Talk:Winifred Lamb/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 11:35, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I will review this article.

On an initial readthrough, it looks good: some more-or-less picky prose comments.

• "Honorary Keeper (Curator) of Greek and Roman Antiquities" assuming "curator" is not part of her title, it should not be capitalised
• "Lamb was also working": simplify to "Lamb also worked"?
• "In May–June 1921 she joined the Mycenae excavation team and was made responsible for the excavation of the palace as well as for the publication of the frescoes." She only joined the team once, presumably in May &nash; unless we don't know exactly, in which case "in summer 1921"
• "; she visited the archaeological excavation of Troy..." This seems like it should be a new sentence.
• "Despite the problems for women working in Turkey at this time": can you expand on these problems?
• "Vice President" per MOS:JOBTITLES, pretty sure this should be lowercased
• "World War I" vs. "World War 2": be consistent!

I also made a few minor corrections here.

Further comments anon. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:35, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

On a second look, I have a few more stylistic points, but also some issues of substance:

• 'the Fitzwilliam Museum states that she was a "generous benefactor and raising the profile of the collections through groundbreaking research, acquisitions and publications."' The quotation is accurate, but the grammar is problematic here. It would read better eliding the "and", thus: 'she was a "generous benefactor [...] raising the profile..."'
• "was the author of numerous books on Greek and Roman antiquities, including the 1929 publication Greek and Roman Bronzes, which was standard reading for studies on the subject, as well as writing numerous reviews for the Journal of Hellenic Studies.": repetition of "numerous".
• As a general rule, the lead should summarise what is in the article, and with the exception of quotations should not need any citations. From this point of view, the lead is currently quite overcited. (And the "numerous reviews" Lamb wrote for the JHS are not really discussed in the rest of the article.
• "She was the daughter of Edmund Lamb, a former Member of Parliament": this is a little confusingly worded, as Lamb was an MP from 1906 – i.e. during Winifred's childhood.

With Christmas coming on, I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have to go through the rest of this in the next few days; I will grab time where I get it, but I might not finish my comments until early January...

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:39, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for these - picky comments always welcome! I think I've fixed these all now - re the problems for women in Turkey, as the source was vague I've just rewritten that sentence. Other edits are all as per your comments. Please do let me know if any of these need more work/any other comments! Eritha (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:36, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Spotted what I think is one final small thing: Lamb was a founding member of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, whose creation was initiated in 1946 by John Garstang, and served as its honorary secretary from its formal opening in 1948 until 1956 Is this the date that Gill gives in Winifred Lamb? The DNB and Breaking Ground both say 1957.

Once we get this point cleared up, I think this is pretty much ready for promotion to GA. There's probably some more useful stuff in the chapter on her in Breaking Ground if you are interested in further expanding the article – if you don't have access, drop me an email and I'll get you a copy – but I don't think that you need that to bring the article up to GA standard. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:51, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, Gill says that she "felt able to resign as Honorary Secretary of the BIAA at the end of 1956" - so possibly resignation took effect from 1957 onwards and that's why the other two sources give that date? It's not entirely clear. I have a copy of Breaking Ground so will certainly check that for more info later on! Eritha (talk) 10:46, 2 January 2020 (UTC)Eritha

Just to follow up - I've checked with Gill who has confirmed that her resignation was submitted in late 1956 and took effect in 1957, so the various sources are not actually in disagreement, but 1957 is the more correct date to give as the end of her period as hon. sec. Eritha (talk) 17:32, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks for confirming this. I'm happy to pass the article now: congratulations! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:46, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks again for all your work on the review! Eritha (talk) 12:11, 4 January 2020 (UTC)