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Talk:Ann Radcliffe/GA1

GA review

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{{al|{{#titleparts:Ann Radcliffe/GA1|-1}}|noname=yes}}
:This review is transcluded from Talk:Ann Radcliffe/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: {{User|LEvalyn}} 02:37, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Tim riley (talk · contribs) 11:38, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Starting first read-through. Tim riley talk 11:38, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

=Initial comments=

  1. "Biographies of Radcliffe typically emphasize her illustrious distant relatives over her close relatives, who were in trade, as part of cultivating a genteel and ladylike reputation for her" – the source doesn't really say that, and in any case, that is only one source, although you say "biographies [plural] of Radcliffe typically..."
  2. * What I meant there was that Norton describes three biographical notices from the 19thC which are doing the distant/close relative thing. (Norton himself goes into quite a lot of detail about her close relatives as a corrective to that past tradition, which I think Rogers also observes as a trend.) I've moved this sentence (with some tweaking) to the section about 19thC biographies, where I think it works better. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
  3. "her father owned a haberdasher shop" – looks a bit odd. He didn't sell haberdashers: he sold haberdashery.
  4. * Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
  5. "a family of leadmakers and glaziers" –"leadmakers" is unknown to the OED and to Chambers. An explanation of the term would be welcome here
  6. * They made lead. I've added a wikilink to leadlight which will hopefully clarify why making lead is relevant to glaziers. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
  7. "her father avidly promoted the business. Radcliffe's father also supplemented his income" – repetitious: perhaps "he" for the second mention of her father?
  8. * Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
  9. "Cambridge B.A. and Oxford" – could all do with blue links
  10. * Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
  11. "celebrated the French Revolution, freedom of the press, and Dissenters' rights" – not clear why this is in quotation marks. If you are quoting a source verbatim it would be best to say inline whom you are quoting and why his/her views are relevant: e.g." ... according to the academic Nick Groom". And your citation here is far from adequate: "pp. ix–xli" – that is 32 pages of text you expect your reader to comb through in search of the quotation. It is in fact on pp. xi–xii and you should say so.
  12. * I've more explicitly noted Groom as the source of the quote. I want to use an attributed quote here because this is a partly subjective assessment of the paper's status, which I hesitate to put in wikivoice. Thank you for tracking down the specific pages; I don't find it offensive to give the whole page range of the introduction, but I've updated the citation to be more precise. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
  13. "visiting the Netherlands" – elsewhere you call the country Holland. Better to be consistent.
  14. * Sure. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  15. "the last novel she would publish in her lifetime" – she could hardly be expected to publish anything after her lifetime. Same goes for "published five novels during her lifetime", later
  16. * Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  17. "Radcliffe's disinterest in public life" – you are confusing disinterested (being impartial) with uninterested (not being concerned). The noun "uninterest" is given as "rare" by the OED, and "lack of interest" might be the safest phrasing.
  18. * Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  19. "She died 7 February 1823" – missing "on"?
  20. * Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  21. "she likely died of pneumonia caused by a bronchial infection" – these are the wise words of The Guardian style guide: {{green|In the UK, if not the US, using likely in such contexts as "they will likely win the game" sounds unnatural at best; there is no good reason to use it instead of probably. If you really must do so, however, just put very, quite or most in front of it and all will, very likely, be well.}}
  22. * Sure. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  23. "it appealed only to women and children due to its implausible plot" – in AmE "due to" is accepted as a compound preposition on a par with "owing to", but in BrE it is not universally so regarded. "Owing to" or, better, "because of" is safer.
  24. * Sure. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  25. "with assistance from her husband" – widower rather than husband by then
  26. * Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  27. "Scott himself said ... futility of result" – this 62-word quotation should be in a blockquote: see MOS:BQ
  28. * Given the images in this section, I think a blockquote would look awkward breaking up the 'shape' of the page. I opted to trim down the quote instead. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  29. "with Catholicism was presented as part ... the "was" should not be there
  30. * Fixed. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 16:19, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  31. "Horace Walpole's novel The Castle of Otranto claimed in-universe" – the last phrase, described by the OED as obsolete, should be explained or replaced, in my view.
  32. * Done. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  33. "claiming that she was a Latitudinarian" – I'd be cautious about "claiming", which conveys a suggestion that the assertion is questionable.
  34. * Done. I do want to make it clear that this is entirely speculative (as is all interpretation of her religious views), but I think the new version does so more appropriately. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  35. "Gothic novels had some predecents" – precedents?
  36. * Fixed. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  37. "Radcliffe's popularity which made the Gothic widely popular" – rather circular: her popularity made her style of novel popular?
  38. * Yes: because her novels were popular, quite a lot of people began to write similar kinds of novels, like the way the Hunger Games made dystopian YA more popular. I revised to try to make that clearer. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  39. "In the second, third and fourth paragraphs of the "Influence on later writers" section you give the dates of birth and death for some writers but not for others. In general, when a writer (or anyone else) has a linked Wikipedia article you should not give their dates unless the dates are of compelling relevance.
  40. * Hm, all those parentheticals pre-dated me, and I left them because I thought they gave a skimmable indication of the chronological span of her influence for those who didn't want to click through on everyone. That tempts me to more consistently fill the rest of the dates in. Do you think there's insufficient relevance? I could certainly be persuaded to remove them. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)
  41. "Radcliffe's influence as a writer waned after the twentieth century" – I cannot reconcile this with Mary Russell Mitford's comment from 1849, "a writer, wellnigh forgotten in England". Her influence seems to have waned rather earlier than the start of the 21st century.
  42. *I take your point that the waning was in the 20thC rather than after the 20thC; I've adjusted that. (Though I'd note that Mitford describes her as forgotten in England but highly influential in France, as she was through to the end of the 19thC.) Rogers describes a lull in the first half of the 20thC, some public mockery in the 1960s and 70s, and a feminist revival in the 1980s and 90s but I wasn't sure it was worth going into that much detail. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Most of the above points are minor, but there is one very major obstacle to GA status: the references are a mess.

