Winesburg, Ohio (novel) edit
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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I've greatly expanded it and need some fellow Wikipedians to point out any more improvements that could be made, whether the sections flows well, and to help with any grammatical errors that likely exist. I'm fairly new to WP, and this my first big leap into editing, so I'm sure there are elements that the article is missing. Further, I'm certain this is no longer a Start-Class article, but I'm not sure how high to boost it. Any assistance is appreciated.
Cheers, Olegkagan (talk) 23:59, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
Out of curiousity, how does this book compare to James Joyce's Dubliners? ResMar 18:27, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
- Plot introductions - sections this short are generally discouraged. You should define what a short story cycle is in the lead instead.
- What is the reference for the publication table in Composition and Publication?
- Remember that most of the lines in the article should be cited, there are a few that stick out. Only material that is stating facts directly from the book, for instance plot details, should citation-less, but you'll have to talk to the Books Wikiproject for more specific details on that.
- References go after punctuation marks. I fixed a lot of these, but I'm not sure I got all of them.
- The paragraph on the film adaptation needs references.
Nothing to say content-wise, it's very much ready in that sense, although you might have to move some things around. ResMar 19:42, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
- I read Dubliners a few years back so my recollection may be hazy, but the gist is that similar to Winesburg, all the stories in Dubliners take place in roughly the same setting (which is crucial to both books), and have some thematic threads throughout (a bit like the short story collections of D.H. Lawrence). I don't remember the Dubliners stories sharing characters nor having the same approach to time (bouncing back and forth at will) as Winesburg, Ohio. The differences emphasize why Dubliners fits much more within the genre of short story collection, as opposed to Winesburg which is a short story cycle.
- With regards to the lines that should be cited, I tried to over-cite, but I'll check with WikiProject:Books regarding what looks like it still needs citations. Pretty much everything in there could be cited, but fresh eyes to determine what still needs citations would certainly help.
- Comments from Maria
Overall a very good article! If GAC is the goal, I believe it can certainly be attainable once a few key things are addressed. Some technical aspects first:
- I see on the talk page that someone has already raised the issue of calling this work a "novel" -- I would argue it's in fact a book, and should probably be renamed as such.
- The map from the first edition is great, and I see that you uploaded it yourself. It would be wonderful if we could also have the first edition cover/title sheet as the lead image (the one in the infobox), as it would both be in the public domain -- since the present one is not -- AND it would be more historically relevant. It's not necessary, but it would be a great addition to the article if you had access to it.
- ResMar noted above: "Remember that most of the lines in the article should be cited" -- this is largely incorrect. As can be seen at this FAC discussion, there is obviously a difference of opinion as to citing every sentence in an article, but general consensus is that it's not necessary that every sentence that is not plot or similarly obvious needs citations. Cite where necessary, not mindlessly; always cite direct quotes, however, and make sure that there is at least one cite in each paragraph. I see that "Major themes" needs help on both accounts.
- I've made a few fixes per the MOS, so keep these in mind:
- Don't link single years, like 1988.
- Headings should be in lowercase, except for the first words and proper nouns ("Literary Sources" -> "Literary sources")
- Wikipedia uses something called logical quotations. Basically it means that punctuation marks such as commas and periods should only placed inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material. There are some examples of this at the linked MOS page, but I notice it's used throughout the Winesburg, Ohio article, especially in terms of short story-titles. For example, it should be:
- ...two fairly representative examples being the merchant's son Elmer Cowley in the story "Queer", and George Willard's mother Elizabeth in "Mother".
- NOT
- ...two fairly representative examples being the merchant's son Elmer Cowley in the story "Queer," and George Willard's mother Elizabeth in "Mother."
- I've fixed a few of the obvious ones, but you'll want to comb through the prose to make sure it's correct.
- Under "The stories", these titles should be in quotation marks; I see only one ("Queer"), but I didn't know if you had intentionally left it so...?
- The list of References may need some help, if only because there are so many nice-quality ones to wade through. If you take a look at other high-quality lit articles, you'll see that they often separate references and citations using shortened footnotes. You can see such a style being used at The Red Badge of Courage or The Sun Also Rises, where book/journal articles are listed in full under the "References" section, whereas shortened footnotes are listed in the inline citations. While it's not required, it's helpful for several reasons: first, and most importantly, it's easier to read. Second, it helps deal with citing works of which you use more than one page. Your first inline citation, to Phillips' "How Sherwood Anderson Wrote Winesburg, Ohio", is used half a dozen times, but because it's listed as being twenty pages long, it's not really exact citing. With shortened citations, you can list Philips' work in the Refs section, and then pinpoint each individual page in a separate footnote: "Philips, p. 7" and "Philips, p. 10", for example. Give it a look at other pages and see if you think it might work or not; I'm obviously a big fan, but there are other ways to format refs, so feel free to experiment. :)
Overall the prose is excellent -- easy to read, very well paced. I don't have time to do a complete read-thru/copy-edit, so just a few notes to get the ball rolling:
- In the lead: Mostly written from late 1915 to early 1916, with a few stories completed closer to publication, they were... -- the "they were" is ambiguous, although of course the stories are being referred to. Is the aside "with a few stories" even needed here? Since it's implied with "mostly" that not all stories were written from 1915-1916, I think you can drop it and simply have, "to early 1916, the stories were..."
- I see ellipses used throughout, many of which don't look necessary per WP:ELLIPSES. In the lead, for example, I question whether the ellipses is needed after "they were"?
- In the lead you may want to mention the adaptations, as well as something about its literary legacy.
- Every literary work is of course different, and I'm a staunch believer in not using a mold to build each article. Still, I find it kind of confusing that the article discusses influences and genre before plot. Not having read the stories in quite a while, I was confused by several things from the first few sections. That could just be me, however...
- "Literary and cultural connections" needs to be made into a more cohesive section; as it is now, it appears almost like a list, which is a big no-no in non-list articles. Flesh it out somewhat, and combine the singular sentences so everything fits together.
That's it for now, I think. Mostly suggestions to be taken with a few grains of salt, but there are a few minor MOS things to deal with. The article is quite impressive for a new editor, so well done! If you would like me to take another look, just let me know. María (habla conmigo) 15:06, 2 July 2011 (UTC)