Wikipedia:Peer review/Cambridge/archive1

Cambridge

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I noticed that it failed a GA nomination some time ago. I have revised the article according to the reviewer's comments and am submitting to peer review per their suggestion prior to making another GA nomination.--Pontificalibus (talk) 14:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Pontificalibus (talk) 14:38, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: Because I have limited time and don't wish to keep you waiting any longer, I have concentrated on one aspect of the article, namely sources and citations. There is a considerable amount of work to be done in this area:-

• First, there is a lot of uncited material in the article. This is particularly conspicuous when uncited statements occur at paragraph ends, which happens throughout the article. As a general rule of thumb, all paragraphs should contain at least one citation, and they should always with one.
• There are many reference formats that require attention:-

• Publisher details missing. See, for example, refs 47 to 56, 58 to 61.
• There are bare urls (81, 82 etc)
• You need to check for other incomplete formats. Generally each should contain, as a minimum, title, publisher, accessdate where appropriate

• There is a dead link in ref. 110
• Numerous retrieval dates are missing
• Check for consistency in italicisation of publisher names. If the publisher is a printed medium, e.g. a journal or newspaper, it should be italicised. If it is otherwise, such as a website or "BBC News", it should not.
• I have not carried out a complete check on sources, but I wonder whether some would pass the reliability/high quality criteria. For example, http://www.olivia-newtonjohn.com/olivia-newton-john/bio.php appears to have been written by a semi-literate. I have never considered Allmusic a high quality source. Some of these sources seem to support information which is of fairly marginal importance to the article and I wonder whether they are worth keeping.

A lot of work has gone into the article, and most of it seems well presented and comprehensive. One aspect other than the referencing did catch my attention. I know Cambridge fairly well (it's about 35 miles away), but I found that the panaramic shots distort the views almost beyond recognition. I accept that they are interesting and decorative, but they don't really represent the city's appearance. Maybe consider reducing the number?

One last point: the article's structure looks over-complex, e.g. far too many short subsections in the Culture section. Consider ways in which you could consolidate the prose and create a better flow.

I am sorry I am not able to include a general prose review, but I think there is enough here to work on for the moment. Brianboulton (talk) 13:19, 21 March 2012 (UTC)