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United States Academic Decathlon

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because it successfully went through GAN and I would like to know what needs to be done before I submit it to FAC. Any and all criticism is welcome!

Thanks, Yohhans talk 17:37, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. This article is in very good shape. Most of concerns I raise below are based on sourcing concerns, which you should be able to resolve before going to FAC (sometimes sources get mixed up during copy editing, etc). Best of luck, and I hope that this helps!

The Lead

  • Perhaps replace "currently" in the first paragraph to "as of 2008"

1968-2000

  • Current reference #2, in the first sentence, points to a FAQ website which does not mention Dr. Peterson or 1968. Perhaps I am not looking in the correct area.
  • Why did the 1984 competition include "Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea", while others did not?
  • I have not been able to find a source for why other countries have not competed in other years, but I have explained why those four countries competed when they did. I also included a statement saying that it is unclear why countries have not competed much. Do you think this is sufficient, or should I just drop the information about international cooperation all together? - Yohhans talk 20:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm having difficulty verifying the second sentence of the second paragraph, where the initial events are listed. The source provided (currently #9) does not seem to list the original events.
  • The reference states that both Art and Music become their own events this year. While it does not explicitly state that Art and Music come from the division of Fine Arts, it is implied. Hopefully this is enough? If not I'll see if I can reword it so it better reflects the sources available. As it stands, I cannot find a source that explicitly states that Fine Arts was split into the two current events. - Yohhans talk 20:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • What promoted the change in policy, which required the use of USAD materials only?
  • It's unknown what prompted the change. USAD has issued some statements that have led me (and a whole host of others) to believe that it is a reaction to the success of third party suppliers like DemiDec or Acalon, but they have never come out and explicitly said as much. The closest they have come is statements like, "No. [Purchasing materials from commercial companies] is absolutely unnecessary and a waste of money. U.S.A.D. materials are all that is needed to participate and compete successfully in the Academic Decathlon." (source - click on "Do you recommend purchasing materials from commercial companies?") and "Purchasing study materials from commercial companies is a waste of money." (source) But, this is all speculation. Nothing actually flat out says, "USAD switched their policies because commercial companies were infringing on their profits."

2000-2001

  • The inlef provided for the "plummet in scores" sentence doesn't seem to verify what is written (currently, reference #22)
  • Hmmm. You're right. It doesn't exactly corroborate the causality I've presented there. I've reworded the Music sentence to just, "A decrease in scores followed these changes." What do you think? - Yohhans talk 20:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, the inline ref used for El Camino Real High Schools victory does not seem to provide the actual scores, or note that it was the lowest ever.
  • Also (to be nit picky) it read that it was the second lowest score (which was wrong anyway). But thanks for catching this. I've gone through and added proper references here and to the national winners table further down. Hopefully that solves all the referencing issues. - Yohhans talk 23:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reference #23 came up a dead for me.

Controversies

  • Perhaps we don't need: "As with any large competition"

Copy editing

  • Look for redundancies and unneeded words, such as "additionally", etc. For example, "far differently" could be "far differently"
  • I have fixed the instances you have mentioned, but unfortunately I am far too close to the text at this point to be very good at copyediting. I've asked someone to give it a once-over though. - Yohhans talk 20:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, good job. Everything looks to be progressing well. Lazulilasher (talk) 17:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the complement! I've tried to address all your points. Let me know if anything else can be improved on. Thanks for the review. It was very helpful! - Yohhans talk 20:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

  • You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FLC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC. (Bear in mind that FAC and FLC might have differing requirements about where to put citations, but the reliability of sourcing should stay the same between the two processes.)
    • Is it Industy Week or Industy Week. Ref 6 has it plain, ref 7 has it italicised.
    • I have a few concerns about using http://web.archive.org/web/20060925233926/www.fcoe.k12.ca.us/spc_proj/acadec/topics.html as many times as you do, considering that this is, basically, a self-published source?
    • Current ref 31, the NB is definitely Original Research, probably need to rework this.
    • The article is sourced in a large degree to Academic Decathalon sources, either US or state level. You need to be very careful of using this much information coming from the subject of the article, and may run into difficulties at FAC about this.
Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 13:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
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