Wikipedia:Peer review/Italy/archive1

Italy

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review to get a wider perspective of particular areas where the article should be improved and perhaps expanded on. It would be very helpful if concrete suggestions were given so that a number of editors can tackle improving the article. Many thanks Connolly15 (talk) 13:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

I enjoyed this article. It is long (108 kilobytes of text), but not excessively so, I think. However, it is not at present in any state to be put forward for GA or FA. First, and most importantly, it is fatally lacking in references in far too many sections, which I have identified below. Secondly, the prose is generally fine but the spelling is all over the place, with UK English spellings in the lead, followed by a mixture of English and American spellings in the main article ("centre" but "defense", "organised" but "civilization" etc).

A less serious point is that for parenthetical dashes you need to standardise either on en dashes with spaces or em dashes without; at present you have a mixture of both and other variants.

Detailed comments:

• Etymology
  • "the corpus of the solutions" – could be plainer.
• Prehistory and antiquity
  • Refs 27 to 33 – are they all really needed? They do rather hit one in the eye.
  • "the ground that Western civilization is based upon" – "the ground on which Western civilization is based", perhaps?
• Middle Ages
  • "Germanic Tribe" – capital T needed?
  • "Notable amongst them" – I never know what "amongst" has got that "among" hasn't, apart from two unnecessary letters
  • "that of Ferrara and of Mantua" – I think perhaps either "those of Ferrara and Mantua", or else "that of Ferrara and that of Mantua".
• Italian unification and Liberal Italy
  • "during the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870" – only "disastrous" from the French viewpoint.
• Geography
  • "Although the country comprises the Italian peninsula and most of the southern Alpine basin, some of Italy's territory extends beyond the Alpine basin" – some repetition of previous sentence here
  • "Herculanum" – shouldn't it be Herculaneum?
• Environment
  • There are some statements in this section that could soon be out of date, and would benefit from being rewritten so that they will remain correct:
    • "it now ranks 84th in the world for ecological sustainability" ("in 2012 it ranked...")
    • "In the last decade, Italy has become…)" ("In the decade from 2002 Italy became…)".
    • "Renewable energies now make up about 12%..."
• Climate
  • "The climate of the "Po valley region [is] continental ... with harsh winters and hot summers"." As you give two citations it isn't clear whom you are quoting. (And does the direct speech add anything here?)
• Government
  • "the Chamber of Deputies (that meets in Palazzo Montecitorio)" – "which" rather than "that", perhaps? The latter reads like a defining clause. Ditto for the Senate.
  • ""Mr. Berlusconi's cabinet." – the normal WP style is not to use "Mr." here.
• Law and criminal justice
  • "which would later expand" – which later expanded?
  • "Italy has only the 47th highest murder rate" – another statement that would be better with a date.
• Military
  • "From 1999, military service is voluntary" – has been voluntary, perhaps?
  • Second para has no references for its statements. Third para has only one. Fourth para has none.
• Economy
  • "the biggest chunk of Italian public debt" – "chunk" seems a bit slangy for an encyclopaedia article.
• Demographics
  • "…persisted until the 1970s, after which they start…" – tenses need to match
• Religion
  • "although the Catholic Church is no longer officially the state religion – the church isn't a religion; Catholicism is. Suggest "although it is no longer officially the state religion."
  • Ref 138 – I'd be inclined to move it to the end of the sentence.
  • "Italian-Jews" – hyphen needed?
• Education
  • The Wall Street Journal – should be italicised, I think
• Culture
  • First, second and third paras are short of refs for some statements. Fourth, fifth and sixth and last have no refs at all.
• Music
  • No refs in first two paras.
  • "Opera house" or "operahouse"? – you have both
  • Last para has no refs.
• Cinema
  • Unreferenced statements in both paras
• Science
  • No refs at all.
• Cuisine
  • Second para has no refs.

I hope these points are useful. Happy to comment further if wished. – Tim riley (talk) 11:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)