Talk:A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Dracophyllum (talk · contribs) 21:10, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I'm happy to review this gan. Comments to follow Dracophyllum 21:10, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

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@Kusma: Some Initial comments, mostly on prose and images. Dracophyllum 23:32, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

All excellent feedback that I will start working on soon. —Kusma (talk) 07:46, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I have made a few changes. Would you like to take another look @Dracophyllum? —Kusma (talk) 17:05, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Lede

The lede needs to be expanded to include information from the last section and also a summary of the book's content – these can be added in the second paragraph.

• Added a bit.  Done

Background and publication

• Sydney Parkinson was born in Edinburgh c. 1745 into a Quaker family Could you wikilink Quaker in this first instance?

  Done  Done

• £80 could this be adjusted for inflation using Template:Inflation

  Done  Done

• but no continuous version or "fair copy" has ever been found is "complete" maybe a better word here?

  Not sure; I think the intended meaning is that there does not exist a single, connected original text, but just a collection of disparate papers.

• Parkinson fell ill with malaria and dysentery contracted at Batavia I see you have wikilinked it, but it would probably be better just to clarify it as Jakarta.

Maybe "Parkinson fell ill with malaria and dysentery contracted at Jakarta, then Batavia,"

• Done (the other way round)  Done

• The quarrel was finally mediated by John Fothergill Could you clarify who John Fothergill is in relation to Banks and Parkinson? Maybe a colleague?

  Done, with direct link to the source that is online in full text  Done

• £500 adjust for inflation as well

  Done  Done

• Banks allowed him to borrow some of his brother's papers, under a strict promise not to misuse them that was made by Fothergill Might be clearer with some different punctuation. Maybe: "Banks allowed him to borrow some of his brother's papers under a strict promise, negotiated by Fothergill, not to misuse them."

  Clarified (apparently it was Fothergill who made the promise).  Done

• Westminster meeting clarify what is meant by this

  Done  Done

• Could you put a paragraph break somewhere in the Background and publication section? I think maybe after A lengthy dispute ensued, and when Banks was slow to hand over Sydney's property, Stanfield became increasingly suspicious of Banks, especially because he heard rumours that James Lee was to receive his brother's journal., but you can decide.

  Broke one sentence earlier  Done

• by John Hawkesworth one word explanation of who they are here.

  Done  Done

Currently I find this section a little confusing because of the large number of different people involved and the historical context. Hopefull my comments above help mediate that.

• Thank you, this is very helpful feedback. I've been reading too much about these people recently and lack the necessary distance to know what is general knowledge and what is not.

Content

• The book is structured roughly chronologically and broken up in three main parts, the first about the voyage from England to Tahiti together with chapters about plants, language, and tools used in Tahiti. The second part is concerned mostly with New Zealand and the third with Australia, the voyage to Batavia and the languages encountered on this part of the journey. Could be made clearer with the use of colons, semi-colons, and commas.

  Tried to clarify. At some point in the future, I hope to expand this similar to the approach in A Voyage Round the World, but it may take a while.

• binomial names link

  Done.

• generic I'm assuming this is genera? Link that as well.

  Done, the redirect links to a section that says "the scientific name of a genus is called the generic name".

• The breadfruit appears as Sitodium, its description containing, in the words of botanist William T. Stearn, "just enough information to make its acceptance controversial" in competition with the name Artocarpus, published in 1773 by Georg Forster and Johann Reinhold Forster in their book Characteres generum plantarum. Split into two sentences after the quote and use emdashes "–" around "in the words of botanist ..." –.

  Hope it is better now. Long sentences are very hard to avoid if one's native language is German, where they are considered good style.

• For the engraving image captions, is it really worth maintaining their original captions instead of (or excluding) what we actually know them as today? For the Māori chief you can even see on just the commons description a fairly decent rundown of what it actually depicts.

  Hmm, these are the titles that these works are discussed under in the scholarly literature. I've added a bit of description to the Maori.

• I'm assuming you use the word "native" because it is in the source, but probably "indigenous people/s" is a more current wording?

