Talk:Bodyguard of Lies

Latest comment: 11 years ago by Ian Rose in topic GA Review
Good articleBodyguard of Lies has been listed as one of the History good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
June 20, 2012Good article nomineeNot listed
September 26, 2013Good article nomineeListed
Current status: Good article

GA Review

edit
This review is transcluded from Talk:Bodyguard of Lies/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ian Rose (talk · contribs) 13:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Will aim to get to this within the week at least. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:20, 27 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Toolbox checks -- No dab or EL issues.

Prose/content

  • I think I get the meaning of "The British and American governments resisted Brown's work on Bodyguard of Lies"; might it be better expressed as "The British and American governments resisted Brown's attempts to research [or "publish"] Bodyguard of Lies"?
    • done, I think
  • I feel there's inconsistency between the lead, which says "The material in the book is predominantly based on American records that had been recently declassified and obtained via Freedom of Information requests" and the Background section, which says "Brown says that most of the book was written before he was able to access the latter", i.e. American records.
    • Done, I think
  • Again in Background "His work was resisted by the British and American governments" might sound better as "His attempts at research were resisted by the British and American governments" or some such.
    • done, I think
  • In Synopsis, "Bodyguard of Lies narrates Allied deception strategy on the Western Front for the years of 1943 and 1944." repeats almost word for word something in the previous Background section -- either the phrasing should be altered or better still we should say something new and/or more detailed.
    • Now removed
  • Related to above, I would've thought such a long book deserved a bigger synopsis, say another paragraph or two.
    • Expanded!
  • Can we get a better idea of the "novel thesis: a thesis which, in my opinion, is quite wrong" of which Trevor-Roper speaks?
    • I've expanded this
  • "backhandedly describing the book..." -- can you clarify for me exactly what you mean by "backhandedly" here? I'm not sure it's how I'd understand the usage and, in any case, it could be seen as OR since the source for the entire sentence is the review itself; might be better just to report the description without such elaboration...
    • Removed

Referencing

  • If you have retrieval dates for two of your online sources, should you have one for Bowen as well?
    • Removed both, not a fan of having them
  • Do we have a page number for The Globe and Mail ref?
    • Sorry, no. :(

Structure -- Article appears sensibly laid out.

Supporting materials -- Infobox and image licensing appear fine (pic could use alt text but not a strict requirement). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:46, 2 September 2013 (UTC)Reply