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Eastern Nazarene College

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I have been requested to do so by one of the article's primary contributors, and, possibly with the help of the reviewers' comments, will try to bring the article up to GA standards. Thanks, John Carter (talk) 14:32, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Finetooth comments: This is an interesting article, generally well-written, generally verifiable, broad in coverage, generally neutral, stable, and well-illustrated. It's getting close to GA quality. However, I have some concerns, as noted below. Some have to do with layout, some with minor prose issues, some with Manual of Style questions, and, toward the end, some expressing doubts about possible unnecessary detail.

Lead

  • "The Eastern Nazarene College (or ENC) is a college of the liberal arts and sciences in Quincy, Massachusetts." - For foreign readers, it would be good to add "in the United States" to the end of the lead sentence.
  • Rather than linking Quincy and Massachusetts separately, it's customary to use a single link Quincy, Massachusetts, to reduce link density and to avoid the link bumping that makes it hard for readers to tell at a glance where one link stops and another begins. Ditto for Saratoga, New York and all other parallel cases.
  • "Faculty members, however, are required to be 'committed Christians'... " - Since "committed Christians" is in quotes, I'm assuming it's a direct quote from a source. If so, it needs a citation to the source. If not, I'd suggest deleting the quotation marks.
    • checkY Fixed. It is a quote, but it's from a source that's cited in the body of the article. --74.177.198.106 (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scituate, Rhode Island

  • "as the result of a dispute between its first president, Lyman C. Pettit, and the Educational Committee of the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America" - Lower-case "educational committee"?
  • "Having been the originator of the idea for the institute and already surveyed the North Scituate location, Fred A. Hillery... " - Missing word? Suggestion: "... and having already surveyed... ".

"After its move to Rhode Island, attendance became multi-denominational, only one-quarter to one-third pentecostal/Nazarene during any given academic year... " - Since "its" might seem to refer to "attendance", perhaps this would be better: "After the school's move to Rhode Island, attendance... ".

  • "similar to today's enrollment numbers" - "Today" and similar words such as "current" and "now" are inherently vague. It's usually better to use something specific, if possible. Suggestion: "similar to enrollment numbers in 2009".

"In 1906, the Association of Pentecostal Churches of America began talks with the Church of the Nazarene to form a coast-to-coast 'Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene'... ". - The quotation marks here are probably unnecessary.

    • Left it just because it's an historical official name and "Pentecostal" in the modern sense doesn't fit at all with the modern or the historical makeup of the denomination that bore it's name; it seemed better to leave it as-is IMHO. --74.177.198.106 (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scituate, Rhode Island

  • To avoid confusion, it's best not to use the same section head or subhead more than once in the same article. Perhaps just "Rhode Island" would solve the problem, although the next subhead should then probably be shortened to "Massachusetts" to remain parallel.
  • "The school was renamed as the Eastern Nazarene College in 1918 and saw its long-time dream of a liberal arts college realised that year... ". - This is a bit roundabout. Suggestion: "In 1918, the school was renamed Eastern Nazarene College and became a liberal arts college."
  • "The naming was a difficult matter, however; it could hold neither the names... ". - "Hold" doesn't seem to be the right word. Suggestion: Choosing a college name, however, was difficult; the name was not allowed to include either Pentecostal or Collegiate Institute....

Presidents

  • "J. E. L. Moore || 1918-1919" - Date ranges get en dashes rather than hyphens per MOS:ENDASH. It's also OK to shorten one like 1918–1918 to 1918–19. I see quite a few similar date ranges with hyphens throughout the article.

Quincy, Massachusetts

  • "and the Canterbury (1901), which still stands today as Canterbury Hall. - Here's another "today" that's ambiguous. Perhaps "as of 2009" would be better, although the shortcoming of that phrase is that it will require a yearly update.

Notable buildings

  • I see a bit of overlinking here and there. In the first paragraph of this section, for example, Josiah Quincy House is linked twice in the same paragraph. In the same paragraph, Boston is linked again, and I see it linked again later. I'd be inclined to link it once or perhaps twice but not more. Where the link density is high, the individual links tend to lose their impact and usefulness.

Notable buildings (second instance) and Other locations

  • Sections this short are generally frowned upon. I'd suggest merging these two with "Old Colony" and calling the combined section "Old Colony and other locations".

