User talk:Rlippitt19/sandbox

Hey Alex,

I love your idea of actually redoing the current Wikipedia article of the Military History Of Ancient Rome. I looked at the current Wiki article, and I agree that it is completely lacking information, and needs to be rewritten. Your first draft was pretty good, I think that your introduction paragraphs gave a good introductory background, as well as good facts that were overarching and helped the reader understand the topic as a whole. I also liked how you broke your article down into section, about the Military history of Rome with Campaign history, structural history, and technological advances. All this being said, think about possibly adding a whole another section possibly about famous roman generals, and possibly their campaign and career path that they went on, and what role or significance did those people play in the history of Rome, if any? Thanlon14 (talk) 13:47, 21 April 2017 (UTC) Troy Hanlon

Peer Review: Thoughts on Draft
Alex,

I like that you chose the Military history of ancient rome as I noticed that the current Wikipedia page is extremely vague, non-encyclopedic in its language, and draws upon all of its information from one online source that upon checking, seems to just be vague summaries of the ancient roman military history and wouldn't exactly be considered scholarly. There's tons of room for improvement to this article.

With regards to your article draft, I noticed a major thing in that you did not cite any sources. That's the most important thing is to ensure that what you're writing is accurate and comes form credible sources, and I get the sense in your introduction that the writing is more of a summary of your knowledge, and not exactly academic or encyclopedic. Phrases like "Rome was able to conquer Italy, gave themselves manpower that was unmatched, and was able to conquer the Mediterranean on only five hundred years," sounds un-scholarly but also is very vague. Did they conquer all of Italy? How did they give themselves manpower? Your writing is also a little confusing to read and does not flow smoothly, as seen in a run-on sentence with "From this time on, in Rome, two consuls were elected each year to head the government of the state, and in the middle to late part of the Roman Empire, were assigned to be Consular Army, and an area in which they were aloud to campaign." Remember that the introduction to the article is one of the most important parts. It should be concise, easy-to-understand, sourced and credible, and provides a really strong summary of what's to come in the article so that the reader can essentially look at the introduction and understand it. I don't think you accomplished that yet, but there's a lot of room for improvement and I'd suggest doing so by looking up some scholarly sources and try making your writing more encyclopedic rather than statements.

I notice that that when you get into the other topics of military history in Rome, you're kind of re-wording what was already there in a different way. While that sometimes can help in creating stronger and more cohesive sentences, I think you can focus more on finding some sources that backs up what is said, or rather find sources than summarize the referenced Wikipedia topic page in a better way. Lastly, under the technological history of military in rome section that you are editing, "From sticks and stones, to advanced ballistics and smelting of metals, Rome seemingly always held the technological advantages on the battlefield" is a sentence that can be expanded potentially into a mini paragraph. If you find a few sources that talk about the iron age and the technological innovation and evolution that was used and made by the Ancient Roman military, I think the summary of the linked wikipedia page could be incredibly insightful and scholarly and give the readers a better sense of the evolution "from sticks and stones" to more advanced and modernized weaponry and military production processes.

Jon Pacilio (talk) 20:25, 25 April 2017 (UTC)