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Sacred Cod of Massachusetts

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I am looking at finaly pushing it to GA status, maybe even FA eventually.

Thanks, Found5dollar (talk) 02:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments: Great subject for an article, one of those wonderfully weird articles. I'll make some copyedits as I read through, hopefully they'll be inoffensive. Looks fairly close to GA quality at this point, but needs a little polishing up.
Lead
  • Might want to note when the first cod originated.
  • Given the size of the article, I'd suggest a two paragraph lead.
Background
  • "Cod has a long history in Massachusetts and is entwined with many of the states early events and people. Cod is abundant..." Try to avoid starting consecutive sentences with the same word like this.
  • "Fishing for the Atlantic Cod, Gadus morhua, was the key industry for much of coastal Massachusetts." When was this the case? Might want to add a date range.
  • "However, today, because of advances in fishing since the Industrial Revolution, the Atlantic Cod is now considered a Vulnerable species and is in danger of becoming commercially extinct." Try to avoid saying "today" & "now", best to put "as of 19XX" or "since 19XX".
  • Instead of saying "X can be seen in Y", I'd suggest "Y demonstrates X".
  • My first impression is that you might be a bit heavy on background here.
  • Yeah. I see what you are saying. I'm trying to pare it down to 2 paragraphs, one about the history of the fish in Massachusetts, the other about Cod as a symbol in New England
Description
  • "In 1894 the Sacred Cod was painted by Walter M. Brackett in a lifelike style." Was it painted before then?
  • honestly I can't tell. The sources just say it was painted. No idea if it was raw wood before or if it was painted over. I am just going to leave this sentence as is because of that.--Found5dollar (talk) 19:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "John Welch, from Green lane in West Boston was the carver" I'm not sure we need his home address here :)
  • "which seems an unlikey age to carve a nearly 5 foot long fish." So you're saying that he likely carved the second Sacred Cod?
History
  • (forgot to do this section earlier)
  • "It has been suggested that this cod was a gift from Judge Samuel Sewall, best known as the judge who presided over the Salem witch trials, but nowhere in his estate is this gift mentioned." Who suggested this?
  • "This cod hung in the building until a fire in 1747.[14] Along with the cod, this fire destroyed records, books and paintings owned by the state, and private business who used the cellars of the building as storage lost large amounts of wines and other liquors." This could probably be combined into one sentence.
  • "In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony of the Old State House. Afterwards, the crowd that had assembled to listen, tore down and burned the lion and the unicorn as an act in defiance of British rule." Again, could easily make this one sentence.
    done --Found5dollar (talk) 20:02, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Consider adding a topic sentence to the second paragraph of this section, I was confused where you were going with it until the end.
  • Try to tie more sentences explicitly to the cod. One way would be to take "The new Massachusetts State House, designed by Charles Bulfinch, was completed on January 11, 1798." and combine it with the next, and possibly remove the bit about Bulfinch.
  • done
Cod-napping
  • I think the first paragraph here could be tightened up a bit, try to think of ways to say the same thing in less sentences.
  • Might want to note that the crimson and the lampoon are Harvard student papers. Also, remember to italicize the names of publications.
  • Probably shouldn't link common terms, like "wire cutters" or "ultimatum".
  • "The theft was considered a major one" By whom?
  • "Two days after the Sacred Cod was stolen, the Harvard University Police Department received an anonymous phone call informing them on how to get the Sacred Cod back. This led to the Harvard University Police following a car without a license plate in West Roxbury." Might want to explain more, did the call tell them where to find the car in Roxbury?
  • "two men, dressed in collared shirts with the collars turned up and hats pulled down, jumped out of the car" Not sure we need the details of their wardrobe :)
  • This section was riveting, a really engrossing read.
Other State House symbols
  • Might want to switch the order of these two paragraphs.
  • Generally, try to be careful about consistency with the serial comma and commas after date expressions (i.e. "In 1948, X happened" vs. "In 1948 X happened") Also, I recommend the prose exercises at User:Tony1. Try to make sure that references immediately follow punctuation X happened.<ref name=X/> instead of X happened. <ref name=X/>. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ugh, the flu is terrible, I had a bad case earlier this year. Let me know if you have any questions/want another read through. Like I said, it's not that far from good article standards. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:33, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks. I'm fighting my way through it, the aching joints is the worst part. Hopefully I can polish the article up so that a GA review will go smoothly. I'll let you know when I finish responding to your comments as another quick read through by a different person always helps.--Found5dollar (talk) 18:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Round two
Lead
  • Looks pretty good, I'd suggest you add a sentence mentioning the importance of the cod industry to the state though.
Background
  • "In the early history of the United States, cod was the one of the first goods used for trade with dried cod being traded for precious metals with Europe and for rum and molasses from the West Indies." I'd suggest breaking this up with some punctuation, maybe a semicolon.
  • Looks like a contradiction here: "The fish is abundant in the waters surrounding Massachusetts," then later in the paragraph "the Atlantic Cod's conservation status was changed to Vulnerable species in 1996".
  • I have lingering doubts about the relevance of much of the second paragraph, but perhaps you should get a second opinion.
Description
  • "From its inception the fish has symbolized the importance of the fishing industry to Massachusetts." I'd put this earlier in the section.
  • " News articles sometimes state that the fish is turned to face whichever political party in power,[13] but nowhere in the official history of the symbol is this tradition ever recorded.[14]" There's quite the time difference between the refs cited in 13 and 14, might want to note that.
History
  • "although according to a Massachusetts House of Representatives report published in 1895 nowhere in his estate is this gift mentioned." This reads kinda wordy to me, can you think of a good way to rephrase?
  • "During the same time period that the carving was being recreated" Again, kind of a wordy way of saying it, maybe "While" instead of "During the same time period".
  • I don't recall if I mentioned it before, but careful about commas "In 1776, the Declaration of Independence..." vs "In 1894 the Sacred Cod".
  • I'd combine the third and fourth paragraphs in this section.
  • "It hung in the House chambers only being taken down twice due to renovations of the room, " Need some more punctuation here.
  • "three man committee" need a hyphen here.
Cod-napping
  • You switch between Harvard Lampoon, The Lampoon and Lampoon here (ditto for Crimson).
  • "Lampoon staff raided The Crimson's offices and eventually ended up kidnapping J.M. Boyd" This made me laugh, such wacky hijinks from those Harvard students :)
  • "They hid the cod in a flower box that they had brought and left the State House with it." Not sure if you can do anything here, but wasn't the cod five feet long? I'm confused as to how they smuggled it out without raising alarm.
  • I found a few things about people finding it suspicious in hindsight, but apparently no one thought anything of them walking through the halls with such a giant box. Things would be very different if it happened today.--Found5dollar (talk) 23:04, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, did poor Mr. Boyd ever get released?
  • "The cod was not wrapped in the municipal flag as threatened." Source?
Post Cod-napping
  • "Herter passed the request along to the Massachusetts State Senate, where another fish emblem is displayed." I don't follow, what's the significance of this?
References
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