Religious affiliation

  • "financial backing from the Nazarene churches on its region" - "In" rather than "on"?
    • checkY Fixed. Said "of". Common usage is "on" though I can see how that sounds odd. --74.177.198.106 (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Traditional undergraduate division

  • "As at any "four-year college", most degree offerings at Eastern Nazarene... " - Delete quotation marks around "four-year college"?
    • checkY Done. Term doesn't seem to get much play on Wikipedia; it doesn't even have a redirect never mind an article. --74.177.198.106 (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "also results in 2+2 and co-operative programs with larger Boston schools" - The phrase "2+2" needs to be explained for readers who will not know what it means.

Leadership Education for Adults Division

  • "The college also maintains articulation agreements with community colleges in the surrounding geographical area, like the agreements with Bristol, Massasoit, and Roxbury Community Colleges." - Orphan paragraphs consisting of single sentences are also frowned upon. A solution in this case would be to merge the short one with the one above it. Ditto for orphan paragraphs elsewhere in the article.

Student life

  • The opening paragraph lacks a source. A good rule of thumb is to source every paragraph as well as every set of statistics, every unusual claim, and every direct quotation. Who says that the student enrollment has always been 1,000 or less? What reliable source says that this stimulates a close community atmosphere? I don't doubt that either of these are true, but the claims must be made verifiable. Ditto for other unsourced paragraphs in the article.
  • "which prohibits the Nazarene college from actively recruiting outside its 'Region'... " - Delete the quotation marks around Region and make it lower-case, region?
  • "ENC is 24% "ethnically" diverse, as well... " - Delete quotation marks from around "ethnically"? Ditto for "Lifestyle Covenant" in the next section. The quotation marks in these situation are generally used to cast doubt on a phrase, and I don't think that is your intent. ENC is either ethnically diverse or it isn't. The Lifestyle Covenant is either a lifestyle covenant or it isn't. Ditto for "theatergoing" later on and other constructions like these. I see more.
    • checkY Fixed somewhat. "Theatergoing" is a direct quote. It's not a term I'd use; I'm not even sure what it means.... --74.177.198.106 (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Many Christian denominations and colleges uphold these ideals,[68][87] especially the other seven liberal arts colleges affiliated with the Church of the Nazarene... " - This seems slightly POVish because it singles out the Nazarene colleges with the word especially.

Lifestyle guidelines

  • "The Student Handbook further specifies that "No person shall engage in sexual acts with anyone other than a spouse."[81] "Excessive public display of affection is unacceptable,"[82] and "The College believes that dressing modestly supports our life in community by helping to minimize possible discomfort caused others due to inappropriate attire." - Better grammatically would be: "The Student Handbook further specifies that "No person shall engage in sexual acts with anyone other than a spouse";[81] that "[e]xcessive public display of affection is unacceptable",[82] and that "[t]he College believes that dressing modestly supports our life in community by helping to minimize possible discomfort caused others due to inappropriate attire."

Societies

Notable alumni and Notable faculty

  • I'd consider trimming these as much as possible. For example, "He has the distinction of being the first Nazarene to publish with Oxford University Press" seems unnecessary and POVish. For another example, being a department chair is not notable enough to include in an encyclopedia article about a college. (It would be notable in a biography, however.) Also, something like "John U. Free (PhD, MIT)" seems excessive. Readers probably won't want to know what degrees the professors have or where they got them.

Images

  • With the exception of the image in an infobox, image sizes generally should be set to "thumb" with no width specified in pixels. The existing images all seem set to definite pixel widths that override the thumb setting.
  • Images should not overlap the section boundaries or bump against a third-level head or be placed opposite one another in such a way as to create a text sandwich between them.
    • checkY Fixed? Not sure what that that means, but tried to make some changes. --74.177.198.106 (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The image licenses should make the source of the image as clear as possible. Something like "own photo" or "scanned from book X by author Y (publisher, date of publication, ISBN, etc.)" are fine, as is a link to the original source if the image comes from elsewhere. This makes it possible for fact-checkers to verify that the copyright tags are correct and acceptable.

Copyediting

  • Before nominating this for GA, I'd suggest asking at least one more set of fresh eyes to look through it for small errors. I found and fixed quite a few, but I don't imagine I caught them all.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 04:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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