Wikipedia:Peer review/Direct lobbying in the United States/archive1

Direct lobbying in the United States

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I've listed this article for peer review because I want it to be ready for a good article nomination.

Thanks, Bejinhan talks 12:53, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note I forgot to say that this article was created as part of a university course scope and the students will be making any article changes. I will just be guiding them in the editing process. Bejinhan talks 10:32, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch comments: Thanks for your work on this, here are some suggestions for improvement.

A model article is useful for ideas and examples to follow. There are a number of WP:GAs at Category:GA-Class United States Public Policy articles that may be useful models for this article.
Two dab links that need to be fixed are to be found here Done
One dead external link found here Done
It would be good to have a picture in the lead - how about one of the US Capitol with a caption something like "Washington DC is home to 535 members of Congress and about 13,000 lobbyists." Done
The current lead is too short and does not summarize the article completely. The lead should be an accessible and inviting overview of the whole article. Please see WP:LEAD Done
The current first sentence does not follow WP:BEGINNING which says in part The article should begin with a declarative sentence telling the nonspecialist reader what (or who) is the subject. (Current first sentence does not even mention the US, which is in the title) Done
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. However, the facts that more than 12,986 lobbyists are in DC and that in 2010, the total amount spent on lobbying in the United States was $3.49 billion seem to only be in the lead. Done
For ideas on expanding the lead, my rule of thumb is to include every header in the lead in some way, but several sections do not seem to be even mentioned in the lead, including Lobbying laws, Revolving door, and Corporate media lobby Done
The article has several short (one or two sentence) paragraphs which break up the narrative flow and make it a choppy read. Wherever possible, these should be combioned with others or perhaps expanded.
Make sure the references contain all pertinent infroamtion. For example the current first ref is just "'Direct' and 'Grass Roots' Lobbying Defined", IRS, accessed March 20, 2010." I would spell out IRS and probably link it in the ref, and I would also include the date the ref was last updated (July 16, 2010) Done
Make sure that refs used meet WP:RS and are reliable sources - for example in current ref 2 (which is also missing the date given on the web page), what makes the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network a reliable source on lobbying? Are there no political science textbooks or jornal articles that could be cited here instead? Or even newspaper stories on lobbying?
The article uses {{cquote}} but according the documentation at Template:Cquote this is for pull quotes only, and this should probably use {{blockquote}} instead. Done
Watch WP:OVERLINKing - for example why do Jeff Chester and Center for Digital Democracy need to be (red-)linked three times in one section? Done
Examples are all focused on the FCC and the most recent one cited is almost 35 years old (since he left as chair).
A GA criterion is broad coverage, but this does not even mention the 50 state governments that I saw
Another criterion is good English, but this is pretty rough in spots and needs a copyedit. One example: A U.S. Congress member has a limited amount of serving time, and has the possibility of not being re-elected, or stepping down. [31]During the 2010 elections there was an increase in Congress members leaving Capitol Hill. [31] Out of the 120 previous members, 72 have found employment. 21.8% employed at lobbying firm, while 11.5% became a lobbying client. [31] First sentence is just clunky. There should be no space between the first sentence and its ref, and a space is needed after the ref. Second sentence needs some sort of comparison - is this relative to the previous election cycle or an average or what? "leaving Capitol Hill" is also not very encylcopedic in tone (sounds like they have gone home for the night). Third sentence needs a time qualification - 72 found jobs as of when? Fourth "sentence" is a fragment, and the last phrase does not make sense to me - what does "while 11.5% became a lobbying client" mean? Also since numbers were used in previous sentences, why not use them (and %) here too?
Please make sure that the existing text includes no copyright violations, plagiarism, or close paraphrasing. For more information on this please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-04-13/Dispatches. (This is a general warning given in all peer reviews, in view of previous problems that have risen over copyvios.)

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 peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:19, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]