Talk:Scott Zolak/GA1

GA Review

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I'll be reviewing this candidate for Good Article status. Feel free to comment here or on my talk page. Strikehold (talk) 11:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Seems silly to people well acquainted with the sport to link things like interception and touchdown, but for an unfamiliar reader it might be important. I added links for the first uses of some technical terms like that.

Some of the paragraphs tend to be on the long side, sometimes it can make reading difficult.

There were some instances of things like "he would go on to throw", "he went on to throw", or "he ended up throwing". In almost all of these it is probably better to just say: "he threw". I changed these where I saw them.

You can probably split this section into two separate ones: one for early life and high school, and one for college. Not mandatory, but they are both fairly substantial.

The first sentence talks about him going to high school. Then the next few about his time before H.S. Then the next goes back to H.S. and brings his father up again. I recommend re-ordering these sentences into chronological order, starting with a "Zolak was born on [date] in [place]..." then go from there. The first sentence about his father being the athletic director and the one about him being a coach can be combined (these positions are often the same person at high schools and small colleges).

In the next sentence, "basketball" is used twice. It can probably be reworded to eliminate this redundancy.

"In his collegiate career, Zolak fifth in school history in pass completions with 270, seventh in yards with 3,124 yards, ranked second in school history with 2,589 yards passing in a season, and was named Atlantic Coast Conference Offensive Player of the Week four times."

This sentence is phrased a little awkwardly (and is missing a word, but I thought I'd let you rephrase it). It also uses "collegiate" soon after the same term in the previous sentence. Oh, also it is slightly ambiguous that these were his ranking at the time of his graduation. Since then, most passing records have been smashed by Scott Milanovich, and others have shifted Zolak down in a few categories.

The first two paragraphs are really long. Can you break into smaller paragraphs?

"Third string quarterback" should be "third-string quarterback", and "one year contract" should be "one-year contract". Generally speaking, when two words act as a single adjective before a noun, they should be joined by a hyphen, unless the first one ends in -ly. I fixed the instances I saw.

"In 1993, the Patriots and new head coach Bill Parcells were looking to beef up the quarterback spot on their roster."

[After 1993] "As Secules was no longer with the team, Zolak was set as Bledsoe's backup as the season began."

"While he appeared set to keep his backup job heading into training camp, he faced tough competition from Jay Barker, and while Zolak welcomed the challenge, his status as the backup quarterback began to seem hazy."

What does this mean? Specifically, how was his status starting to seem hazy? To me, this sentence appears to contradict itself, saying at first that his job is safe, but then that his job was in doubt. Is it saying that Barker performed better than people thought he would? Can you clarify?

"By the end of training camp, Barker had been cut, and Zolak's job was safe. He took the role of emergency quarterback throughout the 1996 season, with Bledsoe taking nearly all the snaps and Tom Tupa serving as the backup."

This is unclear to me. I thought Zolak secured his job as the second stringer? But then it seems that he was an emergency QB, with Tupa as the second stringer?

Done with all points. To clarify the last point, Tupa was signed as the punter, yet performed the duties of the backup quarterback as well (i.e. holding on field goals).

I'll take a look and answer all your concerns sometime this weekend (I've got an arbcom case to write and another GA review to finish, so it may be a few days) Wizardman 21:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good now, so I'm going to pass it. Nice work, congratulations. Strikehold (talk) 15:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]