User talk:Peter3

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[edit] re Laurentian

My concern was more with the lay reader. I came to the article as a lay reader, saw the unfamiliar term Laurentian, looked it up, and was not enlightened, being left with the distinct possibility that the lakes are located in the Laurentian Craton, which they are not.

I do see the problem with a North American-centric use of "great lakes" by themselves. I don't feel strongly about the use of the term Laurentian so it's OK by me to restore it. But I don't see why the sentence "The Laurentian Great Lakes are a chain of freshwater lakes located in eastern North America, on the Canada-United States border." doesn't pretty much place them in context.

How about "The Laurentian Great Lakes are a chain of freshwater lakes located in eastern North America, on the Canada-United States border, draining into the St Lawrence River." (If draining is the right word, I am no geographer.)

On the other hand Laurentian is the correct technical term as you point out and is used by scientists to designate the lakes. Hmm. We want to use the correct term but at the same time recognize that we are a general encyclopedia and that our typical reader might be (say) a high school student... I don't know the best solution and will go with what you decide. Herostratus (talk) 06:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)