Wikipedia:Peer review/Clijsters–Henin rivalry/archive1

Clijsters–Henin rivalry

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because 2 months ago almost this page was almost deleted as it was just the table. I saved it by adding prose. And following Justine's sad retirement I've finished it off. I want to get to a GA or FA or more suitabley FL at this rate. So I want feedback. I know about 98/99 not being written as I can find a ref for it. I am also missing another couple of refs, so apart from that what else is needed

Thanks, KnowIG (talk) 21:56, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments:-

General points

• You need to make a decision about whether this is a list or an article. Either way, the lead section of 858 words in six paragraphs is too long. I would suggest a fairly short summary lead, followed by a main prose section documenting the rivalry, then the tables.
• I have no idea what terms like "Tier 1", "Premier Mandatory" etc mean. The article should be aimed at the general reader, so such tennis-related terms must be explained.
• With nine different colours employed, I think the main table may be somewhat over-presented. Attention is drawn away from the actual information. Do we really need all these match categories? Personally I'd have made a simple division: Grand slams and the rest.
• In the short "Breakdown of the rivalry" section you can delete the "Year-End Championships finals" line (no matches), and the "Fed Cup matches" detail as being rather obvious. Maybe the information in this section would look neater, and more visible, if it was summarised in a short table rather than in a bullet-pointed list.

Prose points

Almost too many to list. These are from the first two paragraphs, and I've made some minor fixes myself:-

• Why write out "twenty-five"? WP convention, except in special circumstances, is numeric representation for values over 10. Incidentally, your head-to-head colour key box seems to show 26 matches.
• "...in a grand slam tournament." → "in grand slam tournaments." Linkk needed for "grand slam"; I don't think "tennis" needs one, though.
• "3 sets" → "three sets"
• Not "this brought" after a comma. Suggest: "...in three sets, to make their head-to-head..." etc
• " The Belgians..." You haven't previously specified that they are Belgians, and should do so in the first line. Then find a different term, e.g. "The pair...", "The two..." when referring to them collectively.
• "grand slam" or "Grand Slam"? Consistency needed
• "Henin leads 5–3 in Grand Slam play including winning all their final match ups" needs rephrasing. I wouldn't use "match ups" which is slangy and unencyclopedic. Perhaps: "Henin leads 5–3 in Grand Slam tournaments, including wins in each of their x finals pairings".
• "They first met in 1998. 2001 was a historic year for the pair". Follow up their 1998 meeting with some detail or wording before moving to 2001. Also, describing the year as "historic" sounds like editorial opinion, so the comment should be cited or cut.
• Link "Indian Wells"
• "At the French Open the tournament witnessed Clijsters and Henin facing off..." Verbose; just: "At the French Open Clijsters and Henin faced off..."
• We don't want "create history" and "created history" in successive sentences
• "Just two weeks later..." Don't use "just": "Two weeks later...". And remove the "though" later in the same sentence

I've not gone beyond the second [paragraph, but a quick glance down indicates further problems. Henin becomes "Henin-Hardenne" without explanation; "the World Number One was at stake" meaning the World No. 1 ranking; lots of superfluous "justs"; unexplained tennis terms such as "straight sets" etc. Although I have not read these later paragraphs thoroughly, much of the prose seems to be providing match details that are given in the table. A lot of this could be cut out altogether.

I suggest that you work on the prose and other points, and let me know when you would like me to take another look.Brianboulton (talk) 19:30, 7 February 2011 (UTC)