's sustainability initiatives is" → are
 * "having not signed" → as the university has not signed
 * The Corporate Knights ref links to the wrong page (p.3 instead of p. 2)

We'll stop right here for now. EricEnfermero HOWDY! 09:04, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Everything has been changed as suggested. Previously erroneous/dead links have also been replaced. Leventio (talk) 21:04, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Even with just a quick peek at this section, there are unaddressed issues as early as the third bullet. A little further down, you did provide a reference for the 2009 closing of the museum, but there is more close paraphrasing. That surprises me - so much of this review has already focused on close paraphrasing. EricEnfermero  HOWDY! 07:36, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Administration

 * First sentence: "bicameral form of governance" and "enshrined in legislative act" - close paraphrasing - reword.
 * Next sentence has the same problem. Lots of simpler ways to rephrase.
 * Third sentence: "shall consist of" - same issue. Also update for 2013-2014 as source lists that now.
 * Source seems to list five ex officio members of the board.
 * Second para: "and to make" - "and for making"
 * "with respect to any matter..." - close paraphrasing
 * Check the rest of the article for close paraphrasing. I'll review it for that after we get the other stuff fixed.
 * Third para: First sentence is overly long and confusing.
 * s member - a member
 * The bit about the president goes from duties to the current president and back to duties.
 * "in which their term in office..." - reads as a little confusing
 * redundant mention of Anglican
 * "St. Paul's is now operates..."
 * "The three colleges and..." - unnecessary commas in this para. That's a minor problem throughout the article. We can fix these last.

Academics

 * Update the number of degrees awarded (from '10-'11) if possible.
 * 3rd → third
 * First ref under Reputation is giving me an error.
 * The Maclean's ref links to the wrong ranking list. Would check the rest of them in this section to be sure they're right.
 * Admission: "university's admissions office maintains..." - "maintains" sounds like we doubt them
 * That same sentence gets odd after the comma.

Student life

 * Is there another source for the university not recognizing Greek orgs? It's sourced to a pretty non-neutral student opinion piece.
 * "The Imprint made national..." - can we break this sentence into two?
 * For the radio station, I would clarify that it had university funding from 1977 to 2008.
 * Athletics: "other facilities at the university includes" - include
 * Reminder to check for "currently" - at least a couple of them in Athletics section.

Insignias

 * Several uses of "adopted", to the point of becoming distracting.
 * Noted and changed.Leventio (talk) 05:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Notable alumni and faculty

 * It seems like the Academy Award winner should be mentioned by name.
 * Second para: I'd go with "A number of business leaders..." - that will help decrease a slightly non-neutral tone in this section.
 * Noted and changed. Leventio (talk) 07:30, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Since there are pretty extensive changes suggested here, we'll take another look once the above is addressed. EricEnfermero HOWDY! 06:21, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Hopefully we can make some significant progress this week. Normally GA reviews stay open for about a week. In over two weeks, most of what we've accomplished is basic copyediting. I appreciate your work on this article, but right now I think we still have significant work to do for GA status. EricEnfermero  HOWDY! 07:40, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

GA Table
With fairly significant issues remaining after the review has been open for this long, I think it is best to close this review. GA should be a lightweight process that doesn't require nominations to stay open for long periods of time. After addressing these issues - especially the issues with close paraphrasing and the history issue - this article can be renominated immediately. A lot of good work has gone into this article and I know that it can easily reach GA status with some more work. Thanks! EricEnfermero HOWDY! 12:41, 6 February 2014 (UTC)