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User:Vanished user 58234729/Sandbox/Bristol GAC

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1. Prose and formatting - Not quite there yet, but can be reached with a handful of fixes. A few of them are mistakes, and some are just things that I think should be clarified or that I didn't understand when I read through the article

  • I'm having trouble discerning a clear thematic organization of the lead; it seems to jump around a bit. Once the rest of the article's organization is set, I'd go through and try to summarize each section in the lead. (see WP:LEAD)
  • The controversy wasn't sparked by those concerns, it was entirely about those concerns, so I think the first couple sentences can be combined or reworded.
  • "The admissions policy allowed the awarding of slightly lower offers to promising applicants from schools with poor academic records." What do you mean, "slightly lower offers"? How can one offer of admission be lower than another? Or is something else meant by this? Perhaps this is just a detail or term of the UK university admissions process that I'm not aware of; if so, I think an explanation is required, or at least a wikilink to somewhere else to provide context.
  • I think "state" school is quite clear now for both US and UK readers, and I'm wondering if we can replace all instances of "independent school" with "private school", since that term is more widely used in the US and apparently holds the same meaning in the UK.
  • Put the bulleted list of students into paragraph form. Also, how was media attention attracted to these students, and at what point of the year? I never really got a sense of how it all started and when.
  • Throughout the article, there are a number of subjective words and qualifiers, such as "top private schools" and "intense media coverage". These are both vague and a bit peacocky, and I think should be replaced with more neutral and specific descriptors.
  • Sometimes univeristy is capitalized and sometimes it is not. The article should be consistent and use just one (I think lower-case is better, although I'm not sure).
  • "4 students with 10* at GCSE and 4 As at A-level were rejected." In general, abbreviations should be expanded and preferably linked to their article; as an American, I have no idea what a 10* at GCSE means, and a quick look at the appropriate article would be helpful.
  • The section headings are somewhat non-descriptive. Response to what? Reaction to what by whom? I think the article's organization would be better served if the content were presented in a sort of timeline fashion (e.g., "Bristol's actions", "Boycott", "Response by Bristol", "Media/political reaction", "Resolution").
  • An explanation of who the National Association of Head Teachers is, their notability, and a link to "head teacher" would be helpful. (The term isn't really used in the USA, and it therefore somewhat confusing to most American readers, although we can guess at the meaning.)
  • The use of the word inclusive is a bit vague and euphemistic. A more precise word would be better.
  • "...the policy of offering lower offers to exceptional students from state schools and disadvantaged backgrounds was in order to satisy the Government..." A bit awkward: perhaps "the policy of xyz was instituted to satisfy abc"?
  • Since it's background information, I think that the "Admissions statistics" section should be somewhere in the beginning of the article. Perhaps a new section called "Background" would be in order, combining Bristol's previous admissions policies and statistics, info about how British schools usually do things, and whatever else is needed to understand the article.

2. Well-sourced

  • the quotes around "perfect" bother me, because the text doesn't adequately attribute precisely who thought their academic records were perfect. Also, I don't understand what the reference on the end of that sentence is supporting.
  • Dead link [1]
  • Needs references: "The dispute caused intense media debate at the time in British newspapers after it was reported that top private schools planned to boycott the University. The Daily Mail viewed the dispute as an example of discrimination against middle class students whereas The Guardian largely welcomed the admissions policies"

3. Broad in its coverage:

(a) addresses main aspects of the topic:
  • Now that the title has been changed, the date of the controversy needs to be mentioned in the lead
  • Some more context is required; weren't top UK universities previously accused of not accepting public school students? Also a brief description of relevant info about the UK admissions process is necessary for non-Brits.
  • Article references a boycott more than once, but never actually says when it happens, by whom, and what it consisted of. This seems like a major detail that needs to be discussed more thoroughly. Also it is discussed in the lead, so it needs to be mentioned elsewhere per WP:LEAD.
(b) no unnecessary digressions

4. NPOV

  • The article requires a thorough sweeping of words to avoid. In many places, article basically constructs people's arguments for them instead of saying who said what. Let me know if you'd like specific examples.
  • The coverage of Bristol's drop in admission is misleading and one-sided. The article should include Bristol's statement that it does not believe the drop to have to do with the boycott, and rather that it is just random fluctuations in the rate of applications. The article that is cited states this, so to omit it is to misrepresent the source.
  • The "see alsos" to "Social engineering" etc. seem very POV'd to me. I agree that they're relevant related topics, but I don't think they should be put there, because doing so asserts that what Bristol was doing was social engineering; perhaps linked in-text when those phrases are used would be best.

5. Stable

  • No edit wars, and topic is in the past so it itself is stable

6. Image use

(a) Proper licensing - image released by author under GDFL. One more would be nice, but only if it supplements the text (i.e., if it was of Sushila Phillips or another involved party, but not a photo of a chapel at Bristol).
(b) Caption The caption seems a little peacocky/boostery and should be substantiated with details or changed. As the caption of the only image in the lead, maybeit could serve as a concise, one-sentence summary of the issue, or perhaps just a literal description of the image ("So-and-so hall at University of Bristol").
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