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Florida Atlantic University

[edit]

I've listed Florida Atlantic University for peer review because I am trying to get it to WP:FA status and I think it is close. Before heading over there I wanted to make sure it was up to snuff.

Thanks,

KnightLago 20:44, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Dylan

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  • /Profile section: "It offers a rigorous liberal arts education in the platform of a public institution." "Rigorous" is slightly POV, in that it promotes the program as particularly comprehensive or challenging. Can this be attributed to someone, like the school itself? "It offers what it refers to as a 'rigorous'..." I know that's a mouthful, but it is a point of view characterization.  Done KnightLago 12:18, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • /Research section: "This ranking is the result of a campaign Florida Atlantic has undertaken to bolster its research standing." There's no citation. Has that causality been established?  Done KnightLago 12:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • /Rankings section: "Florida Atlantic has been ranked among American universities by a number of publications throughout its history." Is this necessary? At least in the context of American universities -- and this isn't to say that broadening the reader's context is a bad thing -- virtually all schools are ranked, aren't they?  Done KnightLago 12:31, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • /Rankings section: "For the 2004-2005 academic year, the university was ranked sixteenth in the United States among traditionally white four-year academic institutions for conferring bachelor’s degrees to African-Americans." Rankings by who here?  Done KnightLago 12:51, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • /Rankings section: "During this period, FAU conferred a total of 1,407 bachelor’s degrees in all disciplines for all minorities and ranked 37th in the nation, up six percent from the previous year." Three things about this sentence:
  • /Athletics section: "Due to this effort, in 2006 the athletic department was ranked 79th in the nation by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA)." Again, is the causality there actually established, or is that an editorial conclusion?  Done KnightLago 13:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • /Athletics section: "This game provides bragging rights to one of the South Florida teams until the next game is played the following season." -- uncited and sounds kind of folksy/non-encyclopedic.  Done KnightLago 13:21, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some general comments:
  • There were a lot of missing commas (I filled it what I saw, but I'm sure I missed some).
  • There was some slight overlinking (e.g. linking to USD at every $; same with square kilometer at every km²). Don't link common words.

Overall, my impression is that this article is in very good shape. All you can see, most of my suggestions are isolated fix-this-here problems; I don't see anything systematic or paradigmatic that needs addressing. Good job! I'll look forward to supporting this on FAC. Dylan 03:44, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Taxman

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  • In general it's pretty good. There are still some short paragraphs that need to be either merged with related material, exanded relative to their importance, or removed because they are not important enough to justify space. Also the article suffers from the same problem all University articles seem to - that of including exceptional information whether it's really important or not. For example does it really matter that "the first university in the nation to offer only upper-division and graduate level courses"? Perhaps it does, it's possible it could be argued and supported. But it almost certainly wouldn't rise to the level of importance to justify it being in the lead. That's just an example to point out what I'm talking about. I do note that's the only NPOV problem I can find since otherwise it's a remarkably NPOV article. The only "first", "only", etc type comments that can be justified are those that can be shown to be independently important. Another concern is that an awful lot of the citations are to FAU itself. That's generally not a good idea as it's basically a self published source. For things that aren't really important that may be acceptable, but third party sources are much more valuable. - Taxman Talk 20:40, 10 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Bobanny

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All  Done KnightLago 02:21, 11 October 2007 (UTC) Just a bunch of nitpicky technical/style things:[reply]

