Wikipedia:Peer review/Battle of Corunna/archive1

Battle of Corunna

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it has been greatly improved and expanded and I would like to bring this article up to GA standard.

Thanks, Tttom1 (talk) 21:54, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Comments: good work with this one. I have just focused on copy editing suggestions:

• there a mixture of English variation. For instance "centre" (British) and "center" (US);

I think the consensus a couple years back was to follow British spelling. Unable, myself, to pick up the conflicts.Tttom1 (talk) 04:42, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I made a couple of changes in this regard. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:12, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• in the Background: "In early October 1808 Sir John Moore, following the scandal in Britain of the Convention of Cintra and the recall of the generals Dalrymple, Burrard and Wellesley, took command of the 30,000 man British force in Portugal". --> "In early October 1808, following the scandal in Britain of the Convention of Cintra and the recall of the generals Dalrymple, Burrard and Wellesley, Sir John Moore took command of the 30,000 man British force in Portugal";
• "convoyed by H.M.S. Louie, Amelia and Champion" --> "convoyed by H.M.S. Louie, Amelia and Champion";
• per WP:DATESNO "the 13th October" --> "13 October";
• 70 miles (and elsewhere that you have distances) --> if you add a convert template here, it will improve understanding for readers that are not familiar with miles. For instance: "{{convert|70|mi|km}}" will produce 70 miles (110 km);
• overlinked: "A junction with General David Baird on 20 December" (as David Baird has already been linked, there is no need to do it here);
• this sentence seems like it needs some commas in it: "With the Spanish defeated and no longer an organized threat, his army generally concentrated while the enemy was dispersed and the initiative firmly in his grasp Napoleon seized the chance to destroy Britain's only field army";
• "he opened his attack with a successful raid by Paget's cavalry on the French piquets" --> wikilink for Paget and add rank and full name on first mention;
• comma splice: "retreat began on 25 December, one at Benavente before";
• "corps of Marshal Soult" --> "Soult's corps";
• "Over 2 days Soult concentrated " --> "Over two days Soult concentrated...";
• "26 transports and 2 warships at Corunna" --> "26 transports and two warships at Corunna";
• "there was not time enough for Lieutenant-General Paget, commander of the British rear guard" --> "there was not time enough for Paget, commander of the British rear guard" (remove wikilink and rank);
• this sentence seems like it needs to be broken up a little: "Rain storms and confusion caused the British main body to partially lose order and break up with thousands straggling and 500 captured by pursuing French dragoons with hundreds more stragglers captured by Franceschi's cavalry on the 10th and several hundred more on the 11th."
• "but shortly after, at 2pm" --> "but shortly after, at 2:00 pm" per WP:MOSTIME;
• "At around 9 PM the" --> "At around 9:00 pm";
• inconsistent caps: "the Ships of the Line" --> "ships of the line"
• commas: "Moore's second in command Sir David Baird was" (before and after Sir David Baird);
• the punctuation in this paragraph probably needs work: "Chandler states, the British army had been "... compelled to conduct..." (full stops followed by commas; double full stops etc). Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 10:10, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that when paraphrasing 3 dots ( ... ) indicates not a full stop but that an excerpt of the sentence is being used. A full stop appearing at the end of the original quoted sentence should be followed by quote marks and then a full stop if indicating the end of the overall sentence containing the quote - if the sentence hasn't ended and the quoted sentence has ended the quote has a full stop within the quote marks followed by the normal punctuation mark required (there must be an easier way to explain this). To avoid comma, I added the conjunction 'and'. Tttom1 (talk) 04:24, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

G'day, in the case you mention above, I think it would be more than acceptable to close the quotes without the full stop so that you avoid the double full stops. Also there would be no need to use a full stop within a sentence that is continuing after the quotation mark. It's probably not a major issue, though. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 11:12, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your advice and assistance, its great to get another pair of eyes on this. Tttom1 (talk) 15:24, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

No worries, happy to help. You've done a good job getting this up to scratch. With a few more tweaks, I think it could be successful at GA and higher. I will go through it again a couple of times this weekend (it's Saturday here) with a view to focusing on some of the "nitpick" items that might be brought up at higher review. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 21:22, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• Additional comments: I made a few tweaks. Please check that you are happy with these and adjust as you see fit. As promised above, some nitpicks:
  • "Starting in October 1808 Napoleon led the French on a brilliant[29] offensive" --> the word brilliant, here, is it an opinion/quote? I think in the interests of not having it raised as a POV concern, it would be best to put in quotes, or attribute it. For instance, "Starting in October 1808 Napoleon led the French on what historian John Smith described as a "brilliant"[29] offensive..."
  • currently the citation style seems a bit inconsistent. For instance compare # 83 "Knight, Charles, The Popular History of England, London, 1861, p. 506" with # 82 "Oman. p. 588". Also compare # 1 and 2 with 3, and # 99 with # 100, etc.
  • It might be an idea to split the notes that are just citations (references) from those which have text. An example of an article that does this is SMS Prinzregent Luitpold, which is a GA-rated article that is currently undergoing a Military History project A-class review;
  • At GA and higher, the licences/descriptions of the images will be reviewed for compliance with policy. As such it might pay to check that all is in order in that regard. Its not really my area of expertise, but I had a look at a couple, and they might need work:

Are the others OK?

• • • "File:Batalla de Elviña.jpg": lacks source, artist and title details. Additionally it uses a "life of author plus 70 years" licence, but doesn't specify the artist. This is problematic and would need to be fixed for a successful GA review;

Ran down this image, not Corunna 1809 but 1823. Created 1828. No good for this article. I knew the painting was later by style of some uniforms but thought it was just an anachronism - its not, so image has to go from article. I added & corrected some info to commons page about it.Tttom1 (talk) 02:44, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Found new image has same problems of source. Can correct, except user claims copyright - what to do?Tttom1 (talk) 03:27, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

G'day, good work with replacing the image. Sorry, I didn't spot that. Regarding the licence on the new image, yes that seems wrong to me. The current licence/information is essentially saying that the painting was created in 2011, which is wrong. The details should be about the painting itself, not the scan of the painting. My suggestion is to change the description and licence page accordingly if you know the correct details. It is probably just that the uploader was confused and made an honest mistake. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 03:43, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Put in the correct details, does that look sufficient? Tttom1 (talk) 06:39, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that looks right. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 07:32, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

• • I'm not sure if it is just an issue on my screen, but the text shouldn't usually be sandwiched between images. For instance in the Battle and Analysis sections, you have two images on either side of the text. One of these should probably be offset;

Moved image.

• • not sure about this: "Fortescue, p. 393. Oman, p.596, actually has the effrontery to criticize Alcedo". I think using words like "effrontery" could be seen to be adding an opinion or a point of view. Perhaps just say "criticize Alcedo for not putting up a fight";

I believe there's a bit more leeway in a footnote than the body, but I made it more neutral.Tttom1 (talk) 15:09, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

• • the References use slightly different styles. For instance compare Gates with Hamilton;</ref>
  • in the References, the works without ISBN could have OCLC numbers added. Additionally, publishers and locations, could also be added for the works by Neale, Oman, Pococke, Richardson and Sarrazin, etc. These details can usually be found at www.worldcat.org. AustralianRupert (talk) 23:21, 13 July 2012 (UTC)