Wikipedia:Peer review/United States presidential election, 2008 timeline/archive1

United States presidential election, 2008 timeline

 * A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for April 2009.
 * A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for April 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I've been working for a while on bringing this to featured list standard. However, I've been working on it mostly alone, and I'd like to get some feedback on any minor or major issues I may have overlooked (with an article of this length there are almost certainly some problems that need addressing).

Thanks, — Hysteria18 (Talk • Contributions) 15:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Comments from User:TechOutsider

Hello, I'll be peer reviewing this article. I may make some minor corrections; however I will still bring up the issue for your reference.

Some issues with the lead. Considering the article's length, you may want to expand the lead. In the body, you may want to combine the sections concerning the years 2002 through 2005; each only have one or two events and are unlikely to expand.

In the body, avoid being wordy. An article of this length should attempt to be as clear and concise as possible; it is a turn off for readers, and in that case peer reviewers. I see you were writing in present tense. Why so? Another issue with vagueness. You mention "Much of America" was introduced to Barack Obama. Try to give numbers; such as TV viewer ship and physical attendance. The phrase "files papers" is a little vague. Can you describe the process the Governor goes through? This is the November 2006 section.

The prose in the body should flow naturally. For example,

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona announces the formation of a presidential exploratory committee.[17] Rudy Giuliani, the former Republican Mayor of New York City, forms a presidential exploratory committee."

Are those two events related? If so, use a transition, such as "in effect" or "as a result". Doing so makes the prose less choppy and eaier to comprehend, and establishes a natural flow and organization of events. Since this is a timeline, organization should be a no-brainier for authors; every event is backed with logic and thus should be presented in a logical manner.

You also mention "Tom Vilsack publicly and formally". I don't know, however "publicly" and "formally" are somewhat mutually inclusive. The phrase "presidential bid" should be rewritten; the style should be more formal. You also mention "Rudy Giuliani's secret campaign strategy". Could you elaborate? Since you classified this article as an article, and not a list, you should elaborate on such points.

The symbol "%" should be written out the first time, as percent or per cent, according to the WP:MOS.

Great start. Best of luck. Hope the suggestions help. Be sure to follow the suggestions on the semi-automated review. TechOutsider (talk) 22:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, thanks for responding. The thing about expanding the lead is that it's difficult to go into any further detail without simply repeating information from United States presidential election, 2008. I think a good way around this might be to give a summary of the chronology of the race - that is, talk about the primaries, pre-primary period and the like rather than the election's characteristics. I'll also merge the 2002-2005 sections into one.


 * I think the present tense is the standard for timelines; looking through List of timelines, the majority are written in that format. I'll take a look at the vagueness issues you've mentioned here, though I think going into detail over the meaning of "files papers" would be unnecessary - I'll leave it as "forms an exploratory committee."


 * The simultaneous formation of Giuliani and McCain's respective exploratory committees are effectively unrelated events, there's no correlation or cause. I agree the wording seems clunky, but I think it's best to keep them as separate sentences rather than put the sentences together and risk implying that the two campaigns deliberately formed committees on the same day.


 * "Publicly and formally" is an example of needlessly flowery language that I've tried to eradicate, though clearly I missed that bit. Same goes for "presidential bid" - I've tried to standardise and formalise "bid" to "campaign", "race" to "election", etc. Classifying this as an article rather than a list in the nomination was, I suppose, incorrect - I have a tendency to use "article" as a catch-all term for anything in the article namespace, but I should state here that I do consider this a list, and I am hoping to bring this to featured list standard. I'll check the contents of the ref for Giuliani's campaign strategy and see if the detail given there merits inclusion here. I wasn't aware of that particular MoS item (regarding percentages), but I'll fix that. Thanks again — Hysteria18 (Talk • Contributions) 23:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, skimming WP:MoS really helps. Just a quick overview every once in a while should do. No problem, you have an especially interesting article about such a broad subject matter I was too scared and lazy to research on my own. I never knew the election of 2008 spanned back so far. Well, partly because I never took the time to actually research; and just listened to the mass media. TechOutsider (talk) 23:36, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Comments from Nice job. Just a few things:
 * The lead will need to be expanded to at least three paragraphs. Try to summarize the most important events of each year.
 * "The following is a timeline of major events leading up to and immediately following" Featured lists no longer begin like this. See recently promoted lists for examples of more engaging starts.
 * Why are the dates bolded? This is an improper use of bolding per WP:MOSBOLD
 * This one will require grunt work: Listed items should be separated by spaced en dashes. For example: "December 28 - John Edwards officially launches"-->December 28 – John Edwards officially launches
 * Image captions that are not complete sentences should not have periods at the end per WP:CAPTION.
 * Watch your logical punctuation – for example, "Clinton knows that any woman who hopes to be elected president cannot afford to be seen as too much of a dove," – the comma should be outside the quotation marks. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:55, 18 April 2009 (UTC)