Wikipedia:Peer review/1927 Chicago mayoral election/archive1

1927 Chicago mayoral election

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This peer review discussion has been closed.

I've listed this article for peer review in response to an abortive FAC, which raised issues of verifiability that I was unaware existed. I'd like a fresh set of eyes to note any other issues for this article before it reaches FA status. I'd especially like to receive feedback from my prospective FAC mentor User:Coemgenus, but any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks, John M Wolfson (talk) 00:10, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Coemgenus's comments

Thanks for setting this up, John M Wolfson. I'll do my best to point out the issues that could snag your next FA nomination.

The biggest issues, as mentioned at the FAC, is that you don't list page numbers in some of your citations, including footnotes 1 and 12. Adding those is essential.
This sentence "Early on in the campaign trail, he debated with live rats ..." should be moved down to the next paragraph, where Robertson is introduced.
In "Primary elections", you have a bunch of one-sentence paragrpahs that ought to be combined into standard paragraphs unless it's absolutely necessary to keep them separate.
"Edward R. Litsinger, the chairman of the Cook County Board of Review..." This sentence is way too long. I'd break it up and make the points separately.
The second paragraph in the "General election" "campaign" subsection: nearly every sentence starts with "Thompson". Some variety would improve the prose.
There are a lot of one-sentence paragraphs in that section, too.
In that same section, it's never clear when Robertson makes the move to run as an independent. This should be made clearer, along with Thompson's reaction to the party split.
For all of your financial figures, there is a template (Template:Inflation) that can do the calculations for you.
I made a few edits, here. --Coemgenus (talk) 15:47, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your advice, I believe I have covered most of your concerns. ~~User:Factotem suggested that I create a "Notes" section of the page like in Project E, with individual page numbers for each book citation. That might be useful but I have 2 comments on that:~~

~~The current "Notes" section would likely have to be renamed something to the effect of "Remarks" or "Comments".~~

I didn't add most of the book citations, it was mostly User:SecretName101. From the book citations I added(Eig and Teaford) the part of the book used is only a page or so, so I don't think such a section would be useful. Having not seen the books that SecretName101 added myself I can't vouch for the scattered nature of the content that's cited in the article. Per Factotem's last edit, I see what is meant now. I still have questions for which pages are used where for each of most of the books due to not having seen them, but that's not too terribly relevant.

(Also, as a side note, are page numbers required/expected for newspaper citations, or only books?) -John M Wolfson (talk) 19:21, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note:

I added the GBooks link because it was there in the original, but these are not required for FAC. Many people (myself included) don't like them. Where GBooks offers a preview, it is often of a different edition than the one listed on the main GBook page for that book. Also, the availability of previews is not consistent; it depends on time and geographic region;
When I amended the Teaford reference to short form, I specified the year. When you amended the Eig reference to short form, you left the year out. Strictly speaking, the year is only necessary if you use two different sources from the same author, in which case the year is used to identify which book you're referring to in the ref. If the article does not use different sources by the same author, you don't need to specify the year. You probably do need to be consistent though; if some refs specify a year but others don't, it will probably get flagged at FAC;
I don't believe page numbers are required for newspapers. If you see one, I would suggest adding it, but don't fret if there isn't any obvious page numbering in the newspaper you are using.

HTH Factotem (talk) 20:34, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your feedback, I was about to ask you about the year, I'll probably rm it from the Teaford ref. I might also remove the Google Books links. Also, I'm looking up ISBNs for the books I have not personally seen on isbnsearch.org, and I noted that ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 are inconsistent in the bibliography of the books I have seen (the site gives both for a given book). Is one better than the other? Should I try to force one standard on a book I have seen? -John M Wolfson (talk) 21:02, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome. A mix of ISBN-10 and ISBN-13 does sometimes get picked up on at FAC, and I generally try to standardise on ISBN-13 as a result. But when I raised this at FAC Talk recently, the consensus seems to be that that's excessively nitpicky, and the most important thing is to use the ISBN as shown in the source you are actually using. (As a side note, strictly speaking, we are not required to provide an ISBN at all. The policy requires us to provide sources so that anyone can verify statements made in an article, and all that is need for that is author, title, year and publisher. Any other info is superfluous, but you will almost certinly pick up a lot of flak at FAC if you don't provide an ISBN). Factotem (talk) 21:21, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I was thinking about using ISBN-13 but it's probably best to defer to User:SecretName101, who has actually read the books in question. -John M Wolfson (talk) 21:36, 28 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Question about journals

I believe I have completed the Bibliography section, and am wondering whether page numbers are required/expected with journal entries. -John M Wolfson (talk) 04:05, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I have formatted the Kantowicz journal article in the bibliography using Template:Cite journal as an example you can copy about how journals are listed in that section. Yes, although the bibliography shows the page numbers of the whole article within the journal, refs are expected to provide individual page numbers/ranges within the article to show where in the source there is support for the statement cited to the journal. Factotem (talk) 10:32, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll see about access to those later. -John M Wolfson (talk) 17:01, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome. It's possible to register a free JSTOR account and get access to six articles a month, in case you don't already have access. Factotem (talk) 17:06, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the advice. I just graduated college so no longer have access to their remote proxy. -John M Wolfson (talk) 18:09, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If you plan on writing more articles that require journal access, check out available subscriptions at [1]. --Coemgenus (talk) 01:35, 1 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll consider it. -John M Wolfson (talk) 02:21, 1 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I believe I have finished page-numbering all of the book sources and improving the Bibliography. Don't hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions, comments, or concerns! -John M Wolfson (talk) 00:51, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take another pass today and see if anything else needs work before FAC. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:54, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looks solid. If there's anything else, I'm missing it. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:52, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, in that case I'll close this review and run the article through FAC again when it's time. -John M Wolfson (talk) 15:06, 9 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]