Talk:Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Amitchell125 (talk · contribs) 17:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Happy to review this article.

Review

Lead section

• The lead is currently too short. It needs to be expanded to summarise the Reputation and legacy section of the article more fully.
  • Done a bit, is there anything else you think should be included?

It looks a lot better now. AM

• Link ethnological (Ethnology); naturalist Natural history; Lord of the Admiralty (List of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty); subscriptions (Subscription business model); oceanography; anthropology.
  • Will do the others later, just want to mention here before I forget about it that Publication by subscription is the better link in this case.
  • Added links (but First Lord of the Admiralty is more precise).

Noted. AM

• Introduce Johann Reinhold Forster (here and in the Background section).
  • Done in short form here and a bit longer later.
• it is considered – by who?
  • Mentioned Stoddart.
• published a narrative instead in 1777 – consider amending to something like ‘went ahead with the publication of a narrative in 1777’.
  • Done.

1 Background

• Link natural history; ethnology; engraving.
  • Done.
• Introduce Forster, Cook and Daines Barrington where they first appear in the text.
  • I gave Forster a proper introduction, which you may need to re-review. His own article does not fully do him justice, but I'm working on it. Very short intros for the other two.
• his second voyage – ‘Cook’s second voyage’, for the sake of clarity.
  • Done.
• crossed – ‘crossing’? (minor point)
  • Done.
• Pacific – Pacific Ocean (linked).
  • Done.
• an extensive diary – why 'extensive'?
  • I've removed the sentence, as it isn't quite in these sources.
• according to which – ‘that’?
  • Reworded.

2 Writing, publication and translations

• Link subscriptions as above.
  • Done (as above)
• Introduce Joseph Banks, Alexander Dalrymple and Thomas Hornsby.
  • Done.
• between 1778 and 1782 – imo the sentence sounds better if this phrase is at the beginning of the sentence.
  • Done.
• 1832–33 – ‘1832–1833’.
  • Sure.
• and possibly Dutch – why 'possibly'?
  • The indecision was in the source, but I have now found the book so I can verify it is indeed true. [1] (translated from the German).

Apologies for not being clearer, I meant "what is meant here"? Possibly because the authorship is uncertain, or the work has been lost or never seen by others, or some other reason? Amitchell125 (talk) 06:59, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

The source said "A Dutch version seems also to have appeared"; I believe that Hoare found mention of the book but never saw the actual book himself. I don't have a secondary source talking about the Dutch translation (for example it isn't mentioned in my 1970s bibliography of everything related to James Cook, although all the other translations are), but the book itself serves as a primary source (even if the book and WorldCat disagree about when it was published).

Thanks for this, it looks sorted. AM

3 Content

• Link species; iceberg; chart (Nautical chart).
• Introduce Montesquieu (full name not needed).
• Amend first voyage of James Cook to ‘Cook’s first voyage’.
  • All done.

4 Reception and legacy

• and states – ‘and stated’ as he is no longer alive; similarly, David Stoddart notes should read ‘ David Stoddart noted’.
• a characterisation shared by the historian Anne Mariss - consider using long dashes instead of comma either side of this phrase (minor point).
  • Both done, although I'm not 100% certain how refs and emdashes should interact with each other.

6 Sources

• Unlink The journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery. II (it does not lead to the text, only to the OCLC information, already linked).

  Done.

• Hoare, M. E. - why not Hoare, ‘Michael Edward’ as with his other publications?

  Never got around to normalising these, done now.

• What makes you think Gordon, Joseph Stuart (1975) to be a reliable source? It does not appear to be cited in the literature (see WP:SCHOLARSHIP).

  Oh, it is cited. Hoare 1982 writes on p. 1 note 2 "A most useful work, drawing on further new materials, is J. S. Gordon, "Reinhold and Georg Forster in England, 1766–1780" ... Dr Gordon makes very good use of the previously little-known London diary among K. G. Woide's papers (...), a diary which throws important light upon Forster's activities in London. He cites Gordon throughout the lengthy introduction to Forster's journal. Mariss 2019, p. 14 has a footnote "for Forster's early years in England, see Joseph S. Gordon". Ruth Dawson (another Forster scholar) [2]: "The most detailed account of this dispute is Joseph Stuart Gordon ..." Uhlig 2004 (the best biography of Georg Forster) also cites Gordon regularly and mentions on p. 354 footnote 36 that it has a "rich but sometimes unordered documentation" of the Forsters' time in England. The most extensive report on Georg Forster's reception (Peitsch 2001) only has a short mention and does not say anything negative about Gordon's thesis. So overall I think it can be used as a source, and there are not actually many biographical works about JR Forster's life (Hoare 1976 is the most detailed, Gordon has a lot on the time in England, Hoare 1982 has a somewhat abridged bio, and very recently a German biography has appeared but doesn't cover the time in question well and also is full of misunderstandings) so having an extra one is very welcome. The thesis is reasonably accessible at least to people with access to ProQuest, unlike Hoare 1976 which is only available from Australian used book sellers. (Hoare 1982 can be bought cheaply at least in the UK).

Good enough for me! AM

• Amend Nature, culture, and history : the "knowing" of Oceania to ‘Nature, Culture, and history: the "knowing" of Oceania’. The correct way of writing the title of a book will be inside the book, and not how it is transcribed by the Internet Archive – you also need to amend any of the other titles in this section with the same issue.

  Hope I got them all.

• Elliott is available from JSTOR.

  Thanks, added.

• Consider adding 'url-access=registration' in the code for Forster, Johann Reinhold (1996), and elsewhere where the Internet Archive sources are ‘borrowed for an hour’.

  Done

• I would not link the titles of Hoare, Michael Edward (1976) or Hoare, Michael Edward (1982), as they only provides snippet views of the sources.

  I am not a huge fan of Google Books and prefer linking elsewhere if possible, but I think being able to search for snippets is better than nothing for people trying to verify my citations. (It also helps me when searching for something that is not in the index of the books).

Understood. AM

• Add links to the unlinked publishers where possible, as this has not been done consistently.

  Hope I got these, also separated places from publishers in the templates.

On hold

I'm putting the article on hold for a week until 15 June to allow time for the issues raised to be addressed. Regards, Amitchell125 (talk) 07:43, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed review, I'll address the issues within the next couple of days. —Kusma (talk) 08:29, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

@Amitchell125, would you like to take another look? I think have addressed all your points, but am happy to hear any suggestions for further improvement. —Kusma (talk) 21:43, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Passing now

Thanks for doing a great job, and being a pleasure to work with. Passing now, congratulations. Amitchell125 (talk) 07:29, 10 June 2022 (UTC)