Wikibooks:Featured books/Nominations/Addition/General Chemistry

General Chemistry
A thorough but gradual introduction to chemistry. It spans many topics and has pictures, diagrams, and examples. Very useful book, for such a daunting topic. NipplesMeCool (talk) 19:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * [[Image:Symbol neutral vote.svg|15px]] Neutral A random sampling of pages shows that some pages are pretty stubby, although in their defense they are marked with so it's not a surprise. There are some instances where formatting seems a little bit off to me, especially some of the mathematical equations. I also saw a few scattered redlinks for "Answers To..." pages. This book is definitely in decent condition, I'm just not ready yet to mark it "featured". Maybe somebody else can convince me. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 23:21, 17 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok, the only red link I could find was in Gas Laws, and I just fixed it. In defense of the "stubby" pages, I think they are few and far between.  And can you be more specific about the formatting that "seems a little off"?  I would fix it if I knew there were any problems.  NipplesMeCool (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, it's good to take me to task! I've fixed a few things already, but here are some more details:
 * See General Chemistry/Stoichiometry for an example. Some of the tables don't have borders and look weird and smashed together. Also, there is an almost random decision whether equations are centered or not. I personally prefer equations not be centered (and that they make good use of a labeling system like ) but that's just a personal preference. Either way, they should be consistent.
 * Some chapters (especially the group of chapters on Quantum Mechanics) seem to all be relatively short. Also, a lot of such pages, even pages marked consist of short blocks of text with no images and nothing to break up the monotony of the blocks.
 * Pages like General Chemistry/Balancing Equations are very bland and poorly formatted. The examples could be set apart from the text using something like, or they could use a table to keep the discussions together on the left and the equations together on right.
 * Pages really need to be broken up so they don't look like huge "blocks of text". Consider templates like or  to give people additional information that's tangential to the main text. Consider things like  or  to make important points pop out at the user, and draw attention to various caveats.
 * Here's what I'll do: I'll pick page and see what improvements I can make to it today only. I'll work on General Chemistry/Gases, make a few changes, and see how much I can improve it in one day. From that, we can find an expediant way to update the rest of the book to be featured quality. --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Whiteknight. I'll get started on the pages you mentioned.  I see what you mean about the formatting and blandness, but these are superficial issues, so I'm hoping you'll change your vote once they are corrected. NipplesMeCool (talk) 17:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem, I do want to help. Take a look now at General Chemistry/Gases. It's not perfect, but shows some really easy fixes to make the book look better. Add in some images (easy to find at Commons) of related topics and people. Add links here and there. I've also used a few of the other templates I mentioned and stole borrowed some related text from Wikipedia. Makes a huge difference! --Whiteknight (Page) (Talk) 17:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol neutral vote.svg|15px]] Neutral The book needs some copy editing. Some of the prepositions seem awkward (lots of "composed from" when "composed of" would be a more natural choice).  I do not dispute the technical merits of the book - I just think it needs a little wordsmithing.  This book could also benefit from some navigational aids (i.e., "next" and "previous" links).  I think it could be featured very soon though. --Jomegat (talk) 04:19, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing that out, Jomegat. You should know that most of the typos and nonsense are concentrated in the first few pages because they focus on easy topics that attract a lot of random contributions from less knowledgeable writers.  Nevertheless, I have gotten through the first four units:  I just finished proofreading, adding navigational aids, and reformatting, up to "Aqueous Solutions".  I may have missed some things, but the quality should be much improved.  I'll keep working to improve the remaining pages, but my vacation is almost over (what kind of nut spends his vacation frivolously editing a Wikibook? :-) so eventually others will have to help out. NipplesMeCool (talk) 04:29, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What kind of nut writes Wikibooks during vacation? heh heh - pretty much all of us do, I guess! I'll take another look at the Chem book.  Thanks for nominating it (and for working on it). --Jomegat (talk) 02:40, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment Update:  I know it's been a while, but I finally finished:  I have gone through every page and copy edited, added navigational aids, inserted pictures and textbox templates, and even rewritten some sections. The equations now use consistent style (centered, one-line for a single equation; left-right table for multiple equations). I have tried to lengthen some of the shorter pages and break up some the the "blocks of text". Also, for what it's worth, I've revamped the periodic table and given it a printer-friendly. There is also a printable version of the book. -- Mr. NMC (talk ) 04:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Symbol support vote.svg|15px]] Support - Well done NMC. General Chemistry has my vote. --Jomegat (talk) 04:32, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much Jomegat, but I'm going to be honest and point out that there's still much room for improvement. If I were totally impartial, my vote would be "neutral".  I nominated this book because I had invested time and effort into it, but I have since lost interest.  Now that I no long feel personally involved, I can say that this book is OK but not great.  Realistically, this book could never be used in a classroom, and I think it would probably be confusing from time to time.  You and Whiteknight were both very helpful, thanks.  However, this book is not very helpful.  Sorry. I posted a more specific critique on the talk page.-- NipplesMeCool (talk) 01:23, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Support While there is work that could be done, but I think it meets the criteria. Perhaps more could be added, but it seems like a good book to me. Thenub314 (talk) 17:54, 2 May 2010 (UTC)