Wikipedia:Peer review/Rod Serling/archive1

Rod Serling

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I've listed this article for peer review. I have spent over a month rewriting much of it as I added a ton of references. It had a notification about poor references before I began. Also, it's on the bounty board, so I figured...why not.

This is my first attempt at a Featured article, and I would appreciate any feedback to help me get better at writing high-quality articles.

Thanks, Sabiona (talk) 18:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by H1nkles

First off good for you to take a stab at FAC. It is a commendable endeavor and a very good learning experience. Make sure you have a thick skin though as the process can be difficult. That said I'll make some comments to help give some direction to the article. Make sure you put the article up against the FA Criteria before you nominate it for FA consideration.

Look at WP:LEAD, this provides the requirements for a good lead. Part of the key to a good lead is that it summarizes every point brought up in the article. For an article of this length a 3 to 4 paragraph lead is customary. This will need to be addressed before it goes to FAC.
After this review I would suggest nominating the article at WP:GAC. Having the article go through the GA process will definitely help you. An outside reviewer will hold the article up to the MOS and make sure it complies, at least to a minimum standard. The only catch with GAC right now is that there is about a 6 week waiting list. But I'm a firm believer in the process so I try to advocate for it. I'm sorry if this is all old news to you, I'm not sure how much experience you have with the various review options available to you.

"Throughout his life Serling was the life of the party, often using imitations to entertain those around him."

This sentence is an example of some prose problems, first off it's best to not duplicate words within a sentence if it can be avoided. So life and life in this sentence. Also "life of the party" is, in my opinion, a bit unencyclopedic. At FAC the reviewers will look closely at the words you use. If life of the party is part of quote then that's fine but on its own it isn't really a professional term. Again it's my opinion though so take it for what it's worth.

One or two sentence paragraphs are to be avoided. Consider merging or expanding these paragraphs.

"Serling applied to, and was accepted to college during his senior year of high school; however, the U.S. was deeply involved in World War II at that time and Serling decided to enlist rather than start college[14] immediately after he graduated from Binghamton Central High School in 1943.[5]"

Watch for words or phrases that aren't necessary in the context of the article. For example: "Applied to..." is unnecessary since you say he was accepted into college. It's assumed he applied and really isn't detail the reader needs. What college though? That is a good piece of information to add. Also a word like "deeply" isn't necessary, saying the US was in the midst of WWII is enough. You don't usually want to put in-line citations in the middle of a sentence. See WP:CITE for thoughts on this. Usually the cite goes at the end of a sentence or at least after a comma but really at the end of a sentence or paragraph. I would end the sentence after "...rather than start college." I would then incorporate the fact that he graduated in 1943 into the sentence. For example, "...accepted to college in 1943, which was his senior year of high school. New sentence with, "However the U.S. was..." Does that make sense?

"War is a temporal thing," Gus Youngstrom told an eager Serling, "It ends. An education doesn't. Without your degree, where will you be after the war"

The quote is a great quote but it is about getting a degree. The context is about Serling graduating from high school. There's a disconnect here because you don't get a degree for graduating from high school. It sounds like Youngstrom is trying to get Serling to go to college rather than enlist. Please clarify.

Side note here, the article is very long. Watch for unnecessary detail that, while good information, may bog the article down. Keep summary style in mind when writing. There is a lot of extraneous detail in the Military service section. You should consider really tightening up this section to one or two paragraphs, perhaps 10 to 15 sentences. His life is remembered for his entertainment career not his military career. You can always move the information into an article on the military career of Rod Serling if you feel strongly that people should know about it.
Another thought about the Military career section, the image in this section is enormous! There has to be another image about the Leyte beachhead that isn't so big. Also you will get dinged on captions of images at FAC, punctuation should only be used for complete sentences. For the image in the Military career section there would be no punctuation because it isn't a complete sentence. It's ticky tack I know but it will be brought up at FAC.

More review to come. H1nkles _{citius altius fortius} 17:23, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is mention of his wife in the Postwar section before mention of his marriage this is confusing and doesn't fit the chronology of the article.

"After being discharged from the Army in 1946, Serling worked at a rehabilitation hospital while recovering from his wounds. His knee would continue to give him trouble though, and his wife became used to the sound of Serling falling down the stairs after his knee refused to take his weight.[14] Serling suffered two severe heart attacks in 1975. He and his physicians decided that he should enter the Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, New York for coronary bypass surgery. May 3, 1975 Serling suffered a minor heart attack and was hospitalized. He spent two weeks at Tompkins County Community Hospital before being released.[53] A second heart attack two weeks later forced doctors to agree that open heart surgery, though considered risky at the time, was in order.[54][55] On June 28, 1975 Serling had a third, and fatal, heart attack during the ten hour operation.[46] He was 50 years old at the time of his death.[46]"

A couple issues here, first and foremost, are you talking about Rod Serling? If it's about Rod Serling then why is it here? His death should be described at the end of the article not here. I'm seeing a bigger issue as I continue to read the article and that is regarding chronology. You want to keep the events of his life in some sort of chronological order. It seems like you are putting them into subject order or no order at all. That is confusing for the reader. Also look at WP:NBSP, when discussing numbers followed by units of time, like 50 years, you need to put a non-breaking space so that the 50 and the years stay on the same line. It's an issue that will be brought up at FAC. You are putting in-line citations like [46] into the paragraph here rather than using the normal ref format. Why? You then switch back later on, it's not good. You don't want to mention his kids until he actually had them. Saying he had two daughters in his college section makes the readers assume he had them while in college, if that is true then put the years they were born in here. If not then put those details into the section that fits the chronology of his life.

The image in the postwar section doesn't really connect well with the article. It is the founder of the college he went to but that really is not an important aspect especially since the man died almost a hundred years before Serling went to the college. I would try and find an image of the campus instead.

