Nice work![edit]

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Posted automatically via sandbox guided tour. Shyrece.C (talk) 18:14, 23 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peer Review (from Ben Alpert)[edit]

First off, I hope I'm putting this in the right place...

Anyway, onto peer review. Let me start off by saying that I think you've got the right idea in general. You've found a lot of really good information on the subject and, more notably, have included a plethora of descriptive quotes that really helps one to immerse himself in the feelings that are being conveyed. So often, it is hard to relate to a disaster from the past in anything other than an objective sense, due to a lack of feeling connected with the people concerned; your quotations included do much to ameliorate that issue.

That being said, there are some things I would recommend you work on improving. The organization is first and foremost. You should probably include a section at the very beginning that summarizes the bare-bones of what occurred (even more briefly than was done in your extant "summary" section). These are in every Wikipedia article, and are perfect for the casual reader who just wanted to know what, for instance, the Victoria Bushfires were all about. This need not be long, but it should be present in some form. Secondly, I would recommend changing the sentence structure slightly--this critique, admittedly, is more from personal preference, and thus may be ignored if you think it to be unjustified. As it now stands, you have a lot of good information (as aforementioned), but it is presented to the reader in short, choppy sentences. While fine in brief spurts, this may take the reader out of the action, as the flow of reading is constantly interrupted. For reference, this is most evident in your "summary" section. Lastly, you have some broken references. I point specifically to the end of each of your first four sections.

(And for one last, minor point, I (personally) would remove the word "unimaginable" from the first section. It seems rather unscientific/biased to me.)

Good job! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bda1993 (talk • contribs) 00:15, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Peer Review, William Melancon[edit]

Overall the article appears to be good, grammatically there are a number of broken links within the article that need to be fixed. I'm mostly going to focus on what needs to be changed, which runs the risk of sounding overly negative, but for the most part the article is satisfactory.

opening with the quote is a great idea as it instantly sets the tone for the article. Possible add a short summary after the quote to give the reader an idea of what's going to be in the article before moving into the individual sections. "the year 1850 had experienced a devastating drought" sounds some what clunky, unless it's an actual quote I would change it to something like "Australia experienced a devastating drought throughout 1850, and suffered from unimaginable heat and a debilitating lack of rainfall" possibly look into empirical data on the drought, such as rainfall when compared to the average, value of loss of crops and livestock, temperature highs, and any declarations or state of emergencies listed by the state or federal governing bodies. look into fixing reference at the end of "causes" section.

Summary is good, possibly look into specifics about the ignition source of the fire (you could move the information you have in the "effects on various regions" on the source of the fire into this section, which would appear to be a more appropriate place for the information.

Weather section seems like it could be folded into the summary section, which would improve the flow of the article. If you were to keep the weather section possibly look into adding something about the climate within the region and weather patterns leading up to the fire, or possible factors that made the area prone to catching fire.

Effects on Various Regions section: look into moving information on the source of the fire into the summary section, or into a new section that is devoted the the source of the fire, or theories on the source of the fire. Apart from this section is good. possibly look into adding information on the dollar amount of the damage. also look into moving or repeating casualty information that you put in the summary section into this section.

Response section, the opening sentence feels clunky, possibly change to something like "The initial response to the disturbance was a public meeting, which look place on February 11, 1851 at Geelong.(discuss what happened at the meeting in a separate sentence". the rest of the section appears to be good to go. Possibly look into creating a more homogeneous tone that will stay consistent throughout the article. The second half of this section reads almost like a sit-rep for a government briefing. It makes heavy use of scientific language and has an almost antiseptic tone. other sections are more flowery and border on the poetic. Neither approach is wrong but moving back and forth between the two creates possible problems in pacing and readability. Possibly look into finding a happy medium that will remain consistent throughout the article.

Ecological Effects section appears to be good. When talking about the bush possibly look into naming a specific species of bush rather than Australian bushes in general.

Look into adding external links section.

look into adding see also section.

Wmelancon (talk) 04:36, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Class editing tips[edit]

-No contractions -Don't end with a preposition

Organization[edit]

1. Start with a strong topic sentence. Should act as an outline. Use transitions to go from one sentence to another and from one paragraph to another. 2. Make more direct statements- Use independent clause first

April 2014[edit]

Hello, I'm BracketBot. I have automatically detected that your edit to Black Thursday (1851) may have broken the syntax by modifying 4 "{}"s. If you have, don't worry: just edit the page again to fix it. If I misunderstood what happened, or if you have any questions, you can leave a message on my operator's talk page.

List of unpaired brackets remaining on the page:

5. [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1663/0006-8101(2002)068%5B0270:AAAROW%5D2.0.CO%3B2}}]
6. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2002.00722.x/pdf}}]

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First edit[edit]

Hi Shyrece, That was a pretty good edit if it was your first one. I think mine was about three words and they were probably wrong. Yes, the article is better now as a result of two of the good things about Wikipedia - collaboration and improvement. Hope you continue to learn (it's amazing how you find out new things all the time working here), edit and enjoy. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 02:13, 2 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]