  • “Partner campuses” sounds odd to me. Satellite campuses, perhaps?
  • “serve a seven-county region which has a populace of more than five million people” –comma after “region,” or better yet, “region with a populace…”
  • “By 2007, enrollment has grown…” – change “By 2007” to “As of 2007”
  • “On campus housing for students” should be on-campus
  • make photo captions all full sentences with periods
  • “ It offers what it refers to as a 'rigorous' liberal arts education…” – double quotation marks around rigorous
  • “Under FAU's Commercial Music program…” – I assume “program is part of the program’s name, and should therefore be capitalized.
  • “which upon completion will operate out of a 364,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art research facility focusing on basic…” – comma after square-foot is unnecessary.
  • “While the headquarters is being built…” – change to “While its headquarters are being built…”
  • According to this, “The” is not part of Torrey Pines’ name and should therefore be lowercased.
  • “The university is the home of two Centers of Excellence” – not a proper noun in this case and should be lowercased.
  • “research universities including the University of Florida and Florida State University for the initial money…” – comma before including and after FSU.
  • “both centers have engaged in academic and industry partnerships combining expertise in ocean engineering, marine biotechnology, functional genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics.” – either a comma after partnerships or change “combining” to “to combine.”
  • “the centers specializes in digital imaging research…” – specialize, not specializes
  • “offer this technical concentration.The NASA Imaging Technology Center” – need space between sentences.
  • “located in Deerfield Beach, and Boca Raton, respectively” – no commas there.
  • “enabling them to interact with the University community and its facilities” – lowercase university here.
  • “The incubator works to foster the start-up and growth of technology based businesses associated with FAU” – technology-based
  • “The owl prefer the campus because there are few predators due to the university's proximity to the Boca Raton Airport, and the fact that the campus was originally cleared of vegetation when operating during World War II.” – Maybe change to “Owls find the campus appealing…” because “prefer” begs the question, prefer to what? Also, add “as an airbase” between “operating” and “during” here.
  • “These include "state-of-the-art labs and classrooms” – need another quotation mark, or better yet, remove the one that’s there.
  • “The main campus serves approximately 19,533 students or 71% of FAU's student body offering…” – comma before “offering”
  • “the university is working with KUD International to develop an "Innovation Village". – period goes inside quotations here.
  • “renovation of the Burrow, the university's multi-purpose arena. [41][42][43]” – no space after period.
  • “…currently occupies approximately 45 acres (0.18 km²) with 18 buildings totaling more than 333,000 square feet…” – the metric isn’t in the quote, so should be enclosed with square brackets, and the same should be done for 333,000 square feet.
  • “The Dania Beach Campus, also known as SeaTech, was founded in 1997 as "a state-funded Type II research center, the institute is part of Florida Atlantic’s Department of Ocean Engineering."[45]” This doesn’t work as a sentence: commas can’t separate two clauses. I’d suggest removing the quotation marks and making it two separate sentences.
  • “and food services for students..."[47]” – change the ellipses to a period here.
  • “The union will also include a student health center that will provide a medical center, and a health counseling center” – don’t need that comma
  • “ initiatives focused on Everglades restoration".[48]” – period inside quotation marks
  • “This merger is currently in progress.[52]” Avoid time-sensitive words/terms like "currently"; could do away with this sentence entirely since it's implied by the context anyway.
  • “Florida Atlantic's 18 varsity sports teams, known as the Owls…” – don’t need “known as” here; just “the Owls” is cleaner.
  • “the men's basketball team was noted as "one of the Sun Belt Conference's top offensive teams", with a "scary offense" – comma inside quotation marks
  • “Since that time, the group has grown and been reorganized…” – Would be more elegant to just say “The group has since grown…”
  • “As a home game the competition takes place at Dolphins Stadium, as an away game, the bowl is played at FIU Stadium in Miami” – should be a semi-colon after Dolphins Stadium.
  • “As of fall 2007, a total of 2,691 students live on-campus at FAU, with 1,700 of those being freshmen.[60]” – link As of 2007 (see: WP:AO)
  • “The highpoint of Greek life at Florida Atlantic is 'Greek Week'.” – double quotation marks for “Greek Week.” Only use singles for quotes within quotes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobanny (talk • contribs) 01:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Review by bot APR

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The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, APR t 15:26, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Review by RossPatterson

