Wikipedia:Peer review/Italy/archive1

Italy
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review to get a wider perspective of particular areas where the article should be improved and perhaps expanded on. It would be very helpful if concrete suggestions were given so that a number of editors can tackle improving the article. Many thanks Connolly15 (talk) 13:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

I enjoyed this article. It is long (108 kilobytes of text), but not excessively so, I think. However, it is not at present in any state to be put forward for GA or FA. First, and most importantly, it is fatally lacking in references in far too many sections, which I have identified below. Secondly, the prose is generally fine but the spelling is all over the place, with UK English spellings in the lead, followed by a mixture of English and American spellings in the main article ("centre" but "defense", "organised" but "civilization" etc).
 * Comments from Tim riley

A less serious point is that for parenthetical dashes you need to standardise either on en dashes with spaces or em dashes without; at present you have a mixture of both and other variants.

Detailed comments: I hope these points are useful. Happy to comment further if wished. – Tim riley (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Etymology
 * "the corpus of the solutions" – could be plainer.
 * Prehistory and antiquity
 * Refs 27 to 33 – are they all really needed? They do rather hit one in the eye.
 * "the ground that Western civilization is based upon" – "the ground on which Western civilization is based", perhaps?
 * Middle Ages
 * "Germanic Tribe" – capital T needed?
 * "Notable amongst them" – I never know what "amongst" has got that "among" hasn't, apart from two unnecessary letters
 * "that of Ferrara and of Mantua" – I think perhaps either "those of Ferrara and Mantua", or else "that of Ferrara and that of Mantua".
 * Italian unification and Liberal Italy
 * "during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870" – only "disastrous" from the French viewpoint.
 * Geography
 * "Although the country comprises the Italian peninsula and most of the southern Alpine basin, some of Italy's territory extends beyond the Alpine basin" – some repetition of previous sentence here
 * "Herculanum" – shouldn't it be Herculaneum?
 * Environment
 * There are some statements in this section that could soon be out of date, and would benefit from being rewritten so that they will remain correct:
 * "it now ranks 84th in the world for ecological sustainability" ("in 2012 it ranked...")
 * "In the last decade, Italy has become…)" ("In the decade from 2002 Italy became…)".
 * "Renewable energies now make up about 12%..."
 * Climate
 * "The climate of the "Po valley region [is] continental ... with harsh winters and hot summers"." As you give two citations it isn't clear whom you are quoting. (And does the direct speech add anything here?)
 * Government
 * "the Chamber of Deputies (that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio)" – "which" rather than "that", perhaps? The latter reads like a defining clause. Ditto for the Senate.
 * ""Mr. Berlusconi's cabinet." – the normal WP style is not to use "Mr." here.
 * Law and criminal justice
 * "which would later expand" – which later expanded?
 * "Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate" – another statement that would be better with a date.
 * Military
 * "From 1999, military service is voluntary" – has been voluntary, perhaps?
 * Second para has no references for its statements. Third para has only one. Fourth para has none.
 * Economy
 * "the biggest chunk of Italian public debt" – "chunk" seems a bit slangy for an encyclopaedia article.
 * Demographics
 * "…persisted until the 1970s, after which they start…" – tenses need to match
 * Religion
 * "although the Catholic Church is no longer officially the state religion – the church isn't a religion; Catholicism is. Suggest "although it is no longer officially the state religion."
 * Ref 138 – I'd be inclined to move it to the end of the sentence.
 * "Italian-Jews" – hyphen needed?
 * Education
 * The Wall Street Journal – should be italicised, I think
 * Culture
 * First, second and third paras are short of refs for some statements. Fourth, fifth and sixth and last have no refs at all.
 * Music
 * No refs in first two paras.
 * "Opera house" or "operahouse"? – you have both
 * Last para has no refs.
 * Cinema
 * Unreferenced statements in both paras
 * Science
 * No refs at all.
 * Cuisine
 * Second para has no refs.