Wikipedia:Peer review/Jane Roberts/archive1

Jane Roberts

This peer review discussion has been closed.

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for December 2008.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because the page has recently underwent an update and any feedback would be helpful.

Thanks, NoVomit (talk) 12:15, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: Very briefly, here are some suggestions for improvement. I also reviewed Seth Material, so many of the criticisms there also apply here.

• The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself but Skidmore is only in the lead, for example. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way and all the main ideas. Please see WP:LEAD
• Article needs an image
• Article needs more references, for example the second paragraph of the Seth Material section has no refs and there are several citation needed tags. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
• Per WP:MOSQUOTE you should use {{blockquote}}, not {{cquote}}. Also block quotes should be about 4 lines of text and on my screen it is only 1.5 lines, so it may be too short for a block quote.
• There are several short (one or two sentence) paragraphs that break up the flow of the article - in most cases these should be combined with others or perhaps expanded.
• Having read both this and the Seth Material, there is not a lot in here that is not also in the other article. There is relatively little on her life - what did she die of? Did she have children? What did she like to do besides write and channel? What did her SF works do in terms of sales?
• Language is a bit awkward in spots - Roberts also purportedly channeled several other personalities,[1] including the philosopher William James,[6] through a process she described as using a typewriter to write "automatically",[7][8][9] and the impressionist painter Paul Cézanne.[10][1] would read much more smoothly as Roberts also purportedly channeled several other personalities,[1] including the philosopher William James[6] and the impressionist painter Paul Cézanne,[1][10] through a process she described as using a typewriter to write "automatically".[7][8][9] Note I also put the refs in numerical order.

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:05, 21 December 2008 (UTC)