Wikipedia:Peer review/Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 12)/archive1

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (season 12)

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… to help get read for WP:FL. Any suggestions on satisfying the FL criteria are encouraged.

Thanks, —Mike Allen 03:47, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: I'm not accustomed to reviewing lists about TV series, but I thought I'd give it shot since this one has been languishing for such a long time with no comments. Here are my thoughts and suggestions:

Structure

• It seems a little odd to me to put cast changes before "Cast". I'm not sure there's any standard arrangement of the sections in series lists, but I was surprised to read about changes to a cast that had not yet been introduced.

• The "Cast changes and cast changes section and the "Guest stars" subsection seem longish to me in something identified as a "list". Thumbing through some of the featured lists about series (found at WP:FL#Media), it looks to me like the ratio of text to list is on the high side in this article. I would think about trimming "Cast changes and recurring characters" and "Guest stars" to include far fewer quotations, many of which are wordy but impart little in the way of information. An example of this is "Matteo said in an interview that she had not read the script prior to accepting the role and explained that, 'I just knew that they wanted me to do something on the show and I'm a fan of the show, I was really excited to be on this show. This is like a New York staple. It's part of our culture here'." This takes up space without adding anything substantial.

• It's often helpful to look at featured lists to see how other editors have handled similar materials. At first glance, Highlander: The Series (season 2) looks good to me, for example. The lead is compact and pithy. The three text sections are informative without overwhelming the list of episodes. The images fit nicely within the sections they illustrate.

Lead

• "The twelfth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit aired on NBC from September 22, 2010, to May 18, 2011." - Three things:

(1) "Twelfth" should be "12th" since it's bigger than nine, per the Manual of Style. You have it both ways (12 and twelve) here and there in the article. I recommend 12 throughout except when "twelve" starts a sentence.

(2) To avoid double-bolding, which the Manual of Style advises against, it's OK not to bold the title words in the lead. See The Office (U.S. season 3), a featured list, for example.

(3) Add "in the United States" after "aired" unless "North America" or something else is the case. You mention Australia in the first sentence of the main text, so maybe it aired there too? Not sure.

• "resigned his position as showrunner" - Link showrunner?

• I think it would be helpful to add a one- or two-sentence description of the series to the lead. Not everyone who reads the article will have seen any episodes. Something like this might get them up to speed: "The series is a set of police procedurals set in New York City and involving crimes of a sexual nature." You know the show better than I since I have never seen it, so you can probably figure out what to say better than I.

Cast changes and permanent characters

• "show, as a permanent ADA" - This should be spelled out as well as abbreviated on first use. I'd also link to district attorney, especially for foreign readers who may have no notion of what an ADA might be.

• "TV Guide later confirmed" - TV Guide needs italics.

Production

• "to meet LAPD Detective Rex Winters" - Spell out LAPD as well as abbreviate on first use.

• Link Manhattan in the caption?

Cast

• The Manual of Style recommends using straight prose rather than bulleted and numbered lists where feasible. I'd look for a way to compress the cast list into several paragraphs of straight prose. It's possible that this material could be merged with the "cast changes" material to make a single succinct prose section.

Guest stars

• " 'They have been branded and sodomized by someone,' reveals Baer... " - Nothing should be linked inside a direct quotation, per the Manual of Style. "Sodomized" should be unlinked here. If you really want a link to it, try paraphrasing instead of quoting. Something like this: ...played two of a trio of rape victims who had been branded and sodomized.

• I don't mean to sound negative. I think you can re-work this material to produce a featured list. The essence is there, but it needs rearranging and polishing. Shorter and more to the point would be an improvement, I think.

• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider commenting on any other article at WP:PR. I don't usually watch the PR archives or make follow-up comments. If my suggestions are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 03:03, 2 February 2012 (UTC)