User talk:Michael Szpik/sandbox

Peer Review

1. Historical Overview Section: I think your instinct was correct on your note about the page becoming rather expansive. The intro feels disconnected from the topic and if you could provide the most relevant parts in a more concise and corruption-oriented way this would be a much stronger and relevant section. I like your idea with providing the links, perhaps this could be done with the “see topic article” sort of formatting. Additionally, I would reduce the academic feel of the article as it reads as if there is an argument being made. Reducing biased language, although probably correct, would surely do the trick.

2. Dos Santos Section: When you do write the introductory paragraph, it would probably be best if it were short and relating the material to corruption. Sort of piggy backing on the previous comment, keeping a corruption focus would keep the flow smooth.

3. The oil sector and political sector look good. Looking at the original article, there is some garbage in the middle section that you could probably clean out and repurpose. Particularly the political corruption sections in the original. Not sure if this was really in your plan but it would render the original a bit redundant in areas. 4. You could probably combine the bureaucratic, judicial, and political sections all under a state corruption sort of header. This may help with flow.

5. You can probably bring the media, petty, and financial sectors under the “Corruption in The Broader Economy” section to buff it out and keep the headings as subheadings as to reduce major headings but also keep them well indexed and themed so the article will read smoothly but still be navigable as it is currently.

6. In the international relations section this feels somewhat like the historical overview where at times it seems to be less connected to corruption and instead to other subjects. It is informative and I see where the reasoning behind including it comes from in guiding the reader, but I would argue that strategy is more academic and less neutral. Of course, the current contextual areas are necessary but perhaps cutting down these into less extensive contexts (with links out to possible main articles) will service the article better.

7. The indices feel out of place this late in the article but I am struggling to find a more suitable location that serves to provide context without cutting into the overview. This is an area that could probably go either way to be honest. Otherwise the section is strong. 8. The international condemnation section is strong. Lots of figures and good studies.

9. The anti-corruption section is also quite strong but the citation is missing.

10. Other thoughts: the article, as you noted, draws upon a fair amount of media sources. Do you think it would be possible to find stronger sources to corroborate these? There are of course academic sources in your article already and those sections are generally stronger. On a more general scale the formatting could be standardized (I know this was just a draft). Otherwise there are some headings that aren’t developed. The only worry I have is that your approach is rather academic and while your writing is awesome, the worry would be that you are maybe tackling too many topics about Angola as a result of the depth of corruption which opens your article up to significant contextualization of corruption and less focus on the corruption itself. Overall, it’s a well written piece and you’ve clearly put quite a bit of effort into really diving into the subject. An excellent draft and will likely be pretty straightforward to complete once the balance of context and corruption is achieved. :) ColinHarkins1 (talk) 18:20, 25 March 2018 (UTC)Colin Harkins

Peer Review #2

1. The first paragraph does not seem complete and is not maintaining complete neutrality (the phrasing makes it seem as a point of view rather than factual information). In terms of the role of the Dos Santos regime that is mentioned, this should perhaps instead be written as a scholars point of view, if academics have indeed written about him and said that he has operated in this way. This would make the article more neutral in nature.

2. The second paragraph ("The current state of Angola results from...) is missing citations. The third paragraph also quotes "systematic looting of state assets" without citing the source.

3. I'm not sure whether the second paragraph needs to be included in the introduction, since you later include a Historical Context Section and mention the same information.

4. If you include redirects in your Historical Context Section, I think you can then keep it relatively concise (a few paragraphs as you mentioned, and it wouldn't necessarily need sub-headings) as to avoid your concerns about making the article too long.

5. The Notable Actors section should maybe be before the state capture and Dos Santos regime, since that Dos Santos is later mentioned as a notable actor. Also, be careful about making these two parts redundant or repetitive when talking about the regime and then also talking about Dos Santos.

6. When describing the different types of corruption, there seems to be some overlap within sections – Corruption in the Broader Economy is mentioned, and then later Financial Sector Corruption is another section. I’m not sure what differentiates the Broader Economy from the Financial Sector. I think if you’re worried the page is becoming too long (as you mentioned) Corruption in the Broader Economy can be removed since that it does not currently have much details.

7. Petty Corruption also repeats similar info found under Bureaucratic Corruption regarding Bribes as a form of corruption

8. I'm not sure how you will integrate the section of "Aid" into the article's discussion of Corruption in Angola. Are other countries providing aid in this regard? If this remains unclear, it could be a section to be removed from the article (if you're worried that it is too expansive)

8. The International Condemnation and Indices sections could both benefit from updated information, a lot of the details include data or facts that are over a decade old. For instance, the Transparency International data is from 2006, although there is information as recent as 2017 on Angola’s Corruption score.

9. The "Contemporary Anti-Corruption Efforts" provides a lot of good detail and information. However, is this structured as an introduction to

10. What will be covered under "Media, Civil Society and Resistance?"

11. Your article would definitely benefit from a stronger use of academic sources from scholars on the topic - although you make use of a lot of sources, many of them seem to come from newspapers.

Naomi alyssa (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2018 (UTC)Naomi Santesteban Naomi alyssa (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Manuel Balan Review

This is off to a very good start, although there are many sections which are very much on outline mode so far. I generally agree with the comments above. A couple of important issues to keep in mind: use of sources: try to rely, as much as possible, on academic peer review sources. I know there may not be many, but look for them. approach: you may be spreading yourself too thin by trying to cover so many different issues. perhaps choose a subsection and try to go more in depth on those issues — Preceding unsigned comment added by Manuelbalan (talk • contribs) 15:41, 26 March 2018 (UTC)