Wikipedia:Peer review/University of Cambridge/archive1

University of Cambridge

The article is already listed as good. I believe it deserves being worked on in order to achieve quality suitable for the FA status. I would thus be very grateful to you if you could review the article and suggest improvements. The article has a lot of potential, let's make the most of it! Gimlei 14:29, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

• I am surprised it is listed as good. The entire structure need to be reexamined. It currently rambles and jumps without any reasoning. There are 2 seperates subsections on the Colleges! I would suggest that you look at the best articles you can find on not just other unversities but any other large historic institution. Then make a list of articles about Cambridge that could possibly be daughter articles and compare that to the best articles you read which had your favorite structure. Try and draw parrallels between them and restructure the article based on that.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 18:16, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your suggestions, I just wanted to make sure I am following you on the daughter articles. Compiling a list of them seems to be a great idea, do you mean it would be helpful to compare this list to the list of daughter articles for the best articles? Gimlei 03:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be best to compile a list of all articles on specific Cambridge topics and then see how they compare to daughter articles used in the best articles. Then pick out which you want to be actual daughter articles of Cambridge and build off of that (as well as the current text). You will probably not use all articles on your first list. Some of them may far too specific or misguided in scope. Sorry if I was unclear. --Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 03:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, AZ _t 18:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you! Gimlei 03:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

MLilburne

• The paragraph in the lead on "Oxbridge" seems extraneous and not really all that important to a general discussion of Cambridge.

• Generally, I agree that this article's main problem is with structure and organization. The history section is way too short, and contains some of the information on the collegiate system, where the section on admissions contains some of the information on history. It just doesn't seem to be logically organized. I'll try to come up with some more detailed suggestions soon, but I'd say that you're definitely in for some cutting and pasting. MLilburne 22:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC) (from the Other Place)

Thank you very much indeed. I will be waiting for your suggestions, while doing some preparatory work perusing the best articles on similar topics. Gimlei 03:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, here goes. This is my suggestion for how to structure the article. I haven't looked at any of the daughter articles, so this is just from first principles. Feel free to ignore if you have better ideas.

• Lead (more on history, nothing on Oxford)
• General introduction (if this could be incorporated into the lead without making the lead too long, it would be vastly preferable)
• History (there is enough relevant history that I think this level of subdivision is justified. The information on mathematics and women at Cambridge should be integrated into the chronological treatment of the history)
  • Foundation
  • Mediaeval
  • Early modern
  • Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
  • Twentieth century
• Cambridge today
  • Collegiate system
  • Admissions
  • Research and teaching (including Reputation)
  • Library system
  • Sports and other extracurricular activities
• Myths, legends and traditions
• Cambridge in literature and popular culture (this needs to be turned into prose; a list will almost certainly cause problems at FAC stage)
• Notable graduates (this is probably all right as a list)
• See also (this should incorporate some of the "University activities" section, but it should be a very cut-down list)
• Notes (citations go here)
• References (list of books and websites used to create article. There should be quite a few books!)
• External links (listing more than five to seven is generally frowned upon)

In my opinion the "Miscellanous" section should be deleted with prejudice. If the material in it belongs elsewhere in the article, it should go there; if not, it's not notable enough to belong in the article. I hope that all of this makes sense. Let me know if you have questions/quibbles/vehement objections. Once you've finished restructuring the article, I suggest that you bring it back for another peer review, because it will need to have content looked at before it becomes a FAC.

I should also mention the citation issue. At the moment you have only four footnotes, plus quite a few external citations. All of those should be converted into footnotes, and a minimal standard for citations is probably one per paragraph. Some paragraphs will require quite a few more. MLilburne 12:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your detailed comments! They appear to be very thoughtful, and would make the job of improving the article a lot easier. I am going to start working on the article in a few days due to personal circumstances. Thanks again! Gimlei 12:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)