Talk:Sunda Strait campaign of January 1794

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sunda Strait campaign of January 1794/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Canadian Paul 03:24, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

I plan on reviewing this article in the near future, most likely tomorrow. Canadian Paul 03:24, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Okay, here we go:

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Overall, an excellent article. Here are a couple of the issues that I found:

1. Under "Background", second paragraph: "These ships sailed on an annual route from China, the East Indies or India carrying trade goods such as spices, tea or silk to Britain where they were sold and the cargo replaced with general cargo including military equipment and troops for the journey back to the Indian Ocean." - This sentence is difficult to read because of its length and the back-to-back use of the word "cargo". I would suggest splitting it into two sentences and replacing one of the "cargo"s with a synonym or something.
2. Same section, third paragraph: "French ships, both French Navy warships and commercially owned privateers, operated along the Indian trade routes from their base at the isolated French island of Île de France and recognised the strategic importance of the Sunda Straits." - Three "French"s in one sentence (plus the unavoidable "France" of "Île de France") again makes it difficult to read. You could probably get rid of at least one by writing "French ships, both national Navy warships and..." or something similar and still link to the same place. Same problem in the next sentence, particularly given the lack of comma "As soon as news of war arrived at Île de France French ships spread out..." - Replacing "French ships" with "these ships" would be appropriate, since you were just talking about them in the previous sentence.
3. Under "East India Company deployment": "Three East Indiamen were diverted from their regular route for the service, Wiliam Pitt, Britannia and Nonsuch under the overall command of Commodore Charles Mitchell and accompanied by the brig Nautilus." - Another somewhat difficult sentence to read... I would suggest either placing the ship names directly after "Three East Indiamen" commaed off, and then "and were accompanied by..." to keep the sentence grammatically correct OR a colon instead of a comma after service, then period after "Mitchell" and make "They were accompanied by the brig..." a new sentence. Or a mix of something - your call, but the sentence as it reads right now is difficult.
4. I would assume, and feel free to shoot me down with evidence to the contrary, that all the "Commodore Mitchell", "Captain Corosin" etc. should just be reduced to "Mitchell", "Corosin" etc. per WP:SURNAME after the first usage.
5. The last sentence of the "East India Company deployment" section is uncited.
6. Last sentence of the "Battle of the Sundra Strait" section has "Losses", "loss", and "lost" - again, I think rephrasing/reformatting the sentence could cut at least one of these out and reduce the distraction.
7. The last sentence of "Final operations" is way too long and should be divided into two, maybe even three, sentences. I also discourage the use of one-two sentence paragraphs generally, but this one might work if split into two.
8. The last sentence of the lead, as well, needs to be broken up into at least two sentences as it becomes very difficult to read.

To allow for these changes to be made I am placing the article on hold for a period of up to a week. I'm always open to discussion on any of the items, so if you think I'm wrong on something leave your thoughts here and we'll discuss. I'll be checking this page at least daily, unless something comes up, so you can be sure I'll notice any comments left here. Canadian Paul 01:37, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, I think that all of the above have now been addressed.--Jackyd101 (talk) 19:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

They most certainly have, and thus it is my pleasure to pass this as a Good Article, so congratulations and thank you for all your hard work! Canadian Paul 04:13, 8 April 2010 (UTC)