Wikipedia:Peer review/Dow Chemical Company/archive2

Dow Chemical Company edit

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style; it can be found on the automated peer review page for July 2009.

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I am requesting a peer review. The Dow Chemical article has undergone many changes since its last peer review. I am looking for constructive comments on the article as well as looking to get a sentiment about its "B" rating.

Many Thanks for your time,

Plhofmei (talk) 19:19, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: I think that in its current state, this is no higher than a B rating. Here are some suggestions for improvement.

The current lead is five paragraphs, which is too long according to WP:LEAD (max is four paragraphs). The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Nothing important should be in the lead only - since it is a summary, it should all be repeated in the body of the article itself (but the 1897 founding is only in the lead). My rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way.
Biggest problem as I see it with this is a lack of references. For example the Agricultural sciences, Basic plastics, Basic chemicals, Hydrocarbons and energy sections all have zero references. My rule of thumb is that every quote, every statistic, every extraordinary claim and every paragraph needs a ref.
References need to be formatted consistently - look at the Chemical and Engineering News refs for example. Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. See WP:CITE and WP:V
This is the second or third largest chemcial company in the world - there should be more sources available on it. Try to cite as many third-party independent sources as possible (and fewer refs from Dow itself). The further reading books could all be used as refs it seems.
The article has many short (one or two sentence) paragraphs and sections that should be either combined with others or expanded to improve flow.
Avoid terms like current - instead use "As of July 2009". For example, when was the Board of Directors list added? Is it up to date?
Article is very list-y in spots - try to convert as many lists to prose as possible to improve readability and flow.

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 poeer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:18, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]