User:CTF83!/Iowa

Iowa

• Who is this? Prior divides Iowa into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils, topography, and river drainage.

Jean Prior spent 38 years as a research geologist for the Iowa DNR. She retired in 2003. Here is the announcement at http://www.iowadnr.gov/news/eco/03dec18eco.pdf . The local library has a copy of her book. I can dig up a page number for a better reference. --GrandpaDave (talk) 20:19, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Ok, thank you. I just need to get my butt motivated to buckle down and really work on the page. CTJF83Talk 04:39, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's a book reference for Prior. The article should probably not state "Prior divides Iowa....". Maybe something like this: Iowa is divided into eight landforms based on glaciation, soils, topography, and river drainage.

Tried to use Philosopher's recommendation of {{cite book...}} but spaces in the reference seem to be broken somehow. Not sure how to fix this. Anyway, the actual book reference is on pages 30-31 with the listed ISBN. Also don't think we should lose the URL map reference. It shows the map and is a state government site and helpful to show the landforms. Hope this helps some. (The book is interesting by the way. Have it checked out from the library. Other good stuff in there on Iowa geology.)

• Add File:Fort Madison monument.jpg next to drawing of fort in history section
• Almost immediately after achieving territorial status, a clamor arose for statehood.

• This is kind of addressed at --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 15:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Iowa#Civil War, 1861-1865 clean up all the places troops fought, kinda rambles on.

• This could probably be cut down to one paragraph. Also, some of the language used here is somewhat strange, like one-sixth being in their graves before Appomattox. This could probably be worded a bit more professionally, and we should use wording that doesn't assume that readers automatically know what things like Appomattox and Andersonville refer to. There is some stuff here that was probably true of all Northern states, like having POWs at Andersonville, supplying troops to the Army of the Potomac, and having several generals that came from the state. AlexiusHoratius 07:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• Iowa#Depression, World War II, and the rise of manufacturing, 1930-1985 shorten title?
• Des Moines is the largest city in Iowa and the state's political, economic, and cultural center. for economic and cultural center.
• Clean up some of the less notable attractions Iowa#Culture
  • Iowa City prides itself on being a cultural destination
    • A lot of clean up for this section
• Shorten list at Iowa#Manufacturing
  • Perhaps merge all of the subcategories into Manufacturing?
• Remove some of highways at Iowa#U.S. highways? Boring to read, with just facts about which cities the highways go through.
  • Note: FA Minnesota doesn't list any highways. FA Oklahoma lists only U.S. Route 66

• I'd leave the map, but otherwise rework the section to be similar to the one at GA South Dakota#Transportation. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 05:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe remove "Tall Corn State" from nicknames, as it is not official?

• I'd keep this one, but perhaps source it better. Perhaps one of these would be appropriate [1] (might be useful generally), [2], [3], [4] (New York Times article).

• Also, see my note (below) on the state song. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 15:47, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Paragraph form for Iowa#Law and government, separating state and federal government, as do MN and OK
• Clean up/put in paragraph form Iowa#Colleges and universities section, as we already have List of colleges and universities in Iowa

• Oklahoma#Education handles this really nicely. Also, perhaps the Iowa State photo that is currently in the Culture section could be moved to a sub-section on higher education. AlexiusHoratius 07:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• Merge Iowa#Sports to one section, instead of separate subsections for each sport

• Agree, it looks much better if this is handled in two or three paragraphs rather than six or seven tiny sub-sections. AlexiusHoratius 07:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• Iowa#Notable Iowans, noting that neither MN or OK have a list of notable people. At the very list, put in paragraph form, or remove altogether as we already have List of people from Iowa
• Clean up all references so they are better formatted <ref name=>{{cite web|url=|title=|publisher=|author=|accessdate=|}}</ref>

• Not to disagree, but {{cite book}} will likely also be useful (esp. for "online books" such as the Redbook). Here're the "full" templates - it's probably best to use as many parameters as you have information for: --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 10:16, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Cite web: {{cite web |first= |last= |author= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= |url= |archiveurl= |work= |publisher= |location= |trans_title= |page= |pages= |language= |format= |doi= |date= |month= |year= |archivedate= |quote= |accessdate=2009-06-26}}
• Cite book: {{cite book |last1= |first1= |authorlink1= |last2= |first2= |editor1-first= |editor1-last= |editor1-link= |others= |title= |trans_title= |url= |format= |accessdate= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year= |month= |origyear= |publisher= |location= |language= |isbn= |oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages= |trans_chapter= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}

• Perhaps note that all three of Iowa's constitutional conventions were held in Iowa City? --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 15:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• I'd prefer to merge Iowa#Civil rights into the History section as well, since it doesn't really belong in Iowa#Law and Government. These are historical facts, not questions of how the state is actually run. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 15:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• Add two state songs to the list. "The Song of Iowa" as the first official state song, the "Iowa Corn song" (which includes "that's where the tall corn grows") is Iowa's best known and most popular song. For purely personal interest, [5] has a (copyrighted, so we can't use it) MIDI version of the Iowa Corn song. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 15:47, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• Perhaps this is obvious, but I didn't see other comments about the issue in general, so I'll put it here - there needs to be a major push as far as referencing and cutting non-crucial unreferenced statements. I think the article as it is would have been OK at GAN two or three years ago, but is really lacking in this respect by what I've seen of today's standards. The only section that I would currently describe as well sourced is the one on Civil Rights; most of the rest need some work. Keep in mind that most GA reviewers want to see most statements that are not common knowledge have sources backing them up. When South Dakota got reviewed, there were a handful of statements that probably should have been referenced but weren't, and I think the reviewer let those slide because there were only two or three of them, and they weren't hugely counter-intuitive. But that was only two or three unsourced statements, and the Iowa article currently has dozens of these. Many of the needed references can be found online, but a great advantage is to have access to libraries in Iowa, and it looks like there are several editors who live in the state active here. You'll probably have better luck finding nearly all of the sources you'll need at the local (or better yet, university) library, rather than trolling the internet and trying to weed out garbage sources. (Book sources also won't go dead like online sources do.) AlexiusHoratius 07:59, 27 June 2009 (UTC)