User talk:Andreea.dobrea/sandbox

Peer Review (Rayleigh Lee)

Dear Andreea,

I’ve formatted my peer review in two parts; the first part goes through the checklist provided by the Wikipedia training library, the second part are general comments I found to be relevant to your article. The first part evaluates the quality of the Wikipedia article as a whole, while the second part focuses on your individual contributions.

Wiki Peer Review Criteria

A lead section that is easy to understand

I like how you’ve added the first sentence elaborating where corruption is found in Romania’s social fabric, and adding more studies to the first paragraph. I think the studies added are appropriate; the Corruption Perceptions Index is widely quoted in various studies and articles, hence more accessible than other niche studies on Romania’s relativ corruption perception levels. However, the language used can be more specific. For example, the second sentence states that “although there have been significant improvements, corruption remains a problem in Romania.” I think there is room to specify the sectors that were improved, and what other sectors remain a problem. The lead section should introduce the subject and relevant topics concisely, but also be specific when possible. The third and fourth sentences refer to the same study, and this can be made clear by rewriting “the index also ranks the country on 59th place out of 180 countries” as “the same index also ranks the country as 59th most/least corrupt out of 180 countries” and adding a single citation at the end of the fourth sentence instead of two separate citations. The piece on the National Anticorruption Directorate is good and well aligned with the context, but I’d add a brief sentence on what it is and how it’s relevant, so that readers don’t necessarily have to click on another page to find out what it is. For example “The National Anticorruption Directorate was established in 2002 by the Romanian government to investigate and prosecute corruption related offenses causing damage to the Romanian state” can be added after mentioning the organization. Lastly, the protests listed are relevant and helpful, but the link leading to the list of corruption scandals in Romania might be better placed at the bottom, under the ‘See also’ heading (it’s already there). I don’t think having the link is problematic, but most wiki pages seem to compile helpful links under the ‘See also’ section and nowhere else.

A clear structure

The structure thus far seems clear; I see that you’ve switched the order of the ‘Anti corruption drive’ and ‘Background and extent’ subheadings. I think that is sensible because the reader goes through the content chronologically. However, I think the ‘Background and extent’ subheading is confusing because of the wording. Background or context seems appropriate because you describe Romania’s transition of government and its history with the EU. I assume ‘extent’ refers to the extent of corruption, but since ‘Background and extent of corruption’ sounds like two subheadings merged into one, ‘Background’ or ‘Context’ might be a more appropriate subheading title.

Balanced coverage

The coverage of corruption in Romania seems balanced. You dedicated an appropriate amount of coverage to each subheading. The content of the ‘Background and extent’ is fleshed out with sources from Transparency International, EU reports, and Romania’s Library of Congress. I also saw that the U.S. Department of State reports were being used as a reference. I think the way you have it now is sound, because it references the number of investigations by the National Anticorruption Directorate rather than a general argument on Romania’s corruption levels. However, it would be helpful to keep in mind that the contents of this website presents a U.S. government interpretation of Romania’s governance, therefore shouldn’t be too heavily drawn upon.

Neutral Content

Under the ‘Background and extent’ subheading, you wrote “The lack of political will from Romania's leaders allows corruption to keep circulating in the country.” The lack of political will is demonstrated in both the 2012 political crisis, and the report from the 2015 US Department of State. However, the sentence seems to assert that lack of political will is the reason for the existence of corruption as a whole. Moreover, the formation of the National Anticorruption Directorate, a government initiative can arguably be seen as a form of political will to fight corruption. In order to avoid making conclusive statements, the sentence may be reframed as “the lack of political will demonstrated by the 2012 political crisis as well as the under-funding of the National Anticorruption Directorate poses a major challenge in investigating and enforcing sanctions to bureaucratic corruption.”

Under the The ‘Anti-corruption measures,’ you wrote “In February history was made for the Romanian population as the manifestation has reached a total 500,000 people.” While the sentence is factually sound, some might argue that “history was made” sounds editorialized. Reframing the sentence as “The protests held on February 2017 reached an unprecedented turnout of 500,000 people,” might sound more neutral.

Also, the last sentence states, “the values of integrity, accountability and transparency have therefore proved to be efficient components in fighting corruption.” This is a sound observation, but seems to generalize the overall outcomes, which risks drawing conclusions and editorializing the tone. I would reframe the sentence to mention how the values of integrity, accountability and transparency have been promoted by civilians in social movements, or cite a credible report which cites those values as important in the decline of corruption in Romania. For example, “According to XYZ study, the promotion of integrity, accountability and transparency by civil society organizations have made significant contributions to the decline of corruption in Romania.”

Reliable sources

The sources used mostly refer to journal articles or studies, and uses a variety of sources to support each point. All links work and are functioning, except for link [2], which should be updated.

I was initially surprised that the article draws heavily from mainstream news sources, but given that the article addresses recent cases of corruption, it is understandable that the author is unable to find textbooks or studies to refer to for recent events. The article refers to two BBC articles, four Reuters articles, one SPIEGEL article, one POLITICO article, one CNN article, one EURACTIV article, one Aljazeera article, and one euobserver article. So far, all articles are from reasonably credible news outlets. However, it would be helpful in the long run to keep count of which news outlets are mentioned so that one news source is not referenced heavily.

