Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/B-52 aircraft crash at Fairchild Air Force Base

B-52 aircraft crash at Fairchild Air Force Base

Respectfully request a peer review of the article about a military aircraft accident. I'm taking somewhat of a break from WWII articles I guess. Thank you in advance. Cla68 08:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Kevin Myers

Wow, that's a well-written and interesting article. Great photos too. My only input is minor: are you aware that some grammarians hate the phrase "due to"? See, for example, here. I mention this because you use it 5 or 6 times in a short article. Surely a phrase like:

"the aircraft was instructed to go-around due to a KC-135 aircraft that had just landed and was on the runway"

would be better phrased as:

"the aircraft was instructed to go-around because a KC-135 aircraft had just landed and was on the runway"

I'm no grammarian, but I only use "due to" when it is preceded by "was" or "is". I think. —Kevin Myers 15:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

I try to take the rules of English grammar seriously so I appreciate you pointing out that I was incorrect in how I was using that phrase. I'll change that in the article. Cla68 23:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin

Very nice, but a few minor issues that need to be looked at:

• Too many parentheses in the first few sentences; multiple consecutive parenthetical remarks (like this) (and this) should be completely avoided, and even multiple parentheticals in a single sentence are probably too convoluted for the lead.
• Why the constant scare quotes? These don't appear to be actual quotations—if they are, I for one can't figure out why those particular words are being quoted—so what's the reasoning behind things like these:
  • extremely "tight," steeply-banked turn
  • crash was "caught" on videotape
  • convened a "safety" investigation
  • An "accident" investigation board
  • Capotosti would "ground" him
• The images might be better staggered than stacked along one margin, I think.

Kirill Lokshin 01:16, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• I removed most of the parentheses from the first sections. I usually put quotations around words that are clearly subjective or that are idioms, like "caught" on videotape or "ground" him. If we don't need to identify idiomatic words in our texts, I'll stop doing it. Some of the ones you mention above, though, I can see now don't need quotation marks so I'll remove them. And I'll try to move the images around. Is it ok for an image on the left side to overlap the section title? Cla68 01:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, images that run through a section break on the left are fine. As far as idiomatic words are concerned, I haven't seen such a style used much (or at all, really) in other articles; personally, I don't see the point unless the idiom is really quite unusual. We can assume a certain level of linguistic competence from the reader, I think. Kirill Lokshin 03:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

• Got it. Thank you. Cla68 04:29, 4 May 2007 (UTC)