  • Bibliographical details are given, seemingly at random, in the Citations or the Works cited sections, and in the case of at least one work – Norton's 1999 book – in both sections.
  • Page ranges are given inconsistently: pp. 42–3 for ref 6; pp. 31–32 for ref 10 (the second form is correct, according to our manual of style).
  • Ref 34 is a dead link (not surprisingly, given the BL's recent vicissitudes)

:* Added an archive of the page. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  • Ref 43 is also dead.

:* Assuming this referred to "Radcliffe, On the Supernatural, p. 1", I substituted a different link. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  • Ref 56 ditto

:* Replaced the source. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  • You seem to expect readers to read 132 pages to verify citation 19: the relevant pages (7–8) should be given.
  • : Amended. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  • Ref 52 is not much use unless you say in the bibliographical section which edition of Northanger Abbey you are referring to.

:* I've changed this to cite the specific chapter, since that will be most useful to a reader, given the extremely large number of editions & the relative brevity of the chapters. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

  • You sometimes do and sometimes don't give the publisher's location.
  • Inconsistent ordering of author/source, e.g. ref 17 -v- ref 45.
  • Forster et al lack an ISBN in the Works cited section.
  • As does Raven.
  • Names are sometimes (e.g. ref 47) given as Forename Surname rather than Surname, Forename as elsewhere.
  • I cannot see what use the link to WorldCat is for Rogers 1996.
  • : I substituted a HathiTrust link which at least allows for some limited search within the text. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2025 (UTC)
  • Whatever the original publisher's practice for capitalisation, Wikipedia uses title case for all titles: refs 19, 20, 48, 54 and 79 need attention on this score, as in the Works cited section do Flood and Louca-Richards.
  • The dates in the Further reading section are all over the place: after the author's name, in brackets, not in brackets, at the end of the line.
  • A country is mentioned in two of the five entries and not in the other three in Further reading.