Personal comments

Comments in general:

You’ve communicated that there were many factors to change about each sentence, and some sentence structure and citations issues. I feel that most of those issues were addressed in your draft, including some heavy work done on the tone of the article to make it more neutral. I also think the plagiarization of citations and flow of the article is no longer an issue. For the final draft, it might be helpful for you to add a new section and diving deep instead of developing the existing subsections.

Comments on content quality:

The content quality is overall solid; the context shows deeper understanding of the issue than the original article. However, corruption in Romania may be written about in other angles as well, such as corruption sorted by sectors.

General comments on strengths and weaknesses:

The strengths of your contributions are the up to date information you’ve provided, such as the updated report by Transparency International, as well as the protests in 2017-2018 following the corruption scandals in Romania. It would be helpful to expand upon the 2017 protests further for the final draft, such as specific examples of anti-corruption.

Minor weaknesses are grammar errors are found in the draft, but they are minor and don’t detract the reader from understanding the content.

Minor grammar fixes that could improve your draft are:

• “Corruption in Romania can be found in the politics, military, health care and private businesses.Although there have been significant improvements, corruption remains a problem in Romania. According to Transparency International's annual Corruption Perceptions Index, as of 2017, Romania is the third most corrupt country in the European Union after Bulgaria, Hungary and at the same level as Greece.” (spacing between the first and second sentence in the introductory paragraph)

• “After the fall of communism in 1989, Romania has, and is still struggling with its transition towards democracy and establishing a well-functioning judicial system.” (there is no need for a comma in a compound predicate)

• ”The poor implementation of laws on transparency of information and decision-making processes between government officials coupled with the bribes and conflicts of interests in public procurement practices makes the sluggish judicial system ineffective in fighting against corruption.” (the word ‘transparency’ is missing a determiner before it, so add ‘the’)

• “The National Anticorruption Directorate indicted 1,138 authorities such as politicians, judges and prosecutors and businessmen in 2014.” (there should be a comma after ‘prosecutors’)

Feedback from Caroline Wesley

Hi Andreea! I found your article really interesting and generally well-referenced. Great job! Below I've outlined some suggestions on how to improve the article generally. Please let me know if you have any questions! :)

General Comments:

1- Your draft article contains a few punctuation, grammar, and syntax errors, so I would look over the article in general with an editorial eye as you continue to improve it in the weeks to come. A specific focus should be placed on putting past events into the past tense and ongoing events into the present perfect progressive tense.

2- Some of the writing in the article is rather informal— try to maintain an encyclopedic tone instead of a more personal one. Examples of an informal tone are “What this means is…”; “gave rise to what is called…”. Get straight to the point and eliminate superfluous fluff.

3- Check your work: does every fact have an accompanying reference? I found a few examples of un-cited facts.



Comments Divided by Section:

1. Introductory Section:

To begin, I think that this introductory section does provide a well-supported overview of the current state of corruption in Romania. However, I find that the first sentence of this section is a bit weak, and could be improved by restructuring it to include more detail. The second sentence is also quite vague, I would’ve liked to see a few words detailing what the “significant improvements” are. Such a claim could be misconstrued as a pro-government action bias if not supported with a neutral source and examples.

Moreover, as we’ve discussed in class, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index may not be the most accurate international measure for corruption. There are a wealth of confounding factors and cultural differences that may make the CPI not the best source to support your claim. Perhaps contextualizing the corruption issue on the national level is a better way to approach this— you could do this, for example, by adding corruption perceptions data gathered specifically in Romania in recent years and complement it with quantitative data (if possible).

I really like how you’ve mentioned the cases of civil unrest in Romania that are linked to corruption, but I would add some sources to neutrally illustrate that such protests have proven links to corruption. What’s more, I think that if it is the case that these protests have caused the government to increase its anti-corruption measures, making this link would be a very valuable addition to this section.

2. Background and extent:

I really like the way that you have restructured the article to have the background section here; it is a more seamless transition into the article. However, I would change the title of this section to “Historical Background,” as “Background and extent” is unclear. Extent of what?

The first sentence in this section is missing the word “struggled” after “has”. I also think that for the sources (such as [6]) which link to very long reports, you need to clarify within the citation which subsection your citation is referring to. It’s difficult for a reader to be able to find the text you are citing otherwise. Also, there are a few facts within the first paragraph of this section that appear to lack references.

I see that you have edited sections of the second paragraph for neutrality— good job! The beginning of the third paragraph refers to “The report from the US Department of State”, but there is no previous mention of such a report. Reword for clarity. Also, the word “and” in this paragraph contains a link, which I assume is a mistake.

3. Anti-corruption measures:

How has the increase in the filing of cases against high-level politicians and businessmen had a substantial social impact? What consists of such an impact?

I would break up each year into its own paragraph (as it was in the original article)- it helps for the reader to delineate between the facts that are currently strewn together. This section, however, is very well cited!

CaroWesley (talk) 03:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

• “Out of those people is Prime Minister Victor Ponta, 5 ministers and 21 parliamentarians.” (the verb ‘is’ should be replaced with ‘are’)

• “The values of integrity, accountability and transparency have therefore proved to be efficient components in fighting corruption.” (there should be a comma after ‘accountability’)

Manuel Balan Review

This is in very good shape. You've clearly done a lot of work on this and it shows. I think the comments above from Rayleigh and Caroline are on point. Very good use of sources so far. Keep it going and correct the issues mentioned above. This is shaping up quite nicely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Manuelbalan (talk • contribs) 14:55, 26 March 2018 (UTC)