Wikipedia:Peer review/Oil shale/archive1

Oil shale

During several years the article on oil shale has developed significantly. Right now the intention is to prepare this article for the FA nomination. As probably both, content and format, needs some more work to be done, every comment how to improve this article is welcome. Some things to do are listed also at the talk page.Beagel 09:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

From SandyGeorgia

Hi, Beagel ... here are some things to work on:

• The Table of Contents concerned me. It rambles and goes to 3 levels, and doesn't reflect tight organization of the article. See WP:WIAFA, no. 2. I'm not sure how to solve this. You might be able to take entire 3rd level sections (like ex-situ and in-situ) and turn them into daughter articles, using summary style, which will also help solve the length issue. Some of the sections are only two or three sentences, resulting in short, choppy sections, so you might find a better way to organize the sections.

Agree. The creation of spin-off articles is decided and summary style in the main article will be used.

• The article is massively undercited. All hard data and facts need an inline citation, as does anything that might sound like an opinion or be challenged.
• Ref formatting and quality of sources looks good, except:
  • I noticed a blog; blogs are not usually reliable sources, so be prepared to defend how that source meets WP:RS if you can't replace it.

I agree about blogs in general. At the same time, Robert Rapier—the author of the referred essay in this energy blog—is a well known writer on energy issues. He has a master's degree in chemical engineering, and has 15 years of experience in the petrochemicals industry. He holds several U.S. and international patents, and is currently employed by a major oil company. Therefore he could be considered authoritative and also trustworthy in relation to the subject. However, I will look also for additional references.

• • Use the format=PDF parameter in the cite templates as a courtesy to identify PDFs (this is not a requirement, but a courtesy. When I'm on an old laptop, PDFs bomb me out, so I suppose there are others with the same issue.)

I know this issue. format=PDF is added to all PDF references, but for some reason it's not shown for all references. Maybe some cite templates used in this article need to be changed.

• Corrections of hyphens per WP:DASH are needed throughout: I did some sample edits to show you the work needed.
• I made a sample edit to show how to wikify the date parameter on the cite templates when a full date is given (see WP:MOSNUM). The accessdate parameter is automatically linked, by date isn't (dumb cite templates aren't consistent).
• Attention to Wikification. Common terms known to most English speakers (see the country names in the lead, for example) should not be linked (see WP:CONTEXT and WP:MOSLINK), while uncommon or technical terms should be linked or defined on first occurrence (for example, I'd expect links for terms like bitumen, carbonaceous and humic, looking only at the lead.

If I understand correctly, no links for country names?

• User:Tony1/How_to_satisfy_Criterion_1a has tips on how review the prose for redundancy. For example, in the lead: Environmentalists have expressed high levels of concern ...
• There is some repetition and possibly unnecessary capitalization in the section headings, see [[WP:MSH]
• See also, see WP:GTL. Ideally, terms should be worked into the text, and terms which are in the text are not repeated in See also, minimizing See also.
• Per WP:UNITS, non-breaking hard spaces should be used between numbers and units of measurement. And, you should globalize the article by providing conversions on all measurements. So, the most effective way to kill two birds with one stone is to use the {{convert}} template on all measurmements. I did one as a sample.
• There are some one-sentence paragraphs; choppy prose should be eliminated by expanding that content, or merging it to other paragraphs.
• Incorrect use of bolding throughout, see WP:MOSBOLD.
• A prose audit is needed throughout. Here's a random sentence:
  • According to the estimates of different institutions, the world deposits of oil shale is estimated to be equal to 2.9-3.3 trillion barrels of recoverable oil. Might become something like ...
    • World deposits of oil shale are estimated to equal 2.9–3.3 trillion barrels of recoverable oil.

So, generally, attention to WP:MOS is needed, as well as a tighter focus on the topic with better article organization and use of summary style, thorough citation, and a thorough copyedit of the prose once finished.

• Informal prose lacking units: Recovery wells are drilled on 40' spacing ... Should be ... Recovery wells are drilled on 40 feet (12 m) spacing (notice use of convert template) ... You need conversions on all temperatures as well.

I suggest spending time on all of these items, submitting a second peer review, and then going for GA before approaching FAC. The more eyes, the better. Good luck ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Will work with these issues.Beagel 18:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)