Wikipedia:Peer review/University of Edinburgh/archive1

University of Edinburgh

This peer review discussion has been closed.
Hello, I've listed this article for peer review because I don't feel the article is up to scratch compared with many other university articles.

Thanks, MikeJamesShaw (talk) 18:42, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Comments from Lemonade51

First of all, thanks for your work on this. I've only been able to skim read the article, so I do apologise in advance if it is comprehensiveness that you are looking for. I think this is a fairly neat article, but one which needs attention to detail and correct referencing should you wish to take this to good or featured standard.

• For inspiration and to get some idea of what a good article requires, take a look at ones related to your topic. Some of the featured articles since its time of evaluation do not necessarily pass today's guidelines, but their prose and comprehensiveness is of better quality than most.
• A good lead must provide a summary of the main article, and be able to entice the reader into wanting to read more. Could you say the same about this? For the reason that it is a summary, it is considered good practise to move references away from the lead; anything included will be expanded upon the body and should be correctly cited. Have a look at WP:LEAD for more pointers.
• "The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.", this part is redundant. What is the significance of it being the capital of Scotland? I suggest trimming it down to: "The University of Edinburgh is a public research university in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1583/Founded in 1583, it..."
• In the first section alone there is dubious language used. "The university began life as a College of Law, founded by the Edinburgh Town Council on the south side of Edinburgh using part of a legacy left by Bishop Robert Reid of St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney, after his death in 1558" is a mouthful. It could easily be cut down to two sentences. Another line "The fact that its funding was granted by the Town Council makes it in many ways the first civic university", reads very much unencyclopedic.
• Referencing is crucial; there is next to none under the Development section. So it is hard to know whether it is factual stuff or just hearsay. For instance "The university is responsible for a number of historic and modern buildings across the City, including the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Scotland, and the second oldest in use in the British Isles, St Cecilia's Concert Hall; Teviot Row House, which is the oldest purpose built Student Union Building in the world; and the restored 17th-century Mylne's Court student residence which stands at the head of Edinburgh's Royal Mile." – that's a very lengthy sentence and has no references.
• "Along similar lines, all teaching is now done over two semesters (rather than 3 terms)" three terms even.
• Be consistent with timespans, is it 2011–2012 or 2011–2012? Ideally it should be the latter, in the form of 2011–12.
• References 40 to 58 need to be correctly formatted. Reference 59 needs work/publisher information. Newspapers which are used as references need work parameter, not publisher. Its name will therefore become italicized – The Guardian, for instance. There are some dead links moreover.

As I said before, prose can do with much work and given this is a storied university, I'd imagine this article could be more comprehensive. Should you need any more feedback, feel free to contact me on my talkpage. Lemonade51 (talk) 17:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)