Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Effect of World War I on Children in the United States

Effect of World War I on Children in the United States
project of 's Shaping the Modern World Class. I've listed this article for peer review because… I want further editing tips/scholarly advice this is part of an educational assignment that requires a peer review!

Thanks, & Donovank (talk) 18:15, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Purely on a naming convention, I believe "The" should be dropped and "Effect" and "Children" not capitalised as they aren't part of a proper name or proper name title. Descriptive articles titles usually just go "Reaction to ...." and "Assassination of ..." etc without the definite article  YellowMonkey  ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll )  05:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I moved this for them. They can take care of the subheadings.  Auntieruth55 (talk) 18:48, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

AustralianRupert
Interesting article, I have a few observations/comments:

I think this sentence should be re-considered: "post-traumatic stress was considered cowardice..." For me this sentence does not really convey the situation correctly. What is now known as post traumatic stress disorder was not fully understood at the time (it possibly still isn't), thus men suffering from it who were unable to continue fighting were sometimes thought to be cowards. Nevertheless, shell shock was recognised as a legitimate battle condition). Thus I feel you should perhaps reword this sentence.
 * References could be formatted with cite book template;
 * Citation # 8 is a web citation and could be formatted with cite web; this would create a hyperlink that readers could follow to verify the information;
 * Citation # 7 needs some more information, I assume that it is the "Wilson Makes Suffrage Appeal" article, but am not sure. Does this article have an author name?
 * the book references should have ISBN numbers;
 * could some more categories be added to the bottom of the article? This improves the flow of traffic to the article (currently you only have one);
 * a few more images would serve to better illustrate the article;
 * the image that is there should have Alt text per WP:ALT;
 * Citation # 2 requires more information, I couldn't find this source listed in the Reference list
 * Citation # 22 is inconsistent with the format used throughout the article, it should have the author's name, article title and a page number (if available);
 * in the Home life section you discuss something that occured between 1870 and 1910; this is not relevant as it does not relate to the period being discussed (1914-18, or in the case of the US 1917-18). Can you obtain figures for this period instead?
 * I n the Technology section, this sentence is a little awkward: "Additionally, technology advanced and advanced weaponry such as the Zeppelin, a German airship, which could release a number of bombs at one time, created huge casualties and made war even deadlier than before" (the repeated word "advanced" is the issue, however, can you also provide a few other examples, improved direct fire weapons probably had more of an effect on the casualty rate than Zeppelins (also, arguably tactical dificiencies also had a considerable part to play);
 * make sure to only include works in the References section that have been specifically cited in the article (i.e. have an inline citation), if they don't they should be listed in a section called "Further reading"
 * The final sentence in the Background to World War I section needs a citation;
 * I suggest adding a citation to the first paragraph in the Impact on daily life seciton; sentence beginning "After the United States entered the war, daily life was altered";
 * In the Impact on education section, this sentence needs a citation: "Things like the importance of the ROTC program were also stressed during this time. Nationalist posters and other forms of propaganda were placed in public areas throughout the country and again stressed the importance of patriotism."
 * Could the Youth organisations section be expanded a little? What organisations other than the Boy Scouts were affected?

Anyway, good work so far. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 11:30, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much for the review and helpful comments! Sorry it took us so long to respond, we are still new to Wikipedia and did not realize that you had left comments. We are going to make the revisions that you have suggested this week.  Again thank you so much, your comments are really appreciated! Santolinek (talk) 23:57, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, no dramas at all. If you want, you can add the review page to your watchlist. This page should give you all the info you need: Help:Watching pages. That will mean that when you log in, you can just go to your watchlist and it will show any articles/pages that have been edited recently. That way you know what articles to check. Anyway, best of luck with the assignment. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 11:06, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D
This is a very interesting topic for an article, and an example of the kind of social history article Wikipedia needs a lot more of. My suggestions for further improvements are:
 * The 'Background of World War I' section is unnecessary - that's what a link to World War I is for
 * The article is rather unfocused at times - for instance, the first paragraph of the 'Technology' section only covers military technology, and is is not relevant to the article's topic
 * The British poster of a Zeppelin over London is out of place in this article Nick-D (talk) 05:48, 17 April 2010 (UTC)