Wikipedia:Peer review/Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein/archive1

Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because, I would like to see this article gain GA status. So if there is anything to change to help it more likely to gain GA status. I would appreciate the help.

Thanks, Clarkcj12 (talk) 14:42, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Comments by Dank

• As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries.
• The lead is short for an article this detailed; there should be at least a mention of the subjects of the major sections. Otherwise, there wasn't much for me to copyedit in the lead.
• You should alert the major editors of this article while it's still at Peer Review and before bringing it to GAN, to make sure someone is available to respond to questions and comments about the material; I didn't see your username in the list of contributors. - Dank (push to talk) 11:18, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The comments I left in the GA review of this article last November might be of interest/use, though they may now well be totally outdated if the article has changed significantly. Nick-D (talk) 08:07, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Comment by HJ

• I would love to see Monty make FA, but the article is a long way even from GA standard. The problem with an article on such a well written-about subject is achieving comprehensiveness and neutrality without going into too much detail. There may be a case for a number of sub-articles on various aspects of this biography. If I were working on this with the serious intent of taking it to GA or FA level, the first thing I would do is see how he's covered in other encyclopaedia and similar sources, like biographical dictionaries—Heathcote (cited in the article) contains a nice summary of his career. Then I'd get my hands on sources that go into a little bit more depth, with sources like his book in Osprey's "command" series. Then I would try to acquire or borrow a copy of all the other books that have been written by or about him. The hardest task is wading through all the books, but it's the only way you can know your subject well enough to write a serious encyclopaedia article on them, and it is impossible to write something of FA quality without having consulted at least the majority of the literature on the subject. I would go further and say that you should have read every serious publication about the subject. If any of the articles on his contemporaries are of high quality, they might be worth looking at to demonstrate what should be included, what should be split off into other articles, etc. It might also help to consult the only two FAs on Chiefs of the General Staff (disclaimer: I wrote them both)—Mike Jackson and Richard Dannatt, Baron Dannatt—and I've just noticed we have an FA on WWII First Sea Lord, Andrew Cunningham, 1st Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:37, 10 October 2012 (UTC)