Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Peer review/Michigan State University Libraries

Michigan_State_University_Libraries
Michigan_State_University_Libraries The reason for nominating the section: I would only ask that the part of the article relating to comic books be looked at, it is vary short and would not take much time, I feel it is of some value to the comic book information on Wikipedia. I am just looking to improve this section and wanted to get some ideas, and this looked like a knowlegable place to do that, Thanks Max ╦╩ 16:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Markeer
This seems to be a valuable subsection of its overall article. I respect the inclusion, and that for the most part it is kept compact and avoids unnecessary hyperbole. That said from a grammatical standpoint it tends toward choppy sentences and phrases, currently buries the lead, and needs some changes and additions to its citations in my opinion.

A few notes/comments:


 * Regarding burying the lead: '"More than 150,000 comic books published in the United States since 1935 are included in this collection, which is the largest cataloged library collection of comic books."' - If this were a stand-alone stub, this sentence would be the assertion of notability. I'd suggest moving it to the first paragraph, preferably right after the introductory sentence.
 * The footnote on the sentence about students and scholars traveling to it "to be the primary library resource..." etc. has a citation that leads to the collection's home page, meaning this is a vague statement of intent, not an objective truth.
 * In fact it looks as if every one of the 6 footnotes in this section lead to the university's website rather than to a secondary source. I would say remove them all except one link as a primary-source evidence of the collection's existence, and keep the aforementioned link to the site's assertion of being the largest collection in the world.  That latter would be far stronger if asserted by a secondary source, but by citing that page at least that assertion of notability is being made by the university instead of by a wikipedia editor.
 * Avoid passive voice. For example where you say "The major focus of the collection is on" you could easily substitute "The collection focuses on..." which is tighter and stronger.
 * Please shorten up the sentence regarding microfiche availability. It's useful to know it exists, but "Cooperation with commercial firms" for instance is unnecessary info.  All scanning is done by someone somewhere.  How the process arrives at a frankly common media type isn't particularly important for a university library page.

Most of those comments are simply suggestions or nitpicks, although I do think the citations should be re-examined with the wikipedia guidelines in mind. A very informative addition to its article. I had been unaware of this collection and I'm happy to have learned something about it. -Markeer 21:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)