Wikipedia:Peer review/Coal ball/archive1

Coal ball
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I am confident that I can get this to featured status sometime. I know it has the potential.

Thanks, → Σ  τ  c. 08:04, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

 Spinning Spark  13:41, 2 October 2011 (UTC)


 * My immediate comment is that the length of the article is a little short, not much more than a thousand words of readable prose. While there is no length requirement for FA, there is a requirement for comprehensiveness.  Google books shows a large number (many thousands) of books addressing the subject.  So the question for you is do you feel you can justify that the article is comprehensive if it were challenged for this at FA?  For instance, the very first sentence in the very first book in this search says that coal balls are found in the Permian.  This fact is not mentioned anywhere in the article.  It may be that there is not much more material out there, but it seems likely if I can find a new fact in the first sentence of a search, and if it is not out there you need to be prepared to explain this at FA.

Lede
 * "300 million years ago". It would be better if the entire phrase were linked, giving the reader a better understanding of where the link is going.
 * "widespread, both stratigraphically..." seems to imply that 300 million should be a range rather an exact point.
 * "Carboniferous Period" I think this would be better as a single link to Carboniferous piped as Carboniferous Period.  WP:LINK avoids adjacent links, preferring to link the most specific term only, and it is not really necessary to link Period.  It is, in any case, linked immediately in the more specific article should the reader need it.
 * The first sentence of the middle paragraph has two "and"s in it. It would be better if this was broken up.
 * "Since then, coal balls have been discovered in other countries and several theories on their formation have been proposed." There seems to be two unrelated statements joined with a conjunction...  unless you really are saying that different theories were proposed as a result of discovery in other countries.
 * "...as compared to coal balls from Europe". Is this claim sourced?  I don't see any expansion of this in the body of the article.

Discovery
 * "Coal balls were first reported by Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker and Edward William Binney in northern England in 1855, and European scientists did much of the early work on these objects". This is referenced to ref 2 but without a specific page number(s).  Since ref 2 is used in multiple places but for different page numbers it might be better to use inline Havard refs - see Power dividers and directional couplers for instance.  Same comment goes for several other refs.

Formation
 * Ref 2 mentions a theory that the calcium in coal balls might have a meteoric origin. That is quite an extrordinary claim.  Is it worth including in the article?
 * All these "million years ago" links are a little troubling. As the unit, the ""million years ago" should really be within the link but given the number of time you have used it that is making for some ugly long links.  I would be in favour of using the Mya abbreviation after defining it on first use.  Such abbreviations are sometimes criticised as jargon but the level of the article should be taken into account and in my opinion it is justified in this article.
 * I have a problem with "which is commonly agreed upon in scientific papers" not least because specific pages are not given which makes it hard to find where in the paper the verification is supposed to be. Three references are given: ref 5 does not discuss alternative theories at all, baldly stating just the in situ theory.  Ref 6 seems to come to the conclusion that both Hooker and Binney, and Mamay and Yochelson are both right or any partial combination of the two depending on the particular coal ball.  Ref 7 does not seem to be discussing formation at all.  Wikipedia should not survey the literature and come to a conclusion on what the mainstream position is.  We should be referencing somebody else who has already done a survey of the literature for us.

Analysis
 * "liquid peel technique" should not be in scare quotes per MOS:BADEMPHASIS. If you wish to indicate that it is a term you should place it in italics.
 * "...grinding and cutting the surface of a coal ball, etching the cut and the surface..." I unserstand the grinding, but am confused on how the surface is cut.
 * "scattered intensity". This is another pair of adjacent links.  The whole phrase should be one link to the most specific article (scattering).
 * "...with the result based on a function of..." This is a strange phrase and I am really not sure what is intended here.  The results of the measurements are the results.  Do you mean that "...with the measurements consisting of..."  I presume you don't mean a mathematical function of the variables listed.

References
 * Ref 2 is missing some details; volume, pages, publication date. This seems to apply also to several other refs.  Ref 5 is missing date of publication for instance.  I am stopping checking for this, you need to go through all the refs yourself for completeness and consistency of format.
 * Ref 7 and ref 26. Student worksheets might not be considered a RS.
 * Ref 8. Tertiary source.  Is this necessary?
 * Ref 12 and 13. You may have to justify these as RS.
 * Ref 20. Books should always reference some kind of catalogue index.  If ISBN or ISSN are not available then use

The overall impression is that this needs a lot of work before it would be ready for FA, possibly with some substantial expansion. You are likely to get a hard time over the quality of some of the references and I would suggest seeking out more books and published papers to replace them. You may want to work on the article for a while before submitting to FA and if the changes are substantial consider another peer review first.  Spinning Spark  22:28, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your analysis. I will work hard to assure that the issues with the article are resolved, and the quality of the artifle goes above and beyond the qualifications needed for FA. → Σ  τ  c . 23:43, 5 October 2011 (UTC)