Wikipedia:Peer review/An Oak Tree/archive1

An Oak Tree
This peer review discussion has been closed. Article on an abstract Australian artwork from 1973. Listing at PR now; request has not been addressed since July 2009 (!).

Thanks, Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 11:35, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is an interesting and amusing article. I have several suggestions for further improvement.

Lead
 * The lead should be an inviting summary of the whole article, not simply an introduction. The existing lead says nothing about the critical reaction, for example. A good rule of thumb is to include in the lead at least a mention of each of the main text sections and not to include anything important that is not mentioned in the main text. WP:LEAD has details.


 * I would not link "artwork" since most readers are already familiar with the term. On the other hand, linking to conceptual art would be helpful.


 * What does the "RA" after Michael Craig-Martin stand for?


 * "The text takes the form of a Q&A about the artwork" - Q&A should be spelled out, probably as "question-and-answer text".


 * Assuming that nothing in the lead is not repeated in the main text, the place to add in-line citations is in the main text rather than the lead.


 * It's not a good idea to use a lot of direct quotations in the lead. Use them in the main text, and paraphrase in the lead.


 * The Manual of Style advises against extremely short paragraphs and extremely short sections. The last paragraph of the lead should either be expanded or merged.

Artwork
 * "whose ideal height is 253 centimetres" - This should also be expressed in imperial units, thus: 253 cm.


 * "whose ideal height is 253 centimetres with matte grey-painted brackets screwed to the wall." - Should that be "the ideal height of which is 253 cm and which rests on matte grey-painted brackets screwed to the wall"? Also, what is the meaning of "matte" in this context?


 * "the brackets should be resprayed and the glass and shelf even replaced" - Delete "even"?


 * "The text contains a semiotic argument" - Link to semiotics?


 * "and "It would no longer be accurate to call it a glass of water" - Sentences don't start with a small letter.


 * "prior to it his concern had been deconstruction" - Link deconstruction?

History


 * More short paragraphs here. I would consider merging or expanding.

Critical reaction
 * "art involves an act of faith comparable to the belief that, through transubstantiation" - Nothing inside a direct quotation should be linked.

Derivative works
 * Consider expanding this extremely short section. Tell us a bit more about the play. Tell us a bit more about Little Artists and what the Lego business is all about.


 * Link Lego?

See also
 * No need to link anything here that is already linked in the main text.

Other
 * The link checker at the top of this review page finds several dead urls in the citations.

Image
 * File:Oak tree.jpg might need a different sort of license, but I'm not sure exactly what. In the U.S., the three-dimensional work itself would be protected by copyright and could not be photographed for use in Wikipedia, I think. I'm not sure about the law in the U.K., but I think such photos are OK there. There might be a special kind of license for this particular situation, though. I don't have time to research this, but I thought I should mention it. If the image license proves to be OK, you might want to upload the image to the Commons.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR; that is where I found this one. I don't usually watch the PR archives or check corrections or changes. If my comments are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 05:02, 16 October 2010 (UTC)