Wikipedia:Peer review/Cyrus B. Comstock/archive1

Cyrus B. Comstock

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I'd like to submit this for GA review and would appreciate any suggestions as to how I might improve the article. Thanks, Historical Perspective (talk) 22:22, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is an interesting, well-written account, fairly broad in coverage, reasonably well-illustrated, stable, neutral, and verifiable. Here are a few suggestions for further improvement.

Citations

• Although each paragraph in this article has at least one citation, in a few cases the only citation occurs early in the paragraph. Other sentences and claims follow, but since they are not linked to a source, it's hard to tell whether they meet WP:V or not. For example, in Early life and education, the last two sentences say: "Following his graduation, Comstock was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers and assisted with the design and construction of several fortifications. He also served as an instructor of engineering at West Point." If this is supported by the citation in the middle, it would be better to move the citation to the end so that it will be seen to cover all the claims in the paragraph. If, on the the hand, the claims in the last two sentences are supported by some other source(s), you need to add another citation or citations.

Telegraphic heads

• I would make some of the heads more telegraphic. "Early life and education" would be fine as "Early life". "Military commission on the Lincoln assassination" might become "Lincoln assassination". "Later work with the Corps of Engineeers" might become "Corps of Engineers".

Lead

• Rather than making the opening paragraph a one-sentence orphan, I'd consider combining it with the first half of the second paragraph, and starting the new second paragraph with the sentence beginning, "The most significant phase of Comstock's career... ".
• "After graduating the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1855... " - Perhaps "After graduating from" rather than "After graduating"?
• "Later, Comstock continued in the service of the Army Corps of Engineers and took part in several engineering projects, most particularly the Mississippi River Commission of which he was president." - Since a commission isn't a project, perhaps this would be better: "Later Comstock continued with the Army Corps of Engineers, took part in several engineering projects, and served on the Mississippi River Commission, of which he was president."

Civil War service

• "At the commencement of the Civil War, Comstock, then holding the rank of first lieutenant in the Regular Army was from West Point to Washington, D.C." - This doesn't make sense as written. Is a word or words missing? Probably "sent" is the missing word.

Lincoln assassination

• "Comstock was removed from the commission after his protests, ostensibly because he served on Grant's staff and, because Grant had been a potential target of the conspirators, Comstock could not be counted on to act impartially." - A bit awkward. Make two sentences out of it, perhaps? Maybe the second one could be "The X also removed him because Grant had been a potential target of the conspirators, and X felt that Comstock could not be counted on to act impartially." I say X because it's not clear who removed Comstock. It would be helpful to add that bit of information.

Corps of engineers

• Link "geodetic survey" to Geodesy?

See also

• The two portals overlap two sections on my computer screen. I'm not sure how useful they are since they are not directly related to Comstock.

Notes

• Page ranges take en dashes without spaces.

Images

• The Matthew Brady photo of Grant and his staff is good, but the source link on the image description page does not work. It would be good to fix the link, if you can. I wanted to use it to see if a larger file size might be available. If you can find the original and repair the link, you might also be able to upload something bigger than 131 kilobytes.
• I'd recommend cropping the text from the bottom of the Comstock mug shot. It's too small to read. You could then add the same (or modified) information as a caption, and it would appear in a normal type size.

Ideas for expansion

• In several places in the article I found myself wanting to know more. For example, the phrase "engineer in charge of the fortifications of Washington" made me want to know what those fortifications consisted of and what exactly Comstock's role was in designing or building them. Ditto for "faced with the difficult task of constructing pontoon bridges over the Rappahannock River". I wanted to know more about the exact difficulties, and an image of a pontoon bridge (especially one over the Rappahannock if any exist in the public domain) would be interesting. Ditto for "set to work on improving the siege works". I wondered what exactly these seige works consisted of and what happened to them, how they were used. Ditto for "During the campaign, Comstock played a key role in coordinating the movements of the various corps of the army and personally conveying Grant's orders to the corps commanders." I wondered exactly what that meant; in the abstract it sounds like he told people where to go and acted as a messenger, but the specifics must have been more impressive than the abstract notion. Anyway, I'm sure you get the idea.

Alt text

• The alt-text checker at the top of this review page shows that the images need alt text, meant for readers who can't see the images. WP:ALT has details.

I hope these few suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 02:28, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much. These are great suggestions. In particular, I was looking for ways to expand the article, so it was very helpful to hear about areas where you wanted to know more. I hope to start the revisions this weekend. Best, Historical Perspective (talk) 01:38, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Although I am absurdly late in getting to this, I wanted to record, just for the record, that I have acted on your very helpful suggestions. Many distractions have prevented me from getting around to editing this article, but I have implemented nearly all your suggestions. The one exception, unfortunately, are the areas where you have indicated you desired more information...regrettably the source information just isn't there to allow me to elaborate. But I will continue looking. Thanks!Historical Perspective (talk) 22:57, 6 February 2011 (UTC)