Talk:Shiloh (Naylor novel)/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Schrodinger's cat is alive (talk · contribs) 15:46, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars etc.:
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Review

I'll try and curb my natural Britishness on spelling, grammar and punctuation, but if I suggest you do something that is wrong or awkward in US English, please let me know. It'll probably be around hyphens or comma use I suspect, but while I know some of the obvious US spellings, I don't know them all! I've made a few edits of my own of the smaller pieces, but please feel free to rv if you think I've made a mess, or committed some linguistic faux pas in Americanese.

Overall this is a good, well-structured and well-built article. All the usual pitfalls seem to have been avoided and this is close to a GA standard. There are a few hoops to jump through first, I'm afraid.

General points

*There are a few too many one / two line paragraphs – preferably try and expand, where possible, but if not, combine with other paragraphs to create something more substantial that keeps the flow of the article. This is true throughout the article.

I have combined several of the short paragraphs to allow for better flow. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Is there a reason for two different format of quotation boxes? Fine if there is, but it looks a little odd.~~

The green quote boxes serve as non-free fair-use text. They are well-written "sound bites" that capture the authors' opinions about the topic. The {{quote}} templates are blockquotes, long in-text quotations. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Background and publishing

"Having published over 100 books,[5] Naylor wrote a short story for a church magazine when she was 16 years old and a book in her early 30s." A bit clunky – I think it could be phrased a little better.

Plot summary

Good summary: no issues.

Autobiographical elements

~~"Trudy Madden, who with her husband adopted the abused dog Naylor saw,[nb 2] said in a 1997 interview…" This seems a bit clunky: see if you can re-work the sentence somehow.~~

Reworded. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Style

'Shiloh has a "compacted time-frame, bounded by the past-tense opening and closing".' I think a source straight after the quotation would be beneficial (I know it'll be the same one as later in the paragraph, but it just keeps it tighter, especially if someone edits something else into the paragraph in the future)

Done. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"In Marty's captivating first-person narrative…" This needs dealing with: as it stands it goes against the WP:NPOV. If it's from the source, then phrase the sentence to say that so: if it isn't then drop "captivating".

I've rephrased the sentence by quoting the source. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Shiloh is a Bildungsroman and adventure novel.[29]" Two problems here: firstly it is a bit too absolute for my liking. Try framing it slightly differently, along the lines: "Journalist Cecelia Goodnow noted that …." I see from the source she doesn't actually use the term "Bildungsroman", so maybe [[Bildungsroman|coming-of-age]] would be a better alternative?

I've completed your first suggestion but disagree with the second. The source uses uses "coming-of-term adventure story". "Coming-of-age" is synonymous with "Bildungsroman", so I do not believe "Bildungsroman" is inaccurate paraphrase of the source. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Themes

I do have a coupe of issues with this section, which will require a little bit of work, but should not be too onerous. It relates to the point above and has to do with the framing of many of your points. They are all good and well supported, but you write them as absolute statements and it seems as if you are putting forward your own thoughts. (I know you're not, but that's just how it comes across) Try sitting the absolute concepts within a cradle, which will protect accusations of WP:NPOV and of readers disagreeing with what's there. What I mean by this is by doing what is in the point above: "(Journalist / academic / reviewer / social commentator / shock jock etc) (noted, opined, commented on, observed etc) Judd's inability to love and cherish…" If you could cover the points in the Themes section along these lines, I'd feel a lot happier.

I have framed the points to reflect clearly that the authors of the secondary sources have made those assertions. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reception

Good section: no issues here

Honors

"the Shiloh trilogy placed number seven…" This may be an AmEng thing, so tell me if it is, but this doesn't read right to me. Perhaps "the Shiloh trilogy was placed at number seven…" or "the Shiloh trilogy achieved seventh place …" However, if it is OK in American English, then leave it in.

Reworded to "placed at number seven", which sounds better to my ears. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sequels

Good section: no issues here

Adaptions

~~Again, it may be an American thing, but is "Adaptions" a word? We use "adaptations", but choose whichever is OK on your side of the Atlantic!~~

Not an American thing. That is an embarrassing typo that remained in the article for too long. I have corrected the error. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good section: no other issues here

References

A spot check on this showed no issues on the validity of the sources.

There is some over-linking in the footnotes: it's only the first reference that should be linked, so could you slim down on the blue? (Reader Teacher, NY Times, Washington Post all stand out, but there are others) I don't mind if you have a link in the main body and in the footnotes, but only one in the footnotes please.

I don't believe linking only the first reference in the "Footnotes" section is helpful. Readers, when they click on a source footnote, will not be aided in a review of the source's Wikipedia article. They must either find the first appearance of that work or publisher in the footnotes or type the name into the search bar. Second, it is inefficient to confine the linking to only the first appearance. Whenever the references are rearranged in the article, the links would have to be readjusted every time. I'd prefer to maintain the same level of linking to ensure that readers can read about the works or publishers of the pieces with ease. Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All in all a good article overall – if you can sort this lot out I'll have no hesitation in passing. - SchroCat (^ • @) 20:21, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these detailed comments. Cunard (talk) 21:08, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your suggestions have helped me improve the flow of the article. Thank you very much! Cunard (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing all these - and I think it looks much better now too. I've asked a third party for comments on the two outstanding points (Bildungsroman and the footnote linking) as I'm not 100% sure on the two points. My thoughts are that Bildungsroman should be part of a piped link as it's not in the source, but your point also has some appeal. As for the linking, you really do have my support on this as I also think that there should be more links in the section: sadly all the reviewers for my articles have forced me to remove the links. Still - we'll await the comments on these points from an excellent editor with a number of GA articles under their belt. As soon as they have spoken then we're pretty much at the GA level. - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Third opinion

In the case of "Bildungsroman", I think this is just a case of defaulting to correct literary terminology i.e. if Psycho is referred to as a scary/slasher film for instance, its official genre would be "horror" so to speak, so it would be ok to default to that. Similarly it is probably ok to default to "Bildungsroman" from "coming of age", provided their isn't contention over the fact it's a coming-of-age novel.
As for the overlinking, WP:REPEATLINK basically says ideally we should only link once in the article so I suppose technically that should apply to the references too. That said I have sympathy for Cunard's stance in this capacity since the guidelines also state ...if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, and at the first occurrence after the lead, but the "first occurrence" from which perspective? The article's or the reader's? After all, readers are unlikely to read through the references section, they are most likely to click on a citation and go straight to the reference, so in that sense whichever citation you first go to can be the "first occurrence" from the reader's perspective, which can be any one of them in theory. So there is essentially two ways of looking at it in the context of references.

It looks like a decent article, I don't think the linking issue is a serious enough concern to hold back its GA pass, especially since the guidelines aren't explicitly clear in this regard.. Betty Logan (talk) 10:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusion

In the light of the comments above - and because I prefer to have more than less links in the references - I'm going to pass this as a GA. Congratulations - a well written article covering all the main points, nicely balanced and well sourced. - SchroCat (^ • @) 10:46, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Schrodinger's cat is alive and Betty Logan, for reviewing the article. Cunard (talk) 00:45, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]