Wikipedia:Peer review/United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011/archive1

United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2011

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I've recently expanded it consistently and would like to check its status for possible good article nomination.

Thanks, Sims2aholic8 (Michael) (talk) 02:55, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Brief comment: I think that the lead and the "At Eurovision" section should be updated before the article is reviewed. Brianboulton (talk) 22:11, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: I have never seen Eurovision and never heard of this band or song to my knowledge (living in my hermit's cave as I do ;-). Thanks for your work on this article and here are some suggestions for improvement.

• A model article is useful for ideas and exmaples to follow. There are nine GAs in the Category:GA-Class Eurovision articles, of which at least 5 seem like the would be good models. For example, Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 seems like it would be a good model.
• The toolbox on this PR page finds one dab link that will need to be fixed.
• The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way but Criticism and Promotion are two sections that do not seem to be in the lead. Please see WP:LEAD
• The Background section is all about Eurovision, but says nothing about the band. I would give a little background (one paragraph) on the band soemwhere - how they broke up and got back together, their previous hits, etc.
• Problem sentence At the same time the United Kindgom has finished last in the contest three times, 2008, 2010, and in 2003 after finishing with the infamous Nul points.[12] "Infamous" seems to violate WP:NPOV, so drop it (unless it is a direct quote from a reliable source, in which case put it in quotes and cite it). I would also go in some sort of chronlogical order for the dates - reverse order would keep the structure. so "...three times: 2010, 2008, and 2003, when the song finished with Nul points.[12]
• Is it Big Four or Big Five (both are used once)?
• Would Mika also have sung the song? In July 2010, it was reported that the BBC were in negotiations with singer-songwriter Mika to pen the United Kingdom entry.
• Try using active voice instead of passive wherever possible (plus it is usually a bit shorter / tighter). So Interest in competing in the contest was also expressed by 2004 Big Brother winner Nadia Almada and British actress Margi Clarke.[18][19] could just be something like Big Brother 2004 winner Nadia Almada and British actress Margi Clarke also expressed interest in competing in the contest.[18][19]
• This could use a copyedit - I will point out one more place (subject-verb agreement, an announcement is singular) By January 2011, an announcement by the BBC on their plans for the Eurovision selection were [was] imminent. SOmetimes printing the article out and reading it out loud helps (especially after not looking at it for a few days).
• Another problem sentence - looks like two sentences were fused together incorrectly Acts rumoured to have been internally selected by the BBC included Pixie Lott, Katherine Jenkins and Charlotte Church, reporting that the BBC would return to a format of internally selecting one artist to perform a number of songs in a national final, last used in 1994.[20] It is a complete sentence if the period (full stop) is right after Church. Everything after Church is a fragment without a real subject - who is reporting this?
• I would include something about "2011 [was] the first time that the United Kingdom entry ... had no input from the British public" in the lead - seems one of the notable things about this year.
• Provide context to the readers - so say Hamilton is a Formula One driver in He compared the group entering the contest to "Lewis Hamilton entering a go-kart race ...
• Article really over-uses the word "also" (look at Criticism and Promotion sections especially)
• Watch WP:OVERLINKing - for example the song I Can is linked 5 times and should be linked only three (once each in the lead, infobox and body of the article)
• WP:MOSNUM says to spell out numbers under ten (two not 2, second not 2nd)
• Would it make sense to have Promotion before Criticism? I would also add dates for the cirticisms given in that section so the reader knows when these comments were made.
• There is very little on their actual performance at Eurovision and almost nothing on reaction afterwards. Who won? Did Blue sing live or lip-synch? What were the ratings like for the BBC? What were the critical reactions afterwards? What did the band members say about their poorer than expected performance? Does the BBC plan to continue selecting candidates in the future without popular input?

• Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

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). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:46, 23 May 2011 (UTC)