User talk:Tom.wiki497/sandbox

Peer Review by Sophie noel

Hi Tom, Here are some notes about your article:

The first thing I noticed is that you don’t have a lead. It confused me a little that you started off right away with '20th century'. I think you should attempt to define lobbying and explain why it is has become controversial.

I think from there you should go into 'the timeline of lobby policy'. I think this would give the reader a good overview of lobby history and where the US stands today.

Next, I think you should discuss the causes and efforts behind lobbying. It would be interesting to see some arguments as to why lobbying is good and why it could be detrimental.

I think 'notable cases' would come after. I definitely think this is an important section and I that you should add the tobacco industry to it. The stronger the examples, the better. Regarding the 20th and 21st century sections, I think you should either fuse them into the timeline as you suggested, or into the lead/introduction and how lobbying came to be.

It could be beneficial to include a section of prominent lobbyists.

Other recs: Overall I think you need to reword some of your sentences. For example, when you wrote "Lobbyists such as Cassidy became millionaires while issues multiplied, and other practitioners became similarly wealthy" I had forgotten who Cassidy was, and did not understand what you meant by issues multiplied. Were the issues good for lobbyists or did they stem from lobbyists? A little more clarification would be good!

You quoted a lot of articles and I don’t think it is necessary or flows very well. 'Money spent on lobbying increased from "tens of millions to billions a year," by one estimate.' I think you should find some hard data on this or word it differently. It doesn't sound very convincing.

'Before the mid 1970s, it was rare that a congressperson upon retirement would work for a lobbying firm and when it did occasionally happen, it "made eyebrows rise".'Again, you can easily reword this to not include the quotes. i.e. "when it did occasionally happen, people grew suspicious."

What do you mean when you say "a 1994 change in the control of the House contributed to a change"? I think this needs rewording and greater clarification. I think your 'related political trends of the 20th Century' section is a little unclear and out of place. You should try and tie it back to lobbying, but I'm not sure how the information is relevant at all.

Your sources seem for the most part unbiased and reliable. I would definitely continue to research, though, and seek out more peer-reviewed sources. This topic is all-encompassing and you've done a great job of pointing out what needs to be included.

Peer Review by Shannon Timmins

So far this article looks pretty good. I’m assuming you’re planning on keeping the lead and Beginnings section from the original article. If you are, make sure to add some more sources into the lead section, since it doesn’t have any citations currently.

In the 20th century section, my main note is that I find it a little difficult to connect the first two points listed under “Related Political Trends of the 20th Century”. It isn’t clear how they are related to lobbying, and they don’t add very much to the article. I have the same problem with the point about Partisanship; I’m not sure how it relates. It would be great if you could explicitly say how they are connected, but if not I would consider just removing them altogether.

The Complexity, Earmarks and Staffers points were all good points, and it was clear how they were relevant. One small problem I had with the Complexity point was when it states “this activity” was hard to monitor, I wasn't sure what activity they’re referring to, so make sure to clarify that.

In the 21st Century section, I thought the first paragraph was good (although there’s part of the first sentence that seems to be bolded for no reason - I’m guessing it’s just a formatting error). The second paragraph is okay too, but the first and second sentences seem to say the same thing. You could remove the first sentence without removing any real information. Also, this paragraph has no citations in it. This might just be from copying the original article into the sandbox for editing, but make sure when publishing the new version that all the sources are linked. My final note on this section is to either explain the “revolving door” briefly, or link to the wikipedia page.

In terms of organization, I like that you have the timeline as a separate section, and I don't think it needs to be merged into the other sections. It gives a good overview of the history, and might be something nice to have at the beginning of the article, rather than the end.

My final (minor) note is to make sure you actually link to the lobbying wiki page at the beginning of the article.

Overall, you did a good job keeping the article neutral and unbiased, and your addition of the timeline is very useful. Most of your article is really well sourced. I think that adding examples is a great idea, and of the ones you have listed I think the United Fruit Company and the pharmaceutical industry are two very important examples. The article still needs some work, but is off to a good start. Shannontimmins (talk) 03:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Manuel Balan Review

This is a good start, but the draft needs significant work. I agree with the comments above. In particular, please work on the following issues: - Lead: add or revise - Sources: you need to incorporate more academic sources - Quotations are too pervasive - Writing needs some work here too Perhaps think about focusing on fewer issues but go more in depth, avoiding stretching yourself a bit too thin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Manuelbalan (talk • contribs) 15:03, 26 March 2018 (UTC)