Wikipedia:Peer review/Igbo people/archive3
Igbo people[edit]
- A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for May 2009.
This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want the quality of the article to improve and I also want a different point of view for the article, as I have been the principle editor for some time now. Could whoever the editor may be suggest anything that needs to be added.
Thanks, Ukabia (talk) 04:02, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Finetooth comments: This is a most interesting and apparently comprehensive article. My biggest concern is with issues related to prose or the Manual of Style, and I've given many specific examples below. I'm sure I didn't catch everything, and although I added an "upright" parameter to one of the image templates, I did not do a complete review of the images or their licenses. If you can find another set of eyes to look at the images and licenses, that would be good. Also, another round of proofreading after you finish the next round of revisions would also be good.
Lead
- "Igbo people (also referred to as the Ibo(e), Ebo(e), Eboans or Heebo) (Igbo: Ndị Igbọ) are an ethnic group... " - The punctuation here is a bit hard to follow here because of the parentheses inside of parentheses. Suggestion: "Igbo people, also referred to as the Ibo(e), Ebo(e), Eboans or Heebo (Igbo: Ndị Igbọ), are an ethnic group... ".
- Since Igbo is wikilinked in the first sentence, it does not need to be wikilinked in the second sentence.
- "In rural areas, the Igbo are mostly farmers." - Since the preceding sentence talks about America, "rural areas" might seem at first to refer to America. Since I think it must be referring to Africa, it might be good to say that directly, thus: "In rural areas in Africa... ".
- "Before British colonialism, the Igbo were a politically fragmented group." - Since British colonialism is wikilinked in the preceding paragraph, it doesn't need to be linked again here. Oops! I see that this second one links to a different article, and then "clan", "village" and "dialect" link to other surprises. In general, it's best to avoid what are sometimes called Easter-egg links that surprise the reader who clicks on them. At least two solutions are possible. Either remove the links or change the wording of the text to make it more clear at glance what the links connect to. For example, you might start the sentence with "Before Nigeria became a British colony... " and link "British colony" to "Colonial Nigeria." Also, the link from "British" in the next sentence is redundant since it links once again to "British empire" and is an Easter egg link as well.
- "The end of the war led to the defeated Republic of Biafra being reabsorbed back into Nigeria."- Delete "back"?
- The lead should be a summary or abstract of the main points of the subsequent text. A good rule of thumb is to include at least a mention of the main idea of each of the text sections. The current lead doesn't mention art, literature, religion, or attire, for example.
Identity
- It would be difficult to define a single Igbo identity because of their heavily fragmented... " - "Igbo" is singular, but "their" is plural. Suggestion: "because of the group's heavily fragmented... ".
- The first two sentences of this section contain more Easter egg links. "Autonomous" is linked to "autonomous communities of Spain", which makes no sense in this context, and "knowledge of Europeans" links to "European exploration of Africa", which is an enormous stretch. If you think "autonomous" needs to be made more clear, you might use "self-governing communities" or "politically independent communities" with no link. To fix the "knowledge of Europeans" link, I would simply unlink it.
- "Before knowledge of Europeans ... the Igbo had not had a strong identity as one people... ". - "... did not have"? Verb tense.
- "historian Alexander X. Byrd argues that the Igbo identity has its origins in slavery" - "had its origins"? Verb tense.
- "the British and fellow Europeans had identified the Igbo as a tribe" - "Identified" rather than "had identified"?
- "Chinua Achebe, among other scholars, had challenged this because of its negative connotations... ". - "Challenged" rather than "had challenged"?
Etymology
- "Charles Kingsley Meek, writer of Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, had suggested that it may originate... " - It's customary to use present tense in situations like this, just as you did with "... historian Alexander X. Byrd argues that the Igbo identity... " in the preceding paragraph. Thus, "... Meek ... suggests... " would be better.
Origin
- "Pottery dated at around 4500 B.C.E. showing similarities with later Igbo work had been found at Nsukka... " - "Was" rather than "had been"? It's just straight past tense in situations like this.
- There's no need to link Sahara twice in this section.
- Since you start with BCE, you should stick with it and not switch to BC later in the section. You might link BCE on first use, and WP:MOS#Dates says, "BCE and CE or BC and AD are written, in upper case, spaced, and without periods (full stops)."
Nri Kingdom
- WP:MOSQUOTE advises against using fancy quotation marks. Instead, it suggests using blockquote coding and no quotation marks and then only for quotations of four lines or more. Thus, the first long quotation in this section should probably be a blockquote, and the second, too short to be set off as a blockquote, should be an ordinary quotation set off by normal quotation marks and embedded in the main text. The second quotation, by the way, is not a complete sentence. Something seems to be missing.
- You say six taboo types, but you name seven.
- The caption says "9th century". Generally, the Manual of Style suggests that numbers from one to nine be spelled out and larger numbers be expressed as digits. Thus, "ninth century" would be better than "9th century". Elsewhere, the article spells out some of the bigger numbers in some places and uses digits in others. I'd suggest tracking these all down and making them consistent.
Traditional society
- The Manual of Style generally frowns upon orphan paragraphs consisting of only one sentence. Two possible solutions are to expand or to merge.
- Another fancy quote should be come a blockquote.
Transatlantic slave trade
- No need to link Bonny twice.
- "14.6% of slaves were taken from the Bight... " - The Manual of Style advises against starting a sentence with digits, and it prefers "percent" to "%" in simple constructions. Thus, "About 15 percent of slaves... " might be better.
- "In the United Sates the Igbo were found most common in the states of Maryland (ironically, recent immigrants still are)[88] and Virginia, where they remained the largest single group of Africans." - I'd suggest splitting this into two sentences to avoid the parenthetical, and I'd then merge them with the paragraph above.
Nigerian–Biafran War
- Wiklink pograms?
- The short quote should be merged with the text rather than set off as a blockquote.
Language and literature
- Wikilink pictograms?
Religion and rites of passage
- Today, the majority of the Igbo people are Christian, with the Roman Catholic Church which well over half of all Igbo profess as their church." - Awkward. Suggestion: "Today, the majority of the Igbo people are Christian, well over half of whom are Roman Catholics".
Attire
- Change the fancy quote to a blockquote.
Cuisine
- Lowercase "okra".
Organizations
- "there have been several conflicts between its members and the Nigerian government, resulting in the death of members.[179][180][177]" - It's customary to arrange the citations in ascending order. Here this would be [177][179][180]. Ditto for other places in the article where a string of ref numbers are used.
I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 21:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)