Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/China Marine (memoir)

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China Marine (memoir)[edit]

Peer review of China Marine (memoir) is requested, as The Pacific (miniseries) will draw more public attention to Eugene Sledge and his work over the next few months. I have particular concerns about trying to expose his point of view completely but without adding my own nor doing original research. Sledge was a highly opinionated man and I have tried to completely footnote the opinions expressed. Some other editors have taken a passing interest in the article but in general it still lacks a good critical going-over of its style and content, by an editor who is familiar with its subject. I will be very much reduced in my Wikipedia editing time for a number of weeks but those are critical weeks as The Pacific (miniseries) unfolds and readers start looking for more info on Sledge. Thanks. Trilobitealive (talk) 00:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

AustralianRupert[edit]

I've not had much experience reviewing articles on books, so please forgive me if my comments aren't exactly what you are looking for. Here are my comments, please do with them as you wish:

  • in the lead, place a full stop after B (as in Eugene B Sledge) as you have a full stop after the E in Stephen E. Ambrose;
  • are there any images that could be added? An image of the author, or of a copy of the book (of course, this may not be possible due to copyright);
  • last paragraph in Synopsis/Okinawa section possibly needs a citation;
  • there is inconsistency in how you treat the abbreviation US. In the lead you have used "U.S." but later in the Synopsis/America section you have used "US" (without the stops). I think under American English standards it should be U.S., but I'm not sure of this point (consistency is the key anyway);
  • in the Synopsis/America section I suggest wikilinking "officer" to Officer (armed forces) as some readers might not know what this means;
  • the article possibly could do with a bit of expansion if you want to take to FA. Could you perhaps include a discussion on any reviews that the book has received? (I'm not sure if this is standard in book articles on Wiki, so please ignore if it isn't);
  • regarding the citations, is there a need to include the full bibliographic details of the book in every citation, particularly when it is mentioned in the references section. Perhaps you could just use the short citation system in the Notes section and include the full bibliographic details in the References section (WP:CITESHORT has some possible layouts);
  • suggest bullet pointing the work in the References section for consistency;
  • in the References section you list the title as just "China Marine", but in the lead you have "China Marine: An Infantryman's Life after World War II". Should this be included in the References section as well?

Anyway, that is it from me. Good work so far and best of luck taking this higher. Thanks for your contribution. — AustralianRupert (talk) 22:32, 18 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your time and the very good list of deficiencies. It helped a lot. I'm still unsure of the proper format for footnote 6 and have not done the expansion yet, nor started discussing reviews but I was able to work on most of the other issues. 03:42, 18 April 2010 (UTC)