Wikipedia:Peer review/Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation/archive1

Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because the article has undergone an extensive change from when it was rated as a start-class article. I need to know if there are any issues in readability, grammar, punctuation (i.e. where a comma goes following a quote), or anything else.

Thanks, Gak Blimby (talk) 22:53, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is a good start, but I have quite a few suggestions for improvement.

Image
 * The source link on the licensing page for File:Tiny Toon LD.jpg is dead or incorrect. For reviewers to verify the source, this will need to be fixed.
 * The alt text says, "Three of the main characters of the "Tiny Toon Adventures" series—Plucky Duck, Babs Bunny and Buster Bunny—burst out of a multi-colored variant of the bulls-eye opening used in Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts. Plucky is carrying his suitcase, and Buster a water gun." WP:ALT suggests generally sticking to what can be seen and not adding information to the alt text that comes from somewhere other than the image itself. In this case, the names of the characters are not part of the image; neither is the anything about Warner Bros. or Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies. On the other hand, the writing on the bulls-eye can be included in the alt text. Basically, the alt text should stick to a brief description of the three animals, the bulls-eye, and the visible text.
 * That was me working on the alt text...sorry about that. I've since re-worded that. --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 11:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Lead
 * The lead should be a summary of the whole article rather than a set of introductory paragraphs. The existing lead says nothing about the critical reception of the film, for example. A good rule of thumb is to include in the lead at least a mention of each of the main text sections.
 * "is an American direct-to-video animated movie" - Wikilink direct-to-video?
 * "Featuring the regular characters from the animated program Tiny Toon Adventures, the film follows the adventures of the characters over their summer vacation from school." - This seems internally repetitive. Suggestion: "Featuring the regular characters from the animated program Tiny Toon Adventures, the film follows them during their summer vacation from school".
 * "Tokyo Movie Shinsha, a Japanese animation studio, animated the film." - Similar internal repetition. Why not "Tokyo Movie Shinsha, a Japanese studio, animated the film"?
 * "The film was executive produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Paul Dini, Nicholas Hollander, Tom Ruegger and Sherri Stoner." - To avoid the awkward "executive produced", perhaps "Steven Spielberg was the executive producer of the film, written by Paul Dini, Nicholas Hollander, Tom Ruegger and Sherri Stoner".
 * "How I Spent My Vacation runs about 73 minutes in length, and was released on VHS and Laserdisc formats" - Tighten by deleting "in length"?

Plot
 * The Manual of Style suggests rendering lists as straight prose when feasible. I think you could easily eliminate the bullet points and turn this into three paragraphs of prose that would make sense. The last three items in the list could be combined with the last sentence to make the third paragraph. WP:MOS has details.
 * "causing Johnny to end up with Elmyra and being treated as her pet" - Elmyra Duff should be linked here rather than on second reference.

Production
 * "Warner Bros. discussed with Executive producer Steven Spielberg if the film should be released in theaters" - Lowercase "e" on "executive". Also, "whether the film" rather than "if the film"?
 * "a factor he found major to the genre's appeal for those watching animated films at home" - "important" rather than "major"? Also "to those" rather than "for those"?
 * "In an interview for the LA Times" - Newspaper names should appear in italics and "LA" should be spelled out formally.
 * "The film is about 73 minutes in length" - Tighten to "The film is about 73 minutes long"?

Release
 * "How I Spent My Vacation was released direct to video on March 11,[10] 1992.[8][11][9]" - Does this claim really need four supporting citations? Also, here and elsewhere, the citations should be arranged in ascending order; i.e., [8][9][11].
 * The first paragraph of this section has quite a bit of unnecessary repetition; e.g. "released", "released", "released" and "retailers", "retailers".

Reception
 * "The review rated the film with three out of four bones." - Should "bones" be explained?
 * "TV Guide advised to "[w]atch this with the short set just for the heck of it"." - Word missing?
 * Dennis Hunt of the LA Times said... ". - Another LA Times, same as above.
 * "The magazine also questioned the point of using characters heavily based on Warner Bros. characters instead of using the classic characters themselves." - Does this need explaining? Not all readers will know what is meant by "the classic characters themselves".
 * "video ranked 12th in sales in April of 1992" - No need for "of" in this construction or others like it in the article.

Notes
 * The Miami Herald refers to the film... ". - Newspaper name needs italics.

References
 * The "cite" family of templates should not be mixed in the same article with the "citation" family. They produce slightly different results and therefore a kind of internal inconsistency.
 * The date formatting in the citations needs to be consistent. Most are already m-d-y, which is fine, but citation 10 is yyyy-mm-dd.

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. Finetooth (talk) 02:21, 5 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Very helpful! Thanks alot! Gak Blimby (talk) 00:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

From Philcha Sorry for butting in, as Finetooth is doing a great job. After reading the article I think it looks a good prospect for GA class. To pass a GA review I think Gak Blimby should: --Philcha (talk) 18:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Check that all the refs are in good shape.
 * Every part of the main text needs refs, except for a convention that the plot summary does not need refs. For example IMO "Voice cast" needs at least 1 ref.
 * The sources must support the article's text exactly.
 * Each citation must have all the required items to tell a reader/reviewer where to find the source.
 * Check if any URLs have gone dead. If so, Internet Archive's Way Back Machine often contains archived copies of Web pages that have gone offline. You need to supply the original URL. When citing archived copies: parameter accessdate= is still required; add parameter archiveurl=... for the link provided by Internet Archive - as well as url=...; add parameter archivedate=... giving the date when the archived copy was made (supplied in the search results from the Way Back Machine; you have to click this to see the archived content).
 * Make the writing clearer and more concise, for example:
 * "Tiny Toons executive in charge of production Jean MacCurdy said that the film was released ..." should not repeat MacCurdy's position, which is already in "Production". I suggest "MacCurdy said that the film was released ..."
 * Section "Release" repeats How I Spent My Vacation far too much.
 * In "Reception" the sentence "Critical reaction to How I Spent My Vacation was generally positive" is both WP:PEACOCK and a violation of WP:V - unless you can cite aggregators such as Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes.
 * ""The "VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever" highlighted the parodies of the film, and noted that "Parents will be [as] equally entertained [as children] by the level of humor and fast-paced action". The review rated the film with three out of four bones" can be condensed into e.g. "Giving three out of four bones, "The "VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever" highlighted the parodies of the film ..."
 * In "Film critic Leonard Maltin gave a positive, but less enthusiastic review. Maltin said the film was "[e]pisodic," but praised the film's voice cast, songs and "funny business". He gave the film two and a half stars out of four", the phrase "gave a positive, but less enthusiastic review" is redundant as "two and a half stars out of four" makes the point, and the remaining 2 sentences can be combined like the previous review.
 * IMO the rest of the 1st and 2nd paras of section "Reception" can be improved in the same way.
 * I also found a few in section " Themes".


 * I'll fix these issues as soon as I can. Thanks for the help, much appreciated! Gak Blimby (talk) 00:50, 6 May 2010 (UTC)