  Higher up, changed to "indigenous". For the engraving, that is the title used in the scholarly literature.

I think this section is pretty good, but could use some work with respect to explaining the botany and also the use of dated (?) language.

• I have great difficulties with the botany. I'm trying my best, but essentially I feel more comfortable writing about history than about biology.

Reception and legacy

Overall this section is excellent, no comments here.

• Glad you like it!

Images

• Images are properly licensed and formatted, but I feel the captions could use some work (other comments stated in their sections). For instance, why is frontispiece used over just cover of the book or book cover.

  It is the frontispiece, not the book cover.

• Another note, the caption of the world map should probably read: "The route of Cook's first voyage, which Parkinson took part in" or something like that.

  Added something.

• Other images you may want: [1], [2], and [3]. Formatting can also be done using Template:Multiple image and galleries.

  There's quite a lot at c:Category:A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas, in His Majesty's Ship, the Endeavour, which is linked.

Stable

No obvious edit warring. Dracophyllum 23:32, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Other comments

Inline references to reliable sources, well formatted. Earwig turns up nothing.

Spot checking

• Merril's comments are correct  Done

• It was unprecedented in a voyage narrative  Done

• The article is focused and broad in its coverage, since it contains both the sections needed for a book and is in parts detailed.

To FA

• If you would like to go to FA at some point I think either of these quotes from the preface could be useful, though at present I'm not sure there is enough text to warrant them. Dracophyllum 21:00, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

• https://archive.org/details/captaincooksouth0000brit another source

In respect to the comparative merits of his book and mine, it is not for me to say any thing. If I have justified myself in the eye of the impartial world for persisting in this publication, I shall leave the works of my brother to speak his talents;‡ thinking I have paid a proper respect to his memory, though it should be said of his journal, that its only ornament is truth, and its best recommendation, characteristic of himself, its genuine simplicity.

Stanfield Parkinson, Preface to A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas

• Thank you! Yes, some juicy quotes should go in, as well as more background on Parkinson and the voyage, then a detailed retelling of the content of the book, and a more in-depth discussion of the role of the book in modern botanical nomenclature. Then there will be also more space for images from the book. I plan to first work on Sydney Parkinson and then revisit this.

Progress

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

• One final holdup before I do some copyediting myself and pass the article @Kusma:, I couldn't understand from the article nor actually the source, what the relationship between Parkinson and Solander was, with respect to the botanical names. Did Parkinson copy Solander's work, or did Solander provide the names to Parkinson?

  Usually, Banks, Parkinson and Solander were working together in the great cabin. I'll find a nicer source in a moment, but here's a bit from Beaglehole: "Down in the cabin, when activity on deck was impossible, Banks examined his specimens, Solander described, Parkinson drew, grabbing at his paints as the table tilted." The Linnean p. 3 "Once a drawing or painting had been completed by Parkinson, Solander made a note on the back of the name of the species while Banks noted the locality." So Solander provided the names, but not for an independent publication in the name of Sydney Parkinson. The work was supposed to go into Banks' Florilegium, but that kind of petered out after Solander's death. —Kusma (talk) 22:38, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  @User:Dracophyllum: I've put the Linnean source in for now (it is by a reliable scientist, but it is essentially just in the newsletter of the Linnean Society). I'll continue looking for a more authoritative source for the claim that Solander wrote the names on the backs of Parkinson's drawings. —Kusma (talk) 23:45, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

  That will do; as long as the author is a published author on the subject matter then it doesn't really matter where they write. Dracophyllum 00:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Passing

Excellent work @Kusma:, meets GA criteria easily, though may need some more work for FA, so am passing now. If you can format it in, the quote in the quote box would be useful I think. Dracophyllum 21:00, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the thorough review @Dracophyllum! I should probably quote from the Preface, and perhaps I can even use this quote in my current draft (started writing about Hawkesworth's book). Once there is more about that book for context, I'll see if the quote fits. —Kusma (talk) 21:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)