Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Military sociology

Military sociology

As a part of an educational assignment (details here) a group of students has created this article, with the aim of bringing is as close to Good Article criteria as possible. I think the article has reached a level where there is substantive content to review. Comments would be appreciated. Can we transclude this review at Talk:Military sociology? I am afraid the new editors may have trouble finding the review via the MILHIST template.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 01:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

TomStar81

I've been watching this article religiously since Piotrus brought it to the MILHIST projects attention, and have in the process been making mental notes for things that need improvement. The article has a ways to go before getting to GA, but I am impressed at the amount of work that has thus far been done.

• To begin with, aim for completeing the B-class criteria. This means
  • Adding images to the article
  • Ensuring that all information in the article is cited according to the Milhist Manual of Style (MoS)
  • Copyeditting the material present. This includes:
    • Removing all instances of question/answer format;
    • Checking for the proper use of grammar;
    • Checking that all words are spelled correctly;
    • Ensure that all punctuation in the article is correclty formatted.
• Wikilink. Roll up your sleeves and add [[]] to every term or phrase that may have an article here. At present your article lacks a lot the internal linking other article rely on to better explain terms and jargon and such. This will be an issue at a GA review, so handeling now will spare you the headache later.
• See if there are any aplicable info boxes that could be added to the article. I can say for near certainty there will not be any at milhist, but that may not be true over at WP:Sociology.
• Make sure your references are, and remain, properly formatted. Earlier today someone added <ref>1</ref> to the article, which I assume was meant to inform people to g to the 1st cited reference in the section; if this was in fact the case then the reference needs to be reformatted. Those at the GA review will come down hard on this as a result of shifting standards at FAC (I found this out the hard way, as it was a major hangup for the Montana class battleship article during its FAC bid)
• If at all possible try to figure out a way of getting the military sociology line in ahead of the definition of military and sociology; as it stands this formatting in the intro is ackward.
• I am dueling with the administration at UTEP at the moment over alleged finicial inconsistancy, but I will make an honest effort to get back here and update my comments as you all address them. In the mean time though I do hope this helps. Keep up the good work! TomStar81 (Talk) 02:20, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

ALR

First of all, good effort to those who have been contributing so far. I hope that the interest doesn't wane. I have a few observations, some of which are already active on the talk page.

• The opening sentence doesn't really capture what the article is about, but instead opens with a wooly definition of military and kind of gets to the point eventually. In all honesty I wouldn't have bothered reading the article as there is no hook to bring me in. I would suggest stating that MilSociology is the use of the discipline in the military context, then define the discipline and what is meant by military, with sources. The purist meaning of Military is the officer corps of the army, whereas the article tends towards the popular usage of the three branches of the armed forces as a whole. Needs to be clear.
• Global context is an issue, several of the sections start from a presumption of the US case and a US readership. Looking at other articles that tends to lead to a structure of The US does it this way, then the UK does it this way, then the Canuks do it this way..... Not a particularly readable or informative style. I would suggest starting from the general case, then using some illustrative examples. The most obvious example here is the homosexuality section, which is US specific, never mind biased.
• Sourcing is non-existent in large chunks of the article, and some of the assumptions illustrate the opinions of the writers rather than practicality. The section on insular mindset reads to me like anti-military prejudice. that may not have been the intent of the originator, but that's how it comes across. I do, however, acknowledge that the US service culture is very different from many others, although experiences in the 'stan are helping that culture to mature. I do recall that the Military Brat article experienced a lot of problems with sourcing, and ended up having to focus exclusively on the US culture, because of the paucity of sources covering elsewhere.
• The deployment lifecycle needs to be completed, as in practice there are significant stresses associated with returning from deployment, or mid-deployment leave. Again it's worth considering the generic case, rather than the specifics around US deployment cycles. Personally I've had anything from 24 months to 48 hours notice, each brings it's own pressures.
• The research & industry section needs to be more general, it emphasises the current civilian bete noire of CBRN where that is a small part of most military/ industry interaction.

I'd suggest that each section needs to be written as a mini article in its own right, with a clear thesis at the beginning, then supporting material. That's very much a stylistic issue and I accept that most contributors probably aren't in a position where that's familiar. I hope that lot is found to be useful.

ALR (talk) 12:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Borg Sphere

OK, this is the first time I've ever commented on one of these, so bear with me. I'll try not to repeat what others have said.

• I really didn't like the structuring. For example, there were no subheadings anywhere, just 12 major headings. The stages of stress could be integrated with where they were first mentioned; it felt strange to read about the stages once, go to a different topic, and then return to a more in-detail description of the stages of stress. Also, I would suggest making the stages into their own subheadings (===Initial shock===, etc.)
• The prose could flow a lot better throughout, but I noticed it most in the second section, but I can't put my finger on why.
• This was brought up before, but I'll say it again: citation. Many sections had no references, and others had controversial or other statements that needed citing but didn't have inlines.
• The table about minorities could use a key on the left, for each row. Minor, but it would make it easier to understand.
• And of course some images or infobox, sometime to break up the text and make it more interesting for a reader.

Borg Sphere (talk) 14:25, 23 July 2008 (UTC)