"Antioch that could be heard on WJEM, Springfield"

Where is that? Springfield where?

At the risk of over doing it I'll say again that even in the Career section there is unnecessary detail. Focus on what moves his career along rather than on each job or each script submission. That's all I'll say but consider this to apply to the entire article.
I see the use of several quotes. This is fine, just keep WP:QUOTE in mind. Use a uniform format for quotes. The Serling quote about selling ideas for $50 a week is great, just make sure conforms to the MOS standards. A quote of that length usually requires blockquote formatting. Just take a look at the above link and adjust as you see fit.

"He continued on at WKRC after graduation and despite the mostly dreary day-to-day work he also managed to create scripts for a series of live TV programs called The Storm as well as scripts for other anthology dramas which were in demand by New York based networks."

This is a run-on sentence, consider breaking up into smaller sections. More to come. H1nkles _{citius altius fortius} 18:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The next issue to look at is the use of images. Public domain and free-use images are fine, use them. Copyrighted images and Fair-use images should only be used when a free-use image is unavailable. Reviewers will question the use of any Fair-use image. See WP:IMAGE for more details on this. The Patterns image is a Fair use image but given the importance of the show to Serling's career you could make a case for its inclusion. Same can be said for the Twilight Zone image, though you need to put a Fair use rationale in this image's description page. See WP:FU for more details on this.

"'Playhouse 90' and Mr. Serling had to fight executive interference...before getting their play on the air last night. The the theatre people of Hollywood have reason to be proud of their stand in the viewers behalf."[42]

The quote doesn't explain what Serling had to struggle against. It says "executive interference" but that isn't specific enough. If it is to support the subject of corporate censorship and this is an example then it should state what censorship Serling was fighting against. Otherwise I'm not sure what the quote really does.

"and he threw himself into sometimes alligator-pit of a weekly TV program"

Not sure what this is supposed to mean, keep encyclopedic and professional writing in mind.

In the Twilight Zone section it says the show won TV and drama awards. What is a drama award? What TV awards did it win? Emmies? If so how many and when? Also there are two stub paragraphs that should be expanded or combined with another paragraph. This section is surprisingly short considering it's what he's most well known for. The writing in this section is very succinct. Did Rod Serling do the on-camera narration for the beginning of each Twilight Zone episode? If so this should be added to the Twilight Zone section, that is such an iconic monologue. Finally there is only one citation in the entire section, that has to be remedied.
Night gallery section has no citations.
The death section is a repeat of previous section early on in the article. The earlier section needs to be removed entirely.
The writing in the death section is confusing. How many heart attacks did he have? At first it's two major ones in 1975, then he has a minor one in May 1975 followed by a second one two weeks later. He has a third one during the open heart surgery. I think it's three heart attacks but when you differentiate between major and minor it gets confusing. Try to clarify better.

"Throughout his career Serling helped to mold the future of television."

How? The proceeding two paragraphs discuss TV's history and its development. No mention of the impact Serling had. In a section about his legacy this should be the focus.

"Known as 'the angry young man' by those who witnessed his battles with network executives over censorship[29], Serling revolutionized the way writers and sponsors interacted."

Again, how? Also put in-line citations after the comma not before. Or better yet put it at the end of the sentence.

"Serling was one of the first to exploit crossover between media by turning his early television successes, Patterns and The Rack into full length movie productions."

I don't recall this being discussed in the article beyond the fact that the rights to Patterns was possibly being sold. Did I miss something? This should be outlined in the article better if it isn't already.

"After the made-for-television movie The Doomsday Flight was released in December 1966 a rash of copy-cats phoned in ransom demands to most of the largest airlines."

Move this sentence to after the plot is explained. Otherwise it loses the impact.

"Even youth of today can hum the theme song..."

That's a statement that is hard to prove, consider removing.

I'm surprised there's no mention of the Tower of Terror ride at Disneyland, which is modeled after the Twilight Zone. Also I believe they use a digitized version of Serling in the intro to the ride. This should be investigated. I'm not 100% sure on that but it's worth looking into.
There should be some sort of licensing on the stamp image, even if it's copyrighted.
Lists: check out WP:LIST for information on list inclusion in articles. You probably have too many lists, consider removing some, like incorporating his honors and memberships into the prose section.
Notes and References: For references you need to use the {{tl:cite web}} or other such template format. Check out other Featured articles for examples and then model your formatting after one of those examples. For book references you need a uniform standard for pages, either p., pp., pg., pgs., you seem to switch between a few and that needs to be corrected. Also the "p" is not capitalized. Magazine and newspaper titles are italicized. For an FA you'll want more books. There should be plenty written on him in google books. It will be important to add more credible book sources to support the article. Can some or all of the Further reading books be incorporated into the article? You rely heavily on one book by Sander, this could be seen as a weakness in the article. You want to spread out the sources wherever possible. Sometimes it just isn't possible as one book is considered the end all biography. If that's the case then so be it. No need to put page numbers in the references section, page numbers go in the notes section. You have too many external links, consider removing superfluous ones like his dream town and his conference. Five or six links are fine. More to come. H1nkles _{citius altius fortius} 18:51, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You will also need alt text for each of your images. This text is to help people who can load the images to know what the images represent. It's part of the FA Criteria.

I think that does it for my review. There's a lot to work on before the article will be ready for FA consideration. I would recommend working on these issues, passing it through GA candidacy and then reposting here for another peer review prior to sending it to FA candidacy. If you have specific questions or concerns please feel free to leave me a message on my talk page as I may not be watching this review page. If you found this review helpful please consider reviewing someone else's article to help reduce the backlog of articles in Peer Review. Thanks and good luck with your article. H1nkles _{citius altius fortius} 19:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]