Wikipedia:Peer review/Appeasement/archive1

Appeasement

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I have done a lot of work on this article and would like it to be peer reviewed by editors with a better knowledge of the topic than mine. Can it be brought up to "A" class at least? It needs a better summary of "The Origins of the Second World War" by A. J. P. Taylor and of modern historical opinion. Thanks, Marshall46 (talk) 14:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

• Comments from RJHall:
  • You may not have enough inline citations for an A class article. Usually I'd expect to see one or two per paragraph.
  • My understanding was that the policy of appeasement evolved out of a powerful public desire to avoid repeating the horrors of World War 1 (rather than just to avoid a war). That doesn't seem to be reflected in the text.
  • I was surprised to find the article doesn't cover the Anschluss, which I thought was a key component of the history of appeasement. Without it, the succeeding events make less sense to me.

  —RJH (talk) 21:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: My first thought was that "Appeasement" sounds an awfully general title for an article. I think if the article is to comply with the requirement of comprehensiveness, the title needs to reflect the main focus of the article's content, which is the appeasement policies of the 1930s.

Here are some further concerns:-

• It is not appropriate to begin the article: "Appeasement is..." followed by one historian's unattributed definition of the term. This wording has no particular status. If you think the phrasing is particularly apposite, you might begin: "Appeasement has been defined by historian XYZ as..." but personally I would paraphrase into my own wording, perhaps using the thoughts of other historians.
• The lead is inadequate at present. According to WP:LEAD it should be an overview of the whole article, rather thn a brief intro to the subject. There is plenty in the article that is not touched on in the lead.
• The article is seriously under-cited. Long extracts read like editorial opinion; sometimes whole paragraphs are without citation to a source, even when the material is potentially contentious. Take, for instance:-

By showing that appeasement was a popular policy and that there was continuity in British foreign policy after 1933, he shattered the common view of the appeasers as a small, degenerate clique that had mysteriously hijacked the British government sometime in the 1930s and who had carried out their policies in the face of massive public resistance; and by portraying the leaders of the 1930s as real people attempting to deal with real problems, he made the first strides towards attempting to explain the actions of the appeasers rather than merely to condemn them.

None of the above is cited. As a rule of thumb, every significant fact should be cited; every direct quotation should be cited; every paragraph should end with a citation.

• References:
  • Some of the on-line references lack publishers and access dates.
  • Some of the book sources are incomplete, e.g. "Hunt, The Making of the West lacks a year and publisher.
  • Many of the source books look rather dated. There's nothing wrong with using a balance of new and older scholarship, especially with such standard texts as Taylor's. But there does not seem to be much use made of contemporary historians.
  • What is the purpose of the long "Further Reading" lists? Why weren't some of these used in compiling the article?
• Broken link: the "Churchill tribute to Chamberlain" link is not working

The article is in general fluently written, but attention to all the above is necessary before this can be a first-class encyclopedia article. Brianboulton (talk) 23:24, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful suggestions. Marshall46 (talk) 13:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)