Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/How to prepare an A-Class Review


 * An extract from this essay appeared in the June 2009 issue of The Bugle.

One of the most important&mdash;and, indeed, most respected&mdash;aspects of the Military History project is our rigorous A-Class Review (ACR) system, which puts articles through a healthy review outside of WP:FAC. That said, the system and methods of reviewing often seem daunting at first glance, and can present a bit of a challenge to those not as well-versed in the reviewing methods commonly used. What I will attempt to do in this editorial is give a brief overview of some of the reviewing styles that are the most common and the most useful.

General nit-pick
This is one of the easiest – and one of the most common – reviewing styles seen throughout Wikipedia. It is a similar approach to that you would see in proofreading and classroom marking. Basically, it is a general overview of the article, not getting too specific on aspects of the prose. The most common statements include This article could benefit from a light copyedit before going to FAC or You might want to check the endash and emdash placement in the article. It's a style that is incredibly easy to manage, and one that requires little-to-no experience in previous reviewing.

Specialization
It often is the case that those who have been reviewing articles for a long time will move away from the general review towards more specific areas of articles. As an example, Tony usually stays within the realm of prose and copyediting while reviewing Featured Article Candidates, Tom used to focus almost entirely on external links and disambiguations, while others specialize their focus exclusively on copyediting, reference formatting, dashes, punctuation and flow, image licensing, and a host of other areas. This is a review method that is not nearly as time-consuming as other methods, as it allows you to quickly scan an article, spot the things that you work on, and how they need to be fixed.

Sectional
This is one of the most informative styles. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most time-consuming and exhaustive styles. Essentially, it involves going through the entire article, section by section, and pointing out every major (and often many of the minor) flaws present within each section. Everything from prose to reference formatting to content. It is a reviewing style that is exhausting, and often takes two or three goes through the article to get everything (sometimes even more), but it gives the article's main contributors two benefits. First, everything is well organized, mostly under section headers like this one, and it often makes finding individual sentences or refs much easier, as they are within that section. Secondly, it points out a lot of the problems from a lot of the areas.

Best of luck, and happy Reviewing! Cam (Chat)