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The Lord of the Rings

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Second Peer Review: Since the last PR four months ago this article has gone through numerous changes. All suggestions from that PR have been made myself and other articles. In addition I have made many other other changes to the article to make it closer to a FA article. I have added more references as well as removing unessasary fair-use images and adding fair-use rationale for those that remain. I have also made changes to the order of the sections for better flow and copyeditted the parts of the article than need it. More suggestions on how to improve this article in order to work it up to FA suggest are appricated. SorryGuy 00:37, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, I see a lot of problems with the article, but I'm going to make just my more broad critical comments right now.
    • {{Infobox Book}} should be used for a summary of information at the beginning of the article.
      • I would disagree with this. That infobox would make sense for use with each of the books themshelves however the job of this article is to cover the whole topic, not just the books. That includes the movies, plays, video games, and CCGS. This is for articles only about books from my point of view. SorryGuy 02:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The lead is insufficient and covers the wrong information; it briefly covers the book itself, then discusses the movie adaptations in greater detail than the book. Much of the lead is seems to be a "See Also" section, directing the reader to numerous other related articles rather than summarising the book.
      • I would reference you to the above. The lead maybe needs one more book sentence but this is not an article just for the books but the whole topic. When working on the synopis I found an easy way to expand the opening. It still needs a few changes and adjustments but it now covers the books much better. Comments would be nice.SorryGuy 02:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The One Ring is an important plot point, but it does not illustrate the book itself very well. A scanned image of a book would fit much better at the top of the article.
    • Much of the "Synopsis" covers events from The Silmarillion, The Akallabeth and other works; very little actually summarises the book itself. Previous events can be mentioned, but a summary of the plot of The Lord of the Rings, the book at hand, should be far longer. Also, don't be afraid to "give away the ending" by summarising; that's what the spoiler tags are for.
      • Agreed. It seems that the earlier editors of the article agreed to divide it up but it is indeed time to combine them once more. I found what I think is a much better division method. Let me know what you think. SorryGuy 02:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Books and volumes" covers in great detail the writing of the books; this is interesting from a Tolkienite perspective, but would be extremely boring to someone unfamiliar with the subject. It should be included, but reduced in size and moved much farther down the article.
    • "Publication history" can probably be merged with the section above it.
    • The opening section of "The Books" deals broadly with many subjects but covers some in too much detail (such as the books not being allegory) while relegating important aspects such as the influence of Saxon mythology to single sentences. (Christian themes are also heavily overplayed in this section, at least when compared to other influences on Tolkien.)
    • "The storyline" - too short, and should be included with "Synopsis". (They mean the same thing.)
    • "The Verse of the One Ring" probably shouldn't be in this article but in a sub-article. It also may be a copyright violation to reproduce the poem in its entirety.
    • "Praise" is far shorter than "Criticism" despite the book being widely acclaimed and rarely criticised. The section lengths give the impression that the book is unpopular.
    • "Adaptations" is far too long, particularly in its summaries of the films, and, moreso, games (which could be made into a list without losing much).
    • "Lord of the Rings Derivates" is a bit POV, and would be better titled as "Influence on the Fantasy Genre". It should also be longer, as The Lord of the Rings is the defining moment in all of fantasy literature.
    • Some significant pop culture references should actually appear on the page.
    • Referencing is extremely incomplete with entire sections unreferenced.
  • Okay, done with my quick critique. I'll try to work on some of this when I get a chance (which won't be until Tuesday), but I don't think more in-depth critiquing can occur until the article imprroves significantly. —Cuiviénen, Sunday, 23 April 2006 @ 01:18 UTC


Some minor things from a quick glance: Years are overlinked (see date formatting) and capitalisations in headings should be removed. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 13:23, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • Agreed with Fritz Saalfeld; being a member of WikiProject Middle-earth, I did go ahead and fixed the capitalisations in headings. Just from quick skimming: with the subheadings in the Adaptations section, I suggest removing 'The Lord of the Rings on...' as stated by MoS here: "Avoid repeating the article title in headings; use 'Voyage' instead of 'Voyage of the Mayflower' in an article titled 'Mayflower'.". Just simply put 'Film', 'Music', etc. As for the books section, perhaps you should rename 'The Books' section simply 'Books' or 'Series'. Also by MoS, I feel like there is an overuse of subheadings. Subheadings are used when there is an overflow of information that splits into different subtopics, but perhaps to limit the number of subheadings, you should cut down on some of the information. On the other hand, it looks great despite its problems. :) (I'll look more closer at the article later, so expect a more indepth constructive critcism to follow up). —Mirlen 17:58, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have fixed the Adaptations to reflect the MoS. I have also found the following ways to reduce the number of sub-headings:
      • Removed the One Ring verse due to copyright issues and the fact that it already has its own article. I added the link to that article in See Also
      • Changed Art so that it did not have an empty heading with a sentence more of prose.
      • With a little work Publication and Publication history can also be merged.
      • Once more with a little work Praise and Criticism can be merged together under a new heading Critical response. If I were to make these changes do you feel that I would not need to remove information from the article?
    • I am also working on finding someone to improve the Sysnopis part as it has been a while since I have read the books. SorryGuy 20:46, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I propose removing Image:Tolkien ring.jpg. Article would look much cleaner without it. Its also not directly related to the article but is only part of the plot in the books. This article is about the books. If you guys want to keep it then I would suggest moving it atleast to "Synopsis". – Tutmøsis (Talk) 23:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also did a couple of other tweaks in the first two sections (including the intro). But there is overload of wikilinking in the rest of the sections, especially the book titles. Also, regular words like 'fairy tales' do not need to be wikilinked. Also, I feel like the adaptations section is rather long, since the focus of the article is on the books, not the adaptations. —Mirlen 13:50, 29 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Okay, the article looks much better than it did when I first looked at it. I still have a few major gripes and some minor ones.

  • Much of the beginning of the "The Books" section consist of randomly assorted trivia, most about influences on the writing (which should be summarised and put in their own section), but in a rather rambling and uncohesive pattern. It is currently by far the worst section of the article.
  • I still have an objection to "Criticism" being longer than "Praise" as the Lord of the Rings is widely praised and rarely criticised, yet the relative section lengths make it seem the other way around. Praise should be made longer and/or Criticism better summarised. (Most of the criticisms are quite similar and could be merged together.)
  • Some sections, notably "Games", remain largely unsourced. If this article is to become featured, sources must be found and assertions about fans' opinions verified.
  • Art is hopelessly stubby. I've tagged it with {{expandsection}}
  • Influences on the fantasy genre is also very short and lacking in citations. As The Lord of the Rings was the defining moment in the fantasy genre, certainly more can be said about its influence.
  • Inline links should be converted to footnotes.

That's it, I think. Probably also needs a thorough copyedit, but that can come after the article is otherwise high quality. A few images (maybe a screenshot from the movies, one from one of the games, etc.) wouldn't go amiss, either. —Cuiviénen (talk•contribs), Saturday, 13 May 2006 @ 01:38 UTC

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