Wikipedia:Peer review/32nd Infantry Division (United States)/archive1

32nd Infantry Division (United States)

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for April 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review in order to bring it up to 'good article' status

Thanks, Dodgerblue777 (talk) 20:40, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

TechOutsider

• First ref needs to be redone. Fixed -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:54, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
• Avoid wikilinks in title or section headings. Fixed -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:54, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
• For the redlinks, or wikilinks to articles not yet in existence, try to provide a little explanation as to who/what they are. Or create the article, if it is notable.
• Try not to be vague; you say at one point in the article the Allies "finally" broke into the Japanese lines. I fixed that for you.

Anyways, some additional comments about the body and prose. Try to avoid informal diction; avoid using words such as "but", "got", etc. The body also sounds a little like a retelling from someone. While there is nothing wrong with that style, try to make the prose flow more coherently. Since you are covering the events of several wars, there is always logic behind an infantry's decisions. Try to plan your article like that; one action leads into another. Doing so greatly improves how the article reads. Also, try to avoid vague words, such as "hurriedly". More to come later. TechOutsider (talk) 23:42, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

In the lead, try to be clear, thus concise. For example "The 32nd Infantry Division was a unit in the Army National Guard in World War I and World War II. In both wars". I suggest ommiting the "In both wars" part; as it is implied and makes the lead too wordy.

As for the external links in the Cultural Legacy section, try to incorporate information and pictures from the external links in the article. Exceptions include if the information is copyrighted.

More examples of vagueness. "The tide of the battle of Buna turned". Sounds like a retelling. Don't explicitly mention the fact the tide turned at first; give facts and supporting reasons as to why, such as turning points, etc. Imply, rather than say.

Ruhrfisch

Interesting article with a lot of work put into it. Here are some suggestions for improvement, mostly WP:MOS issues.

• The lead needs to be a summary of the whole article and could almost certainly be four paragraphs. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself - I think the list of the other units in WWII is too much for the lead. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way. Please see WP:LEAD
• The article seems overly detailed in places and may need fewer sections / headers - much of the material could be summarized briefly here and then put into full articles on the various battles and actions. This is done nicely for Operation Cartwheel and the Phillipines battles and should be done for the others as well - see WP:Summary style

Commment: I wrote portions of the article, especially the detailed section having to do with the Kapa Kapa Trail, and considered breaking that into a separate article like the Kokoda Track. But there really is not enough information to justify a separate article, and their trek, though notable within the Division, was not even a battle or part of a campaign. So I opted to keep the detail within the body of the article. -- btphelps ^{(talk)(contribs)07:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)}

Commment: Moved section on Kapa Kapa Trail march to that article. -- btphelps ^{(talk)(contribs)} 08:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

• Article needs more references, for example the whole Operation Cartwheel section has no refs. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.

Commment: Added some references to Cartwheel section. -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V

Commment: If author is known, I've included it in references. -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• Article has a fair number of short (one or two sentence) paragraphs that break up the flow - these should be combined with others where possible, or perhaps expanded
• The article uses {{cquote}} but according the documentation at Template:Cquote this is for pull quotes only, and this should probably use {{blockquote}} instead.

Comment: As I recall, the problem with Template:blockquote is if the quote extends beyond a single parapraph, blockquote does not format the paragraphs correctly. -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 08:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

• Think carefully about organization - the Notable members section lists people by war, then Medal of Honor recipients, but there is no indication for these which war they fought in. Fixed -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 08:02, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
• Explain abbreviations and provide context to the reader - see WP:PCR

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:14, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

AustralianRupert

I can see that a lot of work has gone into this article which is very commendable. I have a couple of comments, though:

• Introduction: I believe that the introduction needs to be rewritten. It does not summarise the whole article. I would suggest that the first sentence should begin differently, for example "The 32nd Infantry Division was a unit of the United States Army National Guard formed from units from the states of Wisconsin and Michigan. It was first formed in July 1917 and fought during World War I and World War II..." Also, the introduction should more clearly discuss the unit's history after the World Wars. As it is it does not mention that it was disbanded/inactivated after the war and then re-raised/formed again in 1961 leaves readers to fill that gap own their own.

Commment: The unit was not reorganized in 1961, but federalized. -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 07:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• Infobox — the dates in the infobox do not include the period it existed after WWII (I think the article says 15 Oct 1961 – sometime in 1967?).

This was fixed, but seems to have been reverted — was there a reason for this? AustralianRupert (talk) 01:06, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

• Endashes: date ranges (in Infobox and elsewhere) should have endashes;
• In the Training in Australia section: you use two ranks for Cable (Sgt and then Corporal). Is this an error, or did the division use a double-rank system like the Grenadier Guards?
• Also in the Training in Australia section: you refer to "four Australian territories" - this is not correct. They are most likely States. We have six States and two Territories.
• Images: I believe that per the WP:MOS some images should be on the left, as well as the right (to be honest, I don't mind, but it is something that might come up at a later review).
• See also section: I think that the see also section is usually used for internal links to other wiki pages. You are using it as a Further reading section. You may want to change it to that.
• References section: I suggest making a separate Notes and References section. The notes section can be used for the in line citations (with limited bibliographical information — e.g. Rupert 2008, p. 1) and aside points and the References section could include all the bibliographic details of the cited sources.
• Pre-World War I section: you begin the section discussing the 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Regiment however it is not readily apparent why that is relevant to the topic of the 32nd Infantry Division. Also in that section, in the last paragraph you mention preceeding dates (i.e. 1899) after later dates (i.e. 1916 and 1917). This is confusing and probably should be re-worked to mention first things first so as to avoid confusing readers.
• References: some of the external links in the references sections need to be repaired as they are not appearing in html.

Just a few ideas. On the whole I think you have done an excellent job on the article. Well done. AustralianRupert (talk) 06:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Some further points:

:* In the World War II section, in the summary box there appears to be two figures given for Wounded in action: 1,680 and 7,268. Which one is correct? :* I believe that the lead section is still a bit vague. The opening paragraph is a bit confusing. It states in the first sentence that the unit was a WWI and WWII unit, then in the second sentence talks about the American Civil War. Also the post WWII paragraph does not mention when the Division was reactivated in 1961, although it does mention that in 1967 it was deactivated and reorganised as an independent brigade. Perhaps the opening paragraph could be something like: "The 32nd Infantry Division was an Army National Guard unit raised primarily from the states of Michigan and Wisconsin that served during World War I and World War II. Although it was formed in 1917, the Division takes its lineage from units that served during the American Civil War as part of the Iron Jaw Division. During World War I it acquired the French nickname Les Terribles... "

• The infobox should also include post WWII dates (15 Oct 1961 – sometime in 1967). This was fixed earlier but seems to have been reverted for some reason.

On the whole, I think this article is progressing very nicely. Good work so far. — AustralianRupert (talk) 01:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

btphelps

I moved a large section about their trek across the Kapa Kapa Trail to the article by that name and left a brief summary within the 32nd Division article. -- btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 06:46, 30 April 2009 (UTC)