Wikipedia:Peer review/Montrose Academy/archive1

Montrose Academy

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it has been listed as a stub but I have since made some amendments and updated it.

Thanks, Lcw27 (talk) 21:05, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: I've not yet read the whole article, so my comments relate only to the first half.

• Lead:
  • You say that the Academy's history "extends as far back as the 16th century grammar school". Yet you also say that Montrose Academy was founded in 1815. How do these statements reconcile?
  • "Due to its prominence as an educational establishment it has a history of teaching learned men who later earned esteemed positions, some of whom are well-known." Very difficult to sort this sentence out, since the logic seems wrong. I would imagine that the school's prominence comes from its history of successful teaching, which is not the sense suggested by the sentence. Also, schools don't teach "learned men" (they may teach boys who later become learned men); "esteemed positions" presumably means prominent or influential positions; the last clause is misplaced. A complete sentence rewrite is required.
  • I think a word is missing (after "to") in "A number of pupils come to from outwith the catchment area." Also, the word "outwith" is peculiar to Scotland; the more common form of "outside" should be used here.
  • This is a general encyclopedia article about the school, not a promotional article. I don't think that the names of the present Rector and his senior staff should appear in the lead section which, in accordance with WP:LEAD, should give a concise overview of the whole article, i.e. it should be a summary of the detail that follows in the body of the article. If the rector is named in the infobox, he shold be described as "Current rector" and the date of his appointment given, thus: "Current Rector: Ronald Small (appointed [date])"
• Grammar school history
  • I am not clear as to the relationship between the grammar school and the academy. Unless there is some historical continuity, the history of the grammar school relates to a different institution altogether. I note that this history does not extend beyond the mid-seventeenth century.
  • It is also very haphazard, with bits of information included almost randomly, and is unbalanced by the extensive quote.
  • Various statements are uncited, e.g. "He taught and circulated copies of the Greek Testament amongst his pupils. His notable teaching attracted attention when it was considered heretical for bishops to teach Greek and especially the Greek Testament. He fled to England in 1538 when summoned by the Bishop of Brechin" and "Melville became a noted theologian and distinguished scholar of Classical Greek and Latin; and arguably one who was spurred by an intellectual capacity owed to an education gained in Montrose" and the line about David Lindsay.
• Academy history
  • This is again something of a mishmash. It deals with assorted facts relevant to the academy's foundation and early years, but then jumps straight to post WW2
  • There are no citations whatever in the second part of the section.

Before I go on I would welcome some response to my initial comments. There are numerous school articles listed among Wikipedia's Featured and Good articles, mostly American – but City of London School and Stonyhurst College are Good Articles about British schools. Have you consulted these, to get ideas about content and structure? If not, this might be worth spending some time on. Brianboulton (talk) 21:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)