Talk:Josiah Holbrook/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Simongraham (talk · contribs) 10:06, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

This looks an interesting article. I have enjoyed reviewing other articles by the author in the past and I am sure this will be no exception. I will start the review shortly. simongraham (talk) 10:06, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Review

The article is clearly written and covers an interesting topic. It is stable, 92.3% of authorship is one user, Doug Coldwell. It was ranked a C class article on 5 August 2016 and has seen substantial development in March 2021.

• Images are marked as public domain or under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0).

•  Done

• Please add his dates and places of birth and death to the lead.

•  Done

• References are generally good, but two (Your Dictionary and PB Works) seem to be less credible and some are very old. Are there alternatives to these from more robust sources? A quick search in Google scholar identifies quite a few more recent journal articles which mention Holbrook.

•  Done Replaced PB Works reference.
•  Done Removed Your Dictionary references and put in alternative references

• In the Early life section, there is a lot of family history, including two Daniels, one his father and the other his grandfather. The large number of men included can lead to confusion. For example, the pronoun it is initially unclear who the "he" in the sentence "He married in 1729" refers to. I suggest rewording this to make it clear that the "Holbrook" is Josiah and that "he" is Daniel senior. It would also be good to understand the relevance of this family, in line with the requirement to "stay focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail".

•  Done

• The sections Early Life, Education and Family are very short. Can they be combined into one? In addition, the final two sentences in the Family section reads more as an introduction to his work, which is then covered in the next section.

•  Done

• The narrative in the section Schools and lyceums is not systematic. I suggest it is reframed to tell the story of Holbrook's involvement in and influence on the movement. A suggested narrative is:
  • Holbrook developing his theory of education from 1819;
  • His business interest and the apparatus factory;
  • His first lyceum in Millbury in 1826 (and how this relates to his parents' farm);
  • Other schools - and the relationship between them (Brown, 1973, mentions 78 in Massachusetts alone by 1829);
  • The American Lyceum Association and the wider story;
  • The Washington DC years;
  • A summary of his impact on the movement and his legacy.

• Particularly, the sentences "He started the lyceum school system in the United States that at one time had 3,000 towns organized under the approach. Holbrook helped develop out the lyceum town of Berea, Ohio. He made a factory that was specifically designed to manufacture scientific apparatus and teach the technology." seem a summary of his work and out of place in the narrative. Can you amend this please?

•  Done

• The term "the early nineteen hundreds" is vague and is hard to reconcile with the fact that he only proposed the concept in the 1820s. Is there a more accurate date please?

•  Done Removed sentence.

• I suggest there is an opportunity to have a separate section of the Apparatus, with the list of the equipment. It would be good to relate this to his factory/factories and understand how this list developed over time. Is there any information on this?

•  Done

• It is stated that he moved to Washington DC in the late 1840s and wrote articles advocating his concept. Is there more detail on this part of his life?

•  Done Looked everywhere and did heavy duty research on this and did not find any more detail on this part of his life.

• His death date is given in the infobox but only the year is referenced in the prose. Can you reconcile these please?

•  Done

• The list of works seems sparse given the number of mentions of articles in the prose. Is a more expansive list available?

•  Done

• @Doug Coldwell: Great work. Please ping me when you have had a chance to look at these. simongraham (talk) 13:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks for review. Will start addressing the issues today.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 14:04, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

• @Simongraham: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 22:06, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

• @Doug Coldwell: Great work. simongraham (talk) 09:36, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Assessment

The six good article criteria:

1. It is reasonable well written

   the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct

   it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead, layout and word choice.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable

   it contains a reference section, presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

   all inline citations are from reliable sources;

   it contains no original research;

   it contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism.

3. It is broad in its coverage

   it addresses the main aspects of the topic;

   it stays ffocused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail.

4. It has a neutral point of view

   it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to different points of view.

5. It is stable

   it does not change significantly from day to day because of any ongoing edit war or content dispute.

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

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

   images are (relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Congratulations. This article meets the criteria to be a Good Article. Pass/Fail: Pass simongraham (talk) 09:39, 7 July 2021 (UTC)