Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Stephen Trigg

Stephen Trigg

Prior peer review

This is an A-class article that I would like to see if it has a chance for FA? If it does, what things can I do to get it ready for nomination? Thanks! --plange 00:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

UberCryxic

Fairly good article overall. You may want to address some of the following points....

- The lead and the article generally should be expanded. Right now they are slightly shorter than typical FAs. For example, the Early life section seems sort of stubby.

-There are some prose problems:

When the town of Fincastle, Virginia was forming in 1770, Trigg was instrumental in its formation, helping to sell lots, build a Court House (with his father-in-law Israel Christian) and the town's prison. Repetitive ("formation" used twice).

The British refused to address the issues that were of greatest concern to the colonists, and so the freeholders of Fincastle County met at the Lead Mines on January 20, 1775, being one of the first to respond to the request of the Virginia Committee of Correspondence and formed a Committee of Safety, of which Trigg was a member. Grammatically fine but stylistically very disjointed.

There are a lot of paranthetical statements. You should get rid of most of these. Paranthetical commentary in encyclopedic entries should normally be reserved for acronyms (ie. National Basketball Association (NBA)) or short explanations. If you want, ask me for a copyedit on my talk page before you nominate this for FA.

- Maybe add some sort of Legacy section? Don't know if there's enough material to do this or not.UberCryxic 04:11, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin

This is quite good. I see no significant issues with the content—I wouldn't focus too much on the length, as even fairly short articles manage to get through FAC—but there are a few formatting points that need to be cleaned up:

• Having multiple footnotes numbers in the same place in the text (e.g. fn. 17–19) is rather poor style. While it's somewhat unavoidable when citing websites, this isn't the case here, and they should be collapsed into single footnotes listing all the applicable citations.
• The quote at the very end isn't cited.
• A bit of further copyediting, as per UberCryxic, might be advisable.

Other than that, everything looks fine. Kirill Lokshin 17:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks guys, I'll get to work on your suggestions. On the multiple footnotes, ironically I had someone tell me that combining it was bad form, but I trust your opinion.... --plange 17:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, the CMoS says "Using more than one note reference at a single location (such as ^{5, 6}) should be rigorously avoided"; it seems as good a rule to follow as any. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Vedexent

A very good article indeed.

A few minor quibbles perhaps.

• The lead should reflect the structure of the article. I think that the above suggestion that you expand the "early life" section if possible is a good one, and I'd put a 1-2 sentence summary of that section in the lead. Right now the lead's summary of his life starts mid-career. You should add something like, "Born the nth of y sons to a ___ in ___, ....", etc.
• "Trigg was one of several appointed as its first Justice of the Peace"... one of several, yet he was first? This is confusing to me. If he was the first how can there be several? If there were several appointed all at the same time, who held the position jointly, then he would have been "one of several who were appointed the counties first Justices of the Peace"? A minor quibble, but slightly confusing.
• build a Court House with his father-in-law Israel Christian, and the town's prison. - I didn't know town prisons helped build court houses ;) I know what you really meant - just a bit of an amusing - and very common - structural problem.
• Footnote merger, as noted previously.

In short, apart from some tweaks to the lead, and some grammar and style polishing (I'd really take up UberCryxic's offer - he's copy edited one of my articles and done a really good job), this is an excellent article.

I think with a little more polish it has a really good shot at featured article status. - Vedexent (talk • contribs) - 22:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Vedexent! I've made the changes you suggested and will definitely avail myself of UberCryxic's offer :-) --plange 23:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)