Talk:Second Battle of Lexington

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Second Battle of Lexington/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Harrias (talk · contribs) 08:31, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll take a look at this shortly. Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 08:31, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

References

• Be consistent in the date format: both "Retrieved October 14, 2020" and "Retrieved 14 October 2020" are used. Given this is a US topic, the first seems more appropriate.
  • Done, slapped on a use mdy dates template to do it automatically in the refs (although I personally have a slight preference for dmy, but it's less common in America)
• All information is cited to what seem to be reliable sources. The "Official Records", which is a primary source, is used sparingly and appropriately.
• Other than the minor note above, the references are formatted consistently and in an appropriate style.

Images

• Consider adding alt text, although it isn't a GA requirement.
  • I'm not really sure how to alt text these. I don't know that "Map of Price's Raid" or "A map of the battle" help anyone who can't see the map very much, and describing in detail all the points of the map in the alt text isn't really feasible, either. Hog Farm _Bacon 15:55, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
• Both images appear to be licensed and captioned appropriately.

Prose

• To follow Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 14:33, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Harrias: - Not to rush you, but any updates on this? It's been over a week, and I know I've forgotten that I've opened reviews before. Hog Farm _Bacon 02:57, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Just really busy offline at the moment. I'll get cracking with the prose review, and see how far I can get.

• "As the American Civil War began in 1861, the state of Missouri was a slave state, but did not secede." For clarity, maybe either "When the American Civil War began in 1861, ..." or "At the start of the American Civil War in 1861, ..."?
  • Went with the latter
• "..but by the end of the year, the Price and the MSG were restricted.." No need for "the" before "Price".
  • Copy editing mistake
• "Meanwhile, in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, the Confederates had defeated Union attackers in the Red River campaign in Louisiana in March through May." in, in, in, in. A tad repetitive!
  • Disposed of two of them
• "..and the Confederate Governor of Missouri Thomas Caute Reynolds suggested.." Per MOS:JOBTITLE, I would change this to "..and the Confederate governor of Missouri, Thomas Caute Reynolds, suggested.."
  • Done. I'm bad with commas
• Explain or wikilink what is meant by Price's "column".
  • I've named it as his army and given the army's name
• "However, several thousand of these men were poorly armed; all 14 of the army's cannons were underpowered." Ditch the semicolon, and replace it with ", and". In BrEng, it should be "under-powered", does AmEng allow it as one word?
  • Dropped the semicolon; underpowered is okay in one word
• Linking "attacks against the post on September 27 failed" to Battle of Fort Davidson (via a redirect) is an WP:EASTEREGG, rephrase.
  • Rephrased. I kept the link as the redirect, as both Battle of Fort Davidson and Battle of Pilot Knob are accepted by RS; my preference is for Pilot Knob
• "..hoping to cooperate with a force commanded by Brigadier General John B. Sanborn and catch and trap Price." Maybe switch to "..hoping to cooperate with a force commanded by Brigadier General John B. Sanborn to catch and trap Price.
  • Done

Reviewed to end of Prelude section. Will continue as soon as I'm able. Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 19:00, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• The semi-colons in the first sentence of the Battle section break it up weirdly, and doesn't really make grammatical sense. Try to rephrase it.
  • Dispensed with both of them. I have a tendency to string together too many independent clauses with semicolons
• "In his after-action report, Blunt provided the significant amount his force was outnumbered by, as well as the fact that his mountian howitzers were unable to effectively respond to Price's artillery." This feels like it is missing something: he provided them for/as what? Excuses or reasons, I assume? Also, typo on mountain.
  • Yeah definitely missing something there; I've added it and fixed the typo
• "..had gained concreate evidence.." Typo on "concrete", but I think this could be more professionally phrased for the encyclopaedia.
  • With with "Definite" instead, is that better? Oddly enough, the little red lines that appear below words in my editing browser didn't flag "concreate" as an error, so I guess it's a word of some osrt
• Remove the See also link to Battle of Lexington State Historic Site, as it is already linked in the article, and is not really relevant to this battle anyway.
  • Done

That's it, I reckon. I'll stick this on hold. Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 21:43, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Harrias: - All of these very good points replied to above; I probably should have sent this one through GOCE before nominating. Hog Farm _Bacon 01:21, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I've made a few copy-edits, and I'm happy to pass the article now. Harrias ^{(he/him) • talk} 08:39, 31 October 2020 (UTC)