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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it is my first article, and I would like to see what kinds of improvements it needs to bump up its rating. Are the references OK? Are there enough sources? Are there comparable articles on lesser-known historical figures that I could look at?
Thanks, Sarnold17 (talk) 22:50, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
Brianboulton comments: First off, this is a commendable effort for a first article (compared, say, with my own first effort which was rubbish). There are, however, numerous points needing your attention if this is to develop into a first class article.
- Lead
Done The function of the lead is to provide a general overview, or summary, of the article, without getting into too much detail. The first paragraph should state who the subject is and why he is noteworthy. The remaining paragraphs should briefly outline the course of his life, touching on but not describing the significant elements. At present, the second and third paragraphs are somewhat overdetailed., beyond the summary style requires in th lead.- Done It is not necessary to cite information in the lead when that same information (in greater detail) appears in the body of the article – which is where it should be cited.
- Balance
- Done Almost half of the article is taken up with "Ancestry and early life". This is disproportionate; the section needs to be reduced considerably. The section often appears written as journalism rather than as an encyclopedia entry, e.g. "Unfortunately, in this age of the internet, one can find websites that show attractive lineages of Nicholas Arnold back many generations, often incorporating some of Somerby's discredited work. However, not a shred of evidence has as yet been made public illuminating us to the ancestry of Nicholas Arnold." and "Mr. Somerby probably never intended for his work to be published, and he probably should not be entirely saddled with the blame". There are many uncited assertions, e.g. "The impact of both of these documents has no parallel in the realm of New England genealocial [sic - presumably "genealogical"?] research" .
- Done There is further inconsequential detail in the "Voyage to New England" section, relating to a "Thomas Arnold" who is evidently unconnected to our subject.
- material put into a note at end
- Prose generally
I am not able to carry out a full copyedit, but here are a few pointers towards improving the prose:-
- Done Avoid contractions such as "wasn't" and "didn't"
- Done Arnold is referred to in the article variously as "Arnold", "William Arnold" and "William". Except when it is necessary to distinguish him from other Arnolds, as the aubject he should be called "Arnold" consistently.
- I've changed the name in most instances to Arnold, but have retained the full name on several occasions for either style or because other Arnolds are mentioned.
- Done Awkward phrasing, e.g.: "Arnold would become" ("Arnold became"); "Gorton had bought of the Indians..." ("from" rather than "of"?), etc. It would be a good idea to seek an independent copyeditor, to cast a fresh eye over the article.
- Done The "Family" section should be given in prose rather than bullet points
- Done ;Images
Possibly too many, and not all of them are necessary (three from England?). If at all possible you should avoid having text "squeezed" between two images, as in the "Settling Providence and Pawtuxet" and "End of life" sections. The left-hand image in he End of life section appears to have no connection with this article; according to the image description it is from the early 1800s.
- MOS points
- Done Be consistent in your formatting of year ranges. The generally approved format is "1571–72" rather than "1571/72" (using dashes, not hyphens).
- the issue with the dates was discussed in the first note at end
- Dashes are also required in the footnote page ranges.
- Not sure what needs to be done; I believe that my footnote references all have dashes in them
- Done Avoid overlinking; there are many everyday terms which do not require links, e.g. baptism, marriage, bible and many others.
- many links have been removed
- Done Values less than 10 should be written out rather than presented numerically.
- Is there a reason why dates are represented in the British style (1 September) rather than American (September 1)?
- yes, even in the U.S., genealogists typically use day-month-year, and it is a strong personal preference of mine
I believe that there is the basis for an interesting historical article here, once the above points have been addressed. Brianboulton (talk) 11:29, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
- Comments by Magicpiano
I concur with Brianboulton, this is a good first effort. I've been working a lot on one of his most notorious descendants, but I was unfamiliar with the details of his ancestry before the first Benedict. That said, I have some issues that Brian did not mention above. I would recommend putting the details of the documentary controversy and historiography at the end of the article, after his life story. (Mention it at the beginning, but only present what is known today there.)
The points I raise below are not to denigrate your work; I point them out to illustrate that there are policies and guidelines about how to write Wikipedia articles that you probably need to gain a deeper understanding of.
- Done "The impact of both of these documents has no parallel in the realm of New England genealocial research." This is peacock opinion language, and should not be presented in the editorial voice. If a historian said something like it, present it as that historian's opinion.
- Done You don't need to say "it is a fact that"; the editorial voice is assumed to be presenting "facts" (it actually is supposed to present verifiable statements, which is not quite the same thing).
- Done "even the very careful genealogist John Osborne Austin accepted this incorrect lineage, publishing it in his otherwise excellent Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island in 1887.[9]" The citation is to Austin himself; who is asserting that Austin is "very careful"? If this is your opinion, it is not suitable to present; you need to find someone else's published opinion of Austin to say that. This advice also applies to e.g. much of the second paragraph of "The correct ancestry".
- Done The infobox says he died in Rhode Island. This entity did not exist before 1776; you should link the correct political entity that existed at the time of his death. As a rule, you should avoid these sorts of anachronistic usages, although using pipe links to more modern terms is OK (e.g. in this case using Rhode Island).
- Done The "See also" section does not need to include links for things that are already linked in the article, like Roger Williams and Benedict Arnold (governor).
- You should include ISBNs for all books that have them, and OCLC numbers for those that do not. (You can get OCLC numbers from worldcat.org; {{cite book}} has an oclc parameter.) Older books that have full view through either Google Books or archive.org ought to include urls to one of those.