User:Yesvery875/The book of curiosities/WhimsicalOkapi Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

Yesvery875


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yesvery875/The_book_of_curiosities?veaction=edit&preload=Template%3ADashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template


 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * N/A

Evaluate the drafted changes
Overall I think you have done a really fantastic job so far particularly because this is a brand new article, which I am sure has come with its own specific challenges. Congratulations!

Lead:

Your leading paragraph accurately and concisely summarizes the article. I think adding in a sentence that clarifies the book’s rarity in content and in general might be useful (maybe something about the rectangular map of the world to link the lead paragraph to the last paragraph?). I also think that very clearly outlining each section you are going to discuss, even very briefly would help create a more cohesive article, you could also use this to emphasize your most significant contributions that you would most like to convey to readers.

Ex: In the last paragraph you write this, “This map is possibly the earliest surviving map with a scale, not only in Islamic but also in European cartography. Savage-Smith notes that “all maps prior to the time were circular and had only regional names” while this map has 395 city names, indicating a shift in the approach to producing world maps.” I think that this is vital information! I would recommend condensing this line to also put in the lead.

Content:

I think that you did a fantastic job with staying on topic and not straying, there were a few points that I felt could have had more elaboration. This might not be possible due to lack of resources (the resources for my article are scant, too, so I totally get it!), but I have outlined a few spots that could use a little bit more development if possible.

Content of the books:

You mention in the lead that the books consist of cosmography and in the content section you say, “Book I charts the heavens over 10 chapters, covering topics such as astronomy, astrology, and “star lore.” Book II details the earth in 25 chapters. Savage-Smith refers to the treatise as “a reader’s digest guide to the universe” due to the deluge of information which the author presents in simple wording that lacks technical detail.” I would love to know more about what exactly this entails! Maybe adding in a description of a folio or two? Or any translations would be interesting too, if possible! You mention the dimensions of the folios at the beginning of this section and a paragraph later continue to speak to visual descriptions, I think that moving this first sentence, “The Book of Curiosities is made up of 46 folios which equals 96 pages. Each page measures 32.4 x 24.5 cm” to the paragraph directly below would make this article even more streamlined. I noticed you wrote at the end of the article that you were debating on doing more research on the rectangular map of the world and I think that would be really cool! I would love a through physical description of the map like you did for the book of curiosity above.

Tone and Balance:

A lot of your analysis comes from Oxford folks (this makes sense because it is where the folios reside), but if there are analyses from other researchers that would be useful. Despite this, I think you did a wonderful job with keeping the content and tone of the article neutral, and you stuck to factual renditions.

Overall + Misc remarks:

Since this is a new article, I can see that you have put so much thought and effort into it. You do a fantastic job of summarizing a large variety of aspects of the books, I would recommend going into slightly more detail in some places, so things are not as vague in spots.

Your references are all great, wikipedia approved, secondary sources and exceed the notability requirements of new wikipedia articles. Your grammar and spelling are both great as well and I think that you structured the article very well. I enjoyed the pictures and would love more if available, I am having some trouble seeing the folios clearly so many enlarging the photo might help. I would love to see the intricate details of the folios better.