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Talk:James A. Doonan/GA1

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GA Review

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: ImmortalWizard (talk · contribs) 19:35, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]


PHEW, I'll take this review. Will be difficult. Please give me a few days, have a busy life! Interestingly I chose this. Yes! Have no interest or background knowledge on this topic. I'll try my best. Person passed away (RIP) previous century, that means loads of offline citations that leads to lots of factual checking and scrutiny. I'll count on you Mr NOMINATOR! (Sorry for assuming gender), need your help a lot! ImmortalWizard(chat) 19:35, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@ImmortalWizard: Thanks for taking the job. I'll try to be as helpful as I can. I believe all of the references have courtesy links, which should make reviewing easier. Ergo Sum 20:35, 10 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

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I will have to come back in this section throughout for accurate review.

  • "..was an American Catholic priest and member of the Society of Jesus." - isn't it better to change it to "..was an American Catholic Jesuit priest/Jesuit priest of the Catholic Church. "? Since "member of the Society of Jesus" is not mentioned or wikilinked anywhere in the body, which might be confusing for general readers. Alternatively, it could be kept the way it is and later mentions in the body could be dealt with.
    • @ImmortalWizard: My hesitation about this is that with the first option, it doesn't generally make for good reading when there are too many pre-nominal adjectives strung together, and for the second option, the adjective Jesuit would be modifying priest, not Doonan, which is technically not correct (as the Jesuits are an order, not a type of priest). I've rephrased "member of the Society of Jesus" as "a Jesuit;" I think this should be clearer. Ergo Sum 20:45, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • IDK, but to me "His presidency is principally remembered for having assuaged the university's burdensome debt accrued during the construction of Healy Hall." seems too hard to grasp, especially in the lead.
  • Should President of Georgetown University be wikilinked here in the lead. probably something like "served as the president of Georgetown University."?

Early life

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  • "parish records" and "pastor" should be wikilinked
  • "James'" to "James's" or avoid this by rephrasing to passive form. See MOS:POSS.
  • "James' brother, John Doonan, also became a Jesuit priest" - shouldn't this be moved a little later in the section, since the subject is yet to be a Jesuit priest. Also, it might be better to omit "Doonan" here, according to MOS:SAMESURNAME.
  • I get that surname of the subject is plausible to be avoided, since it's in the context of family. However, the subject as only "Doonan" is mentioned once in the same paragraph that uses only "James", which might make it confusing. Considering breaking the para on that Doonan mention. I would personally mention the subject by their surname all the time. A point to be noted is that the mother's name surname was different. Basically, the naming issue is confusing and complex to me.
  • The second paragraph has some issues, mostly regarding prose. I'll try to suggest:
    • "In 1864, he was sent to Boston College to teach for three years. In 1867, he returned to Maryland, where he went to Woodstock College to study philosophy and theology." - here, in 1867 could be omitted and replaced with "following which", or however you want to rewrite.
    • not once is his name/surname mentioned.
    • "His studies were interrupted by a period of teaching at Georgetown from 1868 to 1869." - it could be expanded if their is something detailed in the source. "from 1868 to 1869" - could be simply rewritten to "for a year" to avoid WP:PROSELINE.
  • "After four years, he completed his classical course of study,[1] during which time he was the cadet captain of the student regiment." I think grammatically, it should be only "during which" (remove "time"), since the sentence begins after the year and "which" then refers to classical course of study, which isn't a time period. Also, I think it's appropriate to specify gender since it was all boys at that time. MOS:GNL will help.
    • Rephrased the sentence for grammar. I'm not really sure what you mean when you say to specify the gender. If you mean that the