I'll put the review on hold to give you a week to attend to the referencing and to my points 1, 6, 14, 15 and 18 at least. As to my other comments, they are not deal-breakers and I leave it to you whether to act on them. Tim riley talk 12:35, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

:Hello Tim, thank you for taking such close look at this article. You've raised some useful points and I look forward to improving the article together. However, for many of the concerns you note above, while I agree they are areas of improvement, I believe they exceed the GA criteria. I don't have the hubris to think this article is heading toward FA -- it was quite a lot of effort to bring it even to this level.

:Regarding the MOS, the only MOS guidelines which are necessary at the GA level are {{tq|the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation}}. Similarly, a consistent BrE is not required: {{tq|Minor grammatical or style issues that do not impact clarity are not prohibitive of GA status}}.

:For references, the requirement is that {{tq|it contains a list of all references}}. The footnote explicitly clarifies that {{tq|Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied so that the reviewer is able to identify the source.}} I can't see that any of the concerns you raise about the referencing form part of the GA criteria.

:I'm eager to improve the article, so as I work my way through your comments I may address some of the low-hanging fruit in other areas as well, but it's not currently my plan to exhaustively correct the minutiae of MOS and referencing that you point out. I'll reply individually to your notes about the prose as I work my way through them -- there are some very helpful catches there. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 20:27, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

::OK. I'll wait to see what changes you make. The references must be made to comply with GA criterion 2a, which refers to MOS:NOTES: "Editors may use any citation method they choose, but it should be consistent within an article". Tim riley talk 19:05, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

:::It's coming on, but the clincher will be to make the references MoS-compliant. I'll leave the review open for a few days. Tim riley talk 17:45, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::::I think the article is now ready for another look. I've addressed the comments about references that seemed related to verifiability, but those that remain all strike me as a matter of aesthetic style which go beyond the requirements for GA. Criteria 2a says "it contains a list of all references ... presented in accordance with the layout style guideline" (emphasis mine). It's my understanding that this refers to the MOS requirements about layout (which are already met): the list must be at the end; if there are explanatory footnotes they must be separate from citation footnotes; headings should be appropriate. It would be completely contradictory for 2a to require citations to be {{tq|consistent within the article}} when 2a also explicitly states {{tq|Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required}}. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 21:29, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Sadly, the referencing still falls well short of the MoS requirement: "it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline", which stipulates "Editors may use any citation method they choose, but it should be consistent within an article". At the moment the method of citation is anything but consistent within the article. I cannot pass the article for GA in this state. Tim riley talk 06:37, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::I am asking for a second opinion from another reviewer on the question of whether the current references meet the GA criteria. Tim riley talk 06:41, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::In lieu of offering a second opinion, I've gone through and polished the citations, which hopefully resolves a vast majority of the issues. I will comment that I don't think most of these changes are really *needed* for GA, but it is much cleaner to have them formatted correctly.

::::::I think the main problems that remain are that FN 13 really does need page numbers, and I don't think FN 41 is a reliable source. Issues of Verifiability are definitely in the GAC. Do ping if I can help any further, but hopefully the a 2opinion is now not needed? Eddie891 Talk Work 10:46, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Gosh! That's heroic of you. Thank you so much. At first glance the references are now broadly all right. I'll return to the review after further scrutiny. I'll cancel the SOS for a second opinion. Tim riley talk 11:36, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Happy to help! I will keep tabs on this review, and am happy to address any other formatting concerns, though I will leave content matters to LEvalyn. Eddie891 Talk Work 11:49, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Thank you for polishing the article like that! It looks like it was a lot of work, that was very generous. I added a more reliable source for FN 41, and went ahead and added the page number for FN 13 too. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 18:23, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

I'd better hang on till the relevant discussion you have started elsewhere is finished. Tim riley talk 17:16, 17 May 2025 (UTC)