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  • Lead
    • "Although Florida Atlantic provides for the educational needs of commuter students, in recent years it has undertaken an effort to increase its academic and research standings while evolving into a more traditional university." - the "New admissions standards: good for FAU, bad for Florida" reference, while not complimentary, suggests that FAU is trying to rise not up to greatness but rather up from mediocrity.
I agree and added more information and references to backup this statement.
    • "These efforts have resulted in not only an increase in the university's academic profile, but also the elevation of the football team to Division I competition status, plans for an on-campus football stadium," - these claims don't seem to be supported by the reference that ends the sentence.
Fixed, and added new references.
  • History
    • "Main article: History of Florida Atlantic University" - That article is pretty short, and the FAU section ought to be merged into this article, after cleaning up the somewhat casual prose. The rest of that article should be merged into Boca Raton Army Airfield.
Will work on it.  Done
    • The second paragraph in Expansion and growth contains a couple of disagreements of voice (e.g., "would again recognize ... by designated", "would establish ... in 1997").  Done
    • The List of Presidents of Florida Atlantic University article should be merged into this section - it's too small to stand on its own, and isn't likely to grow very quickly.  Done
    • Does it matter that Brogan was in the Jeb Bush administration? It doesn't sound particularly notable.  Done
  • Academics - All  Done
    • The second sentence is a fragment.
    • The Second Paragraph Has A Lot Of The's That Detract Its Content :-)
    • Calling the liberal arts program "rigorous" is puffery, and unnecessay. Unless, of course, it's a description that others have applied to the program, in which case it should have a citation.
    • The "Notable programs" reference isn't necessary as each item is backed up in a following referenced statement, and it only backs up one of the claims.
    • "As a result of this research, in 2007 the university and Lockheed Martin ..." - The reference might support the claim of causality, but there's no way to tell because the web page doesn't exist.
    • "The FAU Imaging Technology Center is developing a curriculum for digital imaging and processing, thereby establishing Florida Atlantic as the only university in the nation to offer this technical concentration." - That needs a reference.
    • "Florida Atlantic also operates two Research and Development Parks" - The link on R&D is unnecessary.
    • "ranked FAU 37th in the nation, up six percent from the previous year" - Perhaps you mean up six places?
    • The "Diverse" mention should ideally have a primary reference, not the secondary one that it currently has. It's not critical, but if you're going for FA it will be.
  • Campus All  Done and I added more on the 2nd choice point
    • The "... the region is home to ..." phrase sounds out of place here.
    • "The university was officially designated in 1989 as the lead state university to serve Broward County by the Florida Legislature" - How many other state universities in Broward? It sounds like press-release text.
    • "These include "state-of-the-art labs and classrooms, suite-style housing for students plus athletic and recreational facilities."", "offering, "a broad range of academic programs, activities, and services."", " "currently occupies approximately 45 acres [(0.18 km²)] with 18 buildings totaling more than 333,000 square feet: eight classroom/office buildings, a library, a 500-seat auditorium, two residence halls, a dining hall, museum building and central utility plant."", etc. - These quotes are unnecessary, the same words would be just fine on their own, and quotes from promotional brochures aren't very helpful.
    • "In an effort to create a more traditional, first-choice college atmosphere" - This is a very telling statement, one that doesn't jive with the rest of the article. There's no indication other than this that FAU is a second-choice school.
  • Athletics
    • The Traditions description of the "prOWLers" reads like self-promotion on someone's part. Unless Rick Smith is someone of note, I'd leave him out.  Done
  • Notable professors and alumni
    • The gallery is unnecessary - there's nothing visually interesting about these particular folks (and I'm a Zimmerman fan!).  Done
  • Notes and references
All  Done and I am working on the references. Some of the references you pointed out as broken were not broken just require registration after you log in to a few articles.
    • There aren't any notes here, just references.
    • The "New admissions standards: good for FAU, bad for Florida" reference hints at controversy surrounding the school's mission. The article doesn't cover it at all - that's not good.
    • What is "Legacy"? Who publishes it? Can it be found online?
    • Several of the links are broken:
      • "Florida universities grow in number of students, but not in faculty, data shows"
      • "Florida Atlantic University and Lockheed Martin to Develop Autonomous Mooring Buoy System for Military and Scientific Use"
      • "FAU Celebrates Groundbreaking of Office Depot Center for Executive Education."
      • "FAU Constructs Student Union at Davie Campus"
      • "About FAU in Broward"
      • "Work begins on merger plan for Harbor Branch and FAU" - this works, but it doesn't go to anything called this.
      • "Jaguars seek to rebound against high-scoring FAU"
      • "Weeks of welcome: What's happening on your campus"
      • "Some traditions continued, new ones started"
      • "Homecoming Listings"
      • "Student Government Page"
      • "Greeks Ask: Where Have all the 'Rushers' Gone?"
    • "Dashboard Confessional: Youth culture sings along with Chris" and "Philip Zimmermann's Home Page" links are crossed up.
    • There are a lot of references, but more than half of them (49 out of 84) are from the university itself. References from the subject of the article are difficult to get through an FA review, and this article depends on a lot of them.
I got this down to 51 from FAU out of 101.
  • Overall
    • There is a lot of clumsy text. Watch out for that "something includes the following: ..." style - you'll get nailed for it during an FA review.  Done
    • Don't use pull-out quotes from references when the quotes are just words that and editor might have written. If the reference supports the statement and the exact words of the statement aren't critical, replace the quote with words that fit the paragraph better.  Done
    • The article is entirely positive. Expect to be challenged during FA review to write about the darker side - every topic has one.  Done
Working on this.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by RossPatterson (talk • contribs) 01:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

KnightLago 20:08, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Review by SandyGeorgia

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  • See WP:MSH regarding capitalization, is Palm Beach County Campuses all supposed to be capitalized?  Done
  • See WP:MOS#Captions, only full sentences have punctuation at the end, sentence fragments do not. I think this is  Done
  • See WP:MOSLINK and WP:CONTEXT, words commonly know to most English speakers that don't provide specific context for this article need not be linked (example, World War II, mascot, there are many more; overlinking should be reduced so high-value links are useful).  Done
  • See WP:DASH regarding the difference between hyphens, endashes, and emdashes, example: Jupiter - John D. MacArthur Campus, Dania Beach - SeaTech, 2006-2007 Quick Facts. Arcadia Publishing, 12-13,15. ISBN 978-0-7385-0614-2. (endashes on page ranges)
 Done KnightLago 01:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikify full dates in the date parameter on cite templates for consistent display according to user prefs, example: Bandell, Brian (2007-09-18). Inconsistent date formats when date parameter isn's wikifed, example: "Weeks of welcome: What's happening on your campus", The University Press, 2004-08-12. Retrieved on July 22, 2007.
 Done KnightLago 01:01, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dates are needed on citations when available, example: Reality TV show to feature porn stars. MSNBC.com. Retrieved on November 25, 2006.  Done
  • See Tony1 (talk · contribs)'s exercises to reduce redundancy throughout, example: As of 2007, a total of 2,691 students live on-campus, withincluding 1,700 of those being freshmen.
I worked on this, but I am sure I missed some. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KnightLago (talk • contribs) 23:32, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:36, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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