Talk:February Shadows/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sadads (talk) 19:28, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I am User:Sadads and I will be reviewing your article per the GA criteria. Below is an outline which I will use to check off criteria that are covered/completed. I and only I can check it off. Below the criteria section I will make comments about what I think is right/wrong with the article. I do not automatically fail GA articles unless they have too substantial gaps in content. Please be patient, the coming week I have several major things happening in my real life (including a number of major papers/projects), but I wanted to take this article, it sounds interesting.

A little information on myself: I am a student of History and Literature, working on my BA in both subjects. I am also an active participant in WP:Novels and a coordinator for several task forces there. I have experience in Modern literature and History, though my focus is generally on modern African literature and Early modern history. I hope I can bring this experience to my review. If at any time you wish to request another reviewer, I totally understand, however I do not foresee that need. If I am negligent for any reason please contact me on my talk page.

I noticed this article is part of an educational assignment. I will try my best to guide you through any changes that ought to be made. Please note, however that I too am a student taking finals so that this review may not be complete until the first week of May. As I mention above feel free to request another reviewer.

Checklist

Well-written:

(a)

Donethe prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct; and

(b)

Doneit complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation.

Factually accurate and verifiable:

(a)it provides references to all sources of information in the section(s) dedicated to the attribution of these sources according to the guide to layout;

(b) it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines; and

(c)it contains no original research.

Broad in its coverage:

(a)it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and

(b)✗ Failit stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

DoneNeutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias.
DoneStable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
Illustrated, if possible, by images:

(a)

Doneimages are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

(b)

Doneimages are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Note:If I fail something, that just means it needs to be worked on, not that it automatically fails the review.

References

First things first. You do not need to include a full citation in the ref template notes if you are going to include it in the bibliography. Unlike Chicago style, you don't need to give the full reference in a note: all the citation information is on the same page. You can just say "Author Page#" on all of them. Sadads (talk) 19:40, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Content

I moved the about the author section to a main article. The beauty of Wikipedia is that you can have an article about everything, as long as it is notable. Please make sure that I am not butchering your research. I also moved the background before the plot because it is background, no? I put Reichert's learning of the events in as you wrote it but as a follow up to the history section.

In the intro what does "historically based but fictional novel" mean? Isn't that just a historical fiction novel?

Good start. Will continue working on the article with you. Sadads (talk) 20:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest fully integrating the character section into the plot. The list, as it is now, adds no meaningful content to the article, and seems to focus on a bunch of secondary characters. Sadads (talk) 20:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The plot section is a little lengthy and ought to be cut down some. Cut as much as you can without changing the meaningful content, or cut the content that doesn't effect the interpretations presented in the themes and style section, understanding of the story or otherwise meaningful or mentioned things in the scholarship. Sadads (talk) 20:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The style section is pretty good, am going to look at your sources esp. Encyclopedia Brittanica. Brittanica doesn't always do a very good job working with fiction. Sadads (talk) 21:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Themes section

So the themes section seems to have a lot of WP:Original Research type stuff in it. I am not sure what you are doing, but we could really afford to tone down the interpretive language in the following phrases, find sources which explicitly use these examples and/or remove citations for the novel to decrease worry:

"Family, or lack thereof, remains important throughout both Hilde's childhood and adulthood. Hilde's childhood is laden with abuse and patriarchal superiority. Her father's harmful actions and her mother's unwillingness to ask her brothers to do housework represent this.[8]"
"Though her married life was much better than her childhood there was still an aspect of inhibition in Hilde's ability to function as a normal family member. She constantly felt as if her husband and her daughter were purposefully leaving her out of conversations because she was less educated than they were and Hilde resented the exclusion.[11]"

Sadads (talk) 21:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Other Authors section

This section appears to be chock full of WP:Original Research. Unless a reviewer explicitly compares Reichert to these other authors, we as Wikipedia writers don't have the liberty to make these claims, even if they could very well be made. Either find a review which explicitly states that she writes like them, or leave it out. Sadads (talk) 21:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Language

The language has some problems. I am going to recommend the article to a copy editor who I have worked with before and will do as much as I can. Sadads (talk) 20:44, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed enough, may be a few small things, but overall this is much easier to read. Thank you dtgriffith!!! Sadads (talk) 02:09, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikicode

FYI, external links don't need a | between the link and the title that supplements the link. For more information check out Wikipedia:External_links#How_to_link for more info. Sadads (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sadads, I'm the instructor in this course, and I was looking through this. I've also talked with one of the authors of the reviews that the editor cites, and we both have issues with several things about the article. I've corrected some of them in the lead (ER is Austrian not German). I've also tweaked some of the lead to better represent the book. Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:55, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

I would really suggest expanding the number of reviews which you use for the article: I noticed that you use none from newspapers and sources like http://www.malca.org/ta/v2/2-06krick.pdf list a number which you have not touched. Also their is a pretty full book review at a book at google books. I will bow to your own experience with the scholarship, but it seems like you don't reference very often, even though you have a lot of sources. Again this makes me wonder if you are doing Original Research or not. I know I am harping on this, but it is a safeguard within Wikipedia to guarantee quality in articles. Sadads (talk) 21:59, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Final finding

I am failing this article, per the lack of response to the review. If the Auntieruth or her students would like to reopen per the suggestions left on the talk page, we can do so. Sadads (talk) 16:24, 16 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]