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Wikipedia:Peer review/Trucking industry in the United States/archive1

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Trucking industry in the United States

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I want to prepare for FA review. I need feedback and to work out the kinks before submitting it for FA review. Article is already listed as GA-quality. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 22:56, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, ErgoSum88 (talk) 22:56, 22 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

  • You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC.
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.) 16:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is most interesting, and it is generally good but not yet of featured quality. Here are a few suggestions for improvement.

Lead

  • "The trucking industry (also referred to as the transportation or logistics industry) is the transport and distribution of commercial and industrial goods using commercial motor vehicles (CMV). - "Is" is not the right word because an industry isn't a transport or a distribution. Perhaps "involves the transport and distribution..." would solve the problem.
  • The sentence above contains several examples of overlinking. It's not helpful to link common words like transport, distribution, commercial, industrial, or goods. Truck driver does not need to be linked in the third sentence. Most speakers of English will not need to click on these links and may find them distracting. I see many more examples of overlinking in the rest of the lead and lower down in the article. Please see WP:OVERLINK for more details.
  • "In this case, CMVs are most often trucks; usually a semi truck, box truck, or dump truck." - Since you start with a plural, the sentence needs to continue with plurals: "In this case, CMVs are most often trucks; usually semi-trailer trucks, box trucks, or dump trucks." Also, I'd recommend using semi-trailer trucks rather than semi trucks. Ditto in the caption.

History

  • Encyclopedias are generally considered weak sources. See WP:RS#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Although the "History" section is well-written, parts of it might not survive close scrutiny at FAC because of the reliance on the Encyclopedia of American History. An encyclopedia is a tertiary source that draws on secondary sources such as academic and peer-reviewed publications. It should be possible in most cases to replace a tertiary source with a secondary source since presumably the tertiary source is relying on a set of secondary sources for its information. This means tracking down the secondary sources and doing the reading, which often leads to important data omitted or mishandled by the tertiary sources.
  • Weider History Group may or may not qualify as a reliable source.
  • "Starting in 1910, the development of a number of technologies would give rise to the modern trucking industry." - "Gave" rather than "would give"?
  • "shipping by truck was gaining in popularity" - "Gained" rather than "was gaining"?
  • "Only four states were limiting truck weights" - "Limited" rather than "were limiting"?
  • "By 2006 there were over 26 million trucks on America's roads, hauling over 10 billion tons of freight" - The tons are probably short tons and need to be expressed as metric tons as well: 10 billion short tons (9.1 billion t). Ditto for the other instances of "tons" in the article.

Recent years

  • Since "recent" is vague, something like "Since the 1980s" would be better.

Exhaust emissions

  • "By the time the action is fully implemented, the EPA estimates that 2.6 million tons of smog-causing nitrogen oxide emissions will be reduced each year." - "Eliminated" rather than "reduced"?
  • "The idea of shore power was transferred to the trucking industry, and now there are companies such as IdleAire[30] and Shorepower[31] who provide electricity to diesel trucks... " - "Which" rather than "who"?

Technology

  • "This allows a driver to input the information from a bill of lading into a simple text-only dot matrix display screen (commonly called a "Qualcomm", for their ubiquitous OmniTRACS system),[36][37] which allows the driver to communicate with their dispatcher, who is normally responsible for determining and informing the driver of their pick-up and drop-off locations." - Too complex. Suggestion: "This allows drivers to enter information from a bill of lading into a simple text-only dot matrix display screen, commonly called a "Qualcomm".[36][37] This allows drivers to communicate with dispatchers, who are normally responsible for determining and informing drivers about pick-up and drop-off locations."

Truck drivers

  • "Driver turnover within the short-haul and LTL industries" - LTL should be spelled out on first use, thus: less-than-truckload (LTL).

Commercial driver's license

  • "mechanical systems required to operate such a vehicle (such as air brakes, vehicle inspection, and backing maneuvers" - A vehicle inspection is not a "mechanical system". Neither is a "backing maneuver".

Hours of service

  • "The driver must also present their log book to authorities... " Subject-verb agreement. Use either "driver" and "his or her" or "drivers" and "their" but not "driver" and "their".

Images

Copyediting

  • I made a dozen or so small changes to fix subject-verb disagreements and other small problems. I'm sure I didn't catch everything. I would suggest a top-to-bottom copyedit.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 05:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reply Thank you for such a thorough review. I must admit I was aware the my reliance on About.com and other sources for the history section would be a problem. The only problem for me is I would need to take a trip down to the library in order to find some really reliable sources of information, which probably means setting aside a whole day to find the books and to read them. I'm hoping I can do that sometime this week. As for the rest of your suggestions, I pretty much agree with them except for a few:

It's not unusual for writers and editors to spend many days on research. It's not possible to satisfy the "comprehensive" requirement for an FA article without reviewing the major secondary sources. I'm no expert on trucking, so I wouldn't know what the sources are. Others who read the article will know, though. Finetooth (talk) 15:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overlinking The overlink issue is debatable, some say there is nothing wrong with having a page full of blue words, while others say you shouldn't link unless absolutely necessary. I am somewhere in the middle and I will take your advice by removing some of them.
It is subjective to some degree. At FAC, the article will be expected to have links to terms that significant numbers of English-speaking readers might find mysterious, but it will also be expected to avoid links to terms that most English-speaking readers already understand. Finetooth (talk) 15:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead caption I think the term "semi-trucks" is used more than "semi-trailer trucks", and the caption is meant to differentiate commonly used terms. This is a minor issue so I'm leaving it as is, if anyone feels the need to change it, so be it.
  • Images I don't disagree, I'm just not sure about this one. The log book is a form that is defined by the government, although it is not printed by the government. They certainly are not copywritten, and the source (I suppose) would be either the DOT or USA Truck (which printed these forms, which were then scanned and uploaded by me). Should I give the source just as "USA Truck", or "DOT", or both? The DOT defines the minimum standards for the forms, but the company normally has their own slightly different versions printed up with their company name and address on them.
It would help to alter the "Source" line of the image description page to say something like "Nearly blank Department of Transportation form obtained from USA Truck, Inc. Scanned and filled in by User:ErgoSum88". If you knew of a link to the blank DOT form, it would be good to add it but probably not necessary. This may seem nit-picky, but these little details make the fact-checkers' job easier at FAC and elsewhere. Finetooth (talk) 15:14, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Other than that, you spotted a lot of issues. I am both impressed and grateful, your username "Finetooth" is appropriate! --ErgoSum88 (talk) 14:19, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update Went to the library today, they had one book from 1977. Looks like this is going to take some effort. I'm going to try a bigger library later on. Also I was thinking the history section will just get bigger and bigger, and its already big right now. I'm thinking of fleshing out the history section into its own article, which might help when I submit it for FA. --ErgoSum88 (talk) 20:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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