Talk:Fortifications of ancient Smyrna

Sydney Ostrom's Peer Review

The introductory paragraph is very informative about Smyrna itself, but I feel like it glosses over the "fortifications" part of your topic. Since the first paragraph is supposed to provide a broad understanding of the whole topic, maybe you could briefly add in more detail about the fortifications themselves (like the material, how the fortifications were tested, or when they were in effect) so as to provide a summary of what you will be talking about more in depth in your other sections. Besides that, I think the introductory paragraph is strong!

In your first sentence of the first paragraph in the history section, it should say "... several kilometers north of Izmir's city center," rather than just "Izmir city center". In your second sentence of the same paragraph, maybe you could add in an estimate of when in the Iron Age/Archaic Period (i.e. early, middle, late) Smyrna was present there during.

In your second paragraph of the History section, I was somewhat confused about what a "ring wall" was, so I think it would be helpful to add in a description of what that specifically is. In this case, I feel like a depiction of the layout would be really helpful, but I don't know what you will be able to find as far as images go. If you can find a picture like that, I would highly recommend putting it into the article so that the reader knows what you are talking about. The detail of the thickness of the walls was a really nice addition, however I was confused as to where you got that information from (if you got that information from source 3 that is cited at the very end of the paragraph and is referring to the entire paragraph, then just ignore this). As I was reading the last few sentences of the second paragraph, I was curious as to how the fortifications themselves were built in the first place, since you say that they were rebuilt on top of the ruins. Clearly this wouldn't be a great way of making fortification walls if they are meant to be level and cohesive, so were they built out of whatever the people in Smyrna could find and place into the walls?

The last paragraph in the History section seemed very unbalanced when compared to the other paragraphs since there was literally only one sentence. Maybe just try to add some more detail about the "enormous monumental gate," or try to add in a picture of what it would have theoretically looked like so that the reader can understand what you are referring to.

In general, you were very successful in keeping an unbiased, encyclopedic tone throughout the entire article, and it didn't seem like you were trying to sway the reader in one direction or another. The picture that you did add into the article was a really nice picture, however, it was too big for the page so maybe you could try to scale it down so that it fits properly, and also, since your topic is the fortifications at Smyrna, I think it would be really useful to have a picture of what scholars believe the fortifications actually looked like if you can find one like that. I also think that you should split your article into more sections so that you have a section dedicated to the objective facts about the fortifications (like where they were, what they were made out of, how big they were, etc.), and then another section for history (explaining like how they were destroyed in the earthquake, then rebuilt, and then taken over, etc.), and another dedicated to the connection that these fortifications explicitly had to the overarching topic, warfare in ancient Greek art and architecture. It looked like all of your links worked and the format itself was also strong. Overall I think the article was a really good draft!

Review

Hi Travis,

Good job on the article so far! I think the main thing that this article needs (As Sydney mentioned) is to be split up into more subheadings. Also, It might be good to go into more detail about the walls/ fortifications themselves. Were there towers or cisterns? Maybe there was some kind of interesting design to the walls? All in all, I think that this is a great start and I'm excited to see what else you will find! -Robert Y. Rob6820 (talk) 00:25, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Comments from Prof. Paga

Hi Travis - this is a great article so far! You already have some good suggestions from your peer-reviewer and TF, and here are a few comments of my own.

• Add more hyperlinks throughout your article to make it more integrated into Wikipedia.
  
• Pottery is found in sherds, not shards. (Glass is found in shards.)
  
• In the "Structure" section, you could add more description (and perhaps reliable this section as "Description"). For instance, how tall and wide were the towers? You mention bastions in the final paragraph but not here - what are they and where were they located? Perhaps add more information about the building materials.
  
• Since the walls had several phases, it would be helpful to include a basic list of these. Perhaps under the "History" section you could insert a bullet list of each phase and its date.
  

Jpaga (talk) 18:09, 2 December 2017 (UTC)