Talk:Theodore Roosevelt High School (Kent, Ohio)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Racepacket (talk) 03:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

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very well done. I am putting on hold so that you can address the issues noted below. Again, you are the expert and editor, but I am just raising these points for your consideration.

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   • In "Nutting later taught at and eventually become principal of the Union School building until 1888." the word "building" is probably unnecessary and confusing.

   Removed

   • "the school buildings faced overcrowding issues " may mean, "the school buildings were overcrowded"

   Changed to the latter

   • " expected growth in student numbers." should be "expected growth in enrollment."

   Changed to latter

   • "but decided to discontinue doing so in the late 1950s." to "but discontinued doing so in the late 1950s".
   • " attended Roosevelt to complete their high school diploma on a tuition basis," should be "attended Roosevelt as tuition paying students to earn diplomas."

   I reworded it a little differently. They attended their previous school usually until what we would now consider their senior year, then finished at Roosevelt or another accredited high school. They completed their diplomas at Roosevelt prior to the merge, but they did not exclusively earn them while at the school.

   • "The most recent additions were in 1997 when the cafeteria was expanded and a new art room and a music storage room were added along with several renovations and upgrades throughout the building." Use active voice: The most recent additons in 1997 expanded the cafeteria and added a new art room and a music storage room."

   Edited, but kept the mention of renovations and upgrades. The renovations were as extensive as the small additions were.

   • Reword and possibly break up into two sentences: "On the other side of Roosevelt Stadium is the baseball field, softball field, and a six-court tennis complex with additional open practice fields spread mainly along the southern part of campus that are used for field hockey, football, soccer, and lacrosse." Are not is.

   Corrected wording error and broke into two sentences.

   • "Generally, art classes last for a semester.[49] " should be "Generally, each art class lasts for one semester.[49]"

   Done

   • " activities have been successful in related competitions at state, national, and international levels. " - delete "related".

   Done

   • change " The remaining programs are Career Programs'" to " The remaining 19 programs are Career Programs"
   • change "Each of the programs also has co-curricular component, " to "Each of the programs also has a co-curricular component, " or make components plural.
   • " The academy follows the same schedule" to " The Bridges Academy follows the same schedule"
   • "While all fine and practical arts classes are electives, one full-year credit of either fine or practical arts must be taken to fulfill graduation requirements." to "While all fine and practical arts classes are electives, one full-year credit of either fine or practical arts is required to graduate."
   • "backgrounds and semester-long courses" - add comma after backgrounds.
   • "Students at each grade level are required to take the general English class for that grade level, which is a full-year course that can be taken at the comprehensive, college preparatory, or advanced levels with Advanced Placement available in 12th grade." - put into active voice and break up into two sentences.

   Not being an English major, telling me to put something into the active voice doesn't tell me a whole lot. In looking up more about active vs. passive, I didn't see how I could reword that sentence any differently to make it active. I did break it into two separate sentences, however.

   I was a Chemistry major. How about, "A different English class for each grade level is required for graduation. Required English courses are full-year classes that can be taken at the comprehensive, college preparatory, or advanced levels with Advanced Placement available in 12th grade."

   Even as a Chemistry major you still have a little more familiarity with the finer points of English than I apparently do. :)

   I fixed all the sentence suggestions above.

   • Watch sentence structure: "In the winter sports season (November–February), in addition to the boys basketball and ice hockey teams, there are also boys and girls bowling, boys and girls swimming and diving teams, and wrestling teams, with an additional cheerleading squad. " are you saying that the cheerleading squad is just for the wrestling team? Why are teams plural? Perhaps you should just list the teams separated by commas.

   B. MoS compliance:

   Lead paragraphs too long - remove some details like school colors.

   I disagree here. Leads are supposed "to stand alone as a concise overview of the article." In other words, there should be at least a small mention of every major point in the article, highlighting things that are especially unusual or notable. After having leads criticized at FAC as being too short, I don't see how this is too long. Longer articles are going to have longer leads.

   Concern is not length but rather level of detail. School colors do not belong in the lead paragraphs. Racepacket (talk)

   I guess I'd like to see other opinions on this. To me school colors for school are a pretty visual aspect of it (particularly in athletics), so mentioning them in the lead doesn't seem like excess. I could understand a lot of details about the school colors, but not just mentioning them. Unless there's a specific guideline or policy somewhere I'm not aware of in regards to mentioning school colors, I don't see the problem.

   For the sake of sentence flow I removed the color info and some other lines I thought the intro could do without and still be a thorough and "concise" summary. While I still don't think mentioning school colors in the lead is a sin, the lead can stand without it. --JonRidinger (talk) 02:42, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

   Optional - add link to schools portal.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   • check refs 76 and 80

   What specifically needed checked? Did they not open? Is there question about what they source? Not sure what you mean here.

   Dead link report. If the link works, don't worry about it. Racepacket (talk) 19:11, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

   It was probably a temporary thing. It has happened before on other articles!

   • Please mark ref 84 as subscription only.

   Removed the link, but since the source was printed, it is still a valid source

   You should keep the source, and can keep the link, but mark it (subscription only).

   I kept the source, but removed the url and accessdate. Things that were printed do not need a url unless it is available (i.e. not required). In this case, having "subscription only" doesn't really tell the reader much more than not having a link.

   • Need ref for "Through the 2009–2010 school year, Roosevelt had a student body of 1,336 students in grades 9–12. 81.3% of students were classified as non-Hispanic White, 10.8% non-Hispanic Black, 2.2% Asian, and 5.0% multi-racial"

   Added an additional cite. The citation for the entire paragraph is at the end (ref #29).

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   Too many self-published sources. If possible add independent secondary sources unrelated to the school, such as city newspaper.

   Self-published sources are a problem if they are sourcing outstanding or challengeable claims. The only one close to that is the posting about the school's DECA club advancing to nationals for the 26th consecutive year and placing for the 10th. I saw no reason to believe that the school made it up or question its validity. All remaining sources from the school or district merely confirm the existence of certain elements such as staff, course offerings, clubs, etc. A large majority of sources, especially for outstanding claims and rankings, come from outside sources, particularly the local newspaper (Record-Courier). There are also citations from the Ohio Department of Education, US News & World Report, Advanc-Ed.org, three published history books, and others. Of the 100 citations, I counted 27 from the school or district; 11 of those are from the course catalog. Granted, there aren't actually 100 sources (the history books are sourced with specific pages multiple times), but you get my idea.

   C. No original research:

   Need references about rivalry with Bulldogs. If you can't document it, then consider deletion.

   See ref #84. Even without the direct link, the other two links in "See also" of that citation also verify the existence of a rivalry with that school.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Does TRHS offer IB or AP programs? Should this be covered?

   See second paragraph under "Curriculum". It not only mentions the AP courses available, but also how they are treated in regards to class rank. It also includes mention of the other post-secondary options available.

   Ok, but I gather no IB program?

   Correct. No IB program

   Does the school have any problems: drugs, violence, gangs, teen pregnancy? What is its drop out/graduation rate?

   I'm sure there are elements of each, but none are apparently significant enough to garner any kind of attention in local news or statistics. I can include the graduation rate, which is included in the state report card stats.

   B. Focused:

   Probably a bit more detailed than necessary at some points.

   Specific places you feel are too detailed? I was going for thorough, though had very little to go off as an example. The "Academics" section at Plano Senior High School is much smaller than its athletics section and tells me virtually nothing about the academics at the school beyond AP. I have seen comments from international readers that they are largely not familiar with the structure of American high schools, so I was trying to include some of that so that this article isn't just for an American audience.

   I'm guessing it has to do with the curriculum, but cases could be made for the Campus and History sections as well. This is an area where an outside opinion on what at least seems most noteworthy and important to mention would be important. Having much of the history and entire course catalog in front of me, I've already condensed quite a bit down to a few paragraphs which seemed to emphasize the most important points. What I've tried to do is be more general with the elective classes so it's not so much of a long listing.

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   Well done.

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   • Need fair use rationale for File:New Roosevelt logo.PNG

   Do you mean a more detailed rationale? The standard, more wordy rationale template on logos was written after this was uploaded, which is why it is so short.

   I believe that you need to explain why it is fair use to use it in this particular article, such as article discusses school's athletic program and includes logo to show its relationship to the school. You can also strengthen you fair use claim by actually discussing the logo in the prose of the Athletics Section. (E.g., "the school's logo was selected by a student body vote in the year 1492.") Racepacket (talk) 18:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

   OK that makes sense. The silhouette part of the logo has been around since at least the 1940s, but I only know that from seeing old student handbooks on display. It was put with the big "R" around 2003 or so, but there is nothing to source that against. All other info about the history of the logo I have not been able to find in a published place as of now. --JonRidinger (talk) 19:29, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

More thoughts

• In the infobox "Distinctions", should the hyphen before the years be something else, a comma or a colon?
  • A colon would work, but so could an en dash instead of the hyphen.
• change " eventually become principal of the Union School" to " eventually became principal of the Union School".
  • Definitely
• What does "Successful completion of an AP course adds an additional point to a student's class rank." mean? Do you mean "Successful completion of an AP course adds a bonus point to a student's grade point average?"
  • According to the course catalog, it's a separate point independent of the GPA. The quote on page 120 of the printed catalog says: "The school recognizes the additional demands these courses place upon students by assigning an additional 1.0 point toward class rank to those who successfully complete an Advanced Placement course." On page 116, the formula for class rank is: "GPA x 25 + total credits + AP points = Index Number". I guess if the concern is specifics and clarity, I would include "Successful completion of an AP course adds an additional point that is factored into a student's class rank."--JonRidinger (talk) 05:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Your latter formulation is better.
• How many times a year is the Colonel published?
  • On the co-curriclulars ref, it says 10. I reworded the sentence to say that and broke the yearbook sentence into its own. --JonRidinger (talk) 05:23, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Congratulations. Good job. Racepacket (talk) 22:17, 7 October 2010 (UTC)