Wikipedia:Peer review/Ranger's Apprentice/archive1

Ranger's Apprentice
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I hope to get this article up to GA. I know it's not there yet, but I am not sure what more to add into the article.

Thanks, Derild  49  21  ☼  14:58, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: A lot of work has gone into this article, and I find it interesting. The "Plot", "Setting", and "Characters" sections combined may be a bit too long given the thinness of the rest of the material. You might remedy this by expanding the lower sections if possible and reducing the "Plot" section somewhat. It might be possible to find more material about Flanagan or the books off-line, perhaps in published collections about recent children's literature. Here are other suggestions for improvement.

Lead
 * "So far, nine books have been released in Australia and New Zealand, with other countries including the United States and United Kingdom following behind." - Two problems: (1) Rather than "so far", which is non-specific, I'd recommend using "As of 2010" or something equivalent; (2) Rather than saying two countries are following the other two, I'd say something like "Through 2010, nine books have been released in four countries: Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom." Or if this means that nine have been released in the first two countries and fewer in the other two, it would be better to specify the number(s) in the other two.


 * "The story takes place in a fictional medieval world based off European medieval times." - "Based on" rather than "based off"?


 * "The series has been sold in 16 countries around the world and has sold over 2 million copies." - Rather than repeating "sold" twice, perhaps recast as "Series sales have totaled more than 2 million copies among 16 countries"?


 * "There was also a five day camp at BookPeople where 75 kids were chosen from 1,300 entries to learned Ranger skills." - This seems out-of-place. In the first place, most readers will be unfamiliar with BookPeople and will be surprised to learn that it is in Texas and not Australia. I would consider changing this to say "A five-day Ranger camp at BookPeople, a book store in Austin, Texas, in the U.S., helped promote the book" and leaving the statistics for the main text.

Plot
 * "Will was an apprentice throughout the books... ". - I'd recommend sticking with present tense in the plot summary. I'd change this to "Will is... " to match "The first four books tell the story... " of the second sentence. In the second half of the second sentence, I'd change "told" to "tells". And so on. Generally, the plot summary already uses present as its main tense, but I'd make the other verbs conform to this pattern. Past tense and other tenses are fine in the plot summary when they refer to times other than the present in the story itself; e.g. something like "the orc ate the horses, which had been resting before the start of the battle".


 * "when they arrive they realize Wargals, orc-like monsters" - Wikilink orc?


 * "Such a bridge could assault the King's army straight from behind and destroy the King's forces." - A bridge can't assault anything. Suggestion: "Such a bridge might allow attack and destruction of the King's army from the rear." Or something like that.


 * "a drug that gives a person warmth, but destroys their mind" - To avoid the awkwardness of the singular "a person" matched with the plural "their mind", perhaps "a drug that gives a person warmth, but destroys the mind"?


 * "At the end Will is given his Silver Oakleaf symbolizing him becoming a full Ranger." - Suggestion: "At the end Will is promoted to full Ranger and is awarded a Silver Oakleaf."

Will's first mission
 * "Will takes on his first mission as a full Ranger throughout the books of The Sorcerer in the North and The Siege of Macindaw." - The Manual of Style generally advises against extremely short sections or paragraphs. I'd suggest merging this orphan paragraph with the one below it.


 * "As a full Ranger at last, Will is assigned to a fief of his own at." - Doesn't make sense as written. Also, wikilink fief?

Setting
 * I don't think you need to link the novel titles more than once in the main text. Since The Ruins of Gorlan and the others have already been linked in the earlier sections, I think you could delete the duplicate links.

Publishing history and origins
 * I think you need to identify the publisher(s) of Flanagan's books here and, if possible, explain how he made the connection with the publisher(s). Does he have an agent? Did he find a publisher easily, or was it difficult? Were any of the short stories published separately, in Australian magazines perhaps?

Inspiration
 * "because Flanagan was inspired by "English and European culture and history" - Direct quotations need an in-line citation placed right after the quote or the punctuation immediately following the quote.


 * "After reading the first book, he realized he had the same two boy-one girl relationship in the books." - Maybe "After reading the first Potter book, Flanagan realized that his story involved a similar relationship between two boys and one girl." Or something like that.

Themes
 * "because Flanagan was inspired by "English and European culture and history" - Needs a citation.

Camp
 * "BookPeople, which also created Camp Half-Blood from Percy Jackson & the Olympians, created a Ranger’s Apprentice Corps Training Camp based on the books." - I think you need to say where BookPeople is geographically and, if possible, explain why a Texas company rather than an Australian company would do something like this.


 * The short quotation in this section is not long enough for a blockquote, per WP:MOSQUOTE, and it should not be in italics. I'd suggest embedding it in the main text in ordinary type.


 * "There are also plans for another camp in the following summer." - When was the first camp held?

Critical reception
 * ""filled with rich detail and plenty of edge-of-your-seat thrills" - Needs a source.


 * ""the pace is a good balance between character development and action, and the rivalry between Horace and Will is developed in a satisfactory way." - Needs a source.


 * "The first book was also the Longlisted for the Ottakar's Book Prize for 2006–2007" - This looks a little odd. Is that really the title of the prize? I mean is "Longlisted" part of the title, or is that a description?

References
 * The date formatting in the citations needs to be consistent. I'd suggest changing all the nonconforming dates to the same as the main text; i.e., 1 July 2010 (d-m-y).


 * The Manual of Style says to use Wikipedia house style in the citations rather than the house style of the source. In practice, this means using title case instead of all caps. Thus in citation 1, "THE RANGER'S APPRENTICE" should be changed to "The Ranger's Apprentice". Ditto for the all-caps parts of citations 5 and 8.


 * Newspaper names like Washington Post should appear in italics.


 * Citations to web sites should include author, title, publisher, date of publication, url, and date of most recent access, if all of these are known or can be found. For example, citation 6 should include the author: Wood, Sarah A. Most of the citations look incomplete.

Other
 * It's often helpful to look at FA articles to see how other editors have handled similar material. You will find a list of FA articles about novels at WP:FA. See for example Lad, A Dog.


 * I found and fixed many small errors such as the lack of italics for book titles. It would be good to proofread the whole article again after any further changes to the text. I doubt that I caught everything.

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 generally check corrections after my reviews because it's too time-consuming. Please ping me on my talk page if my comments are unclear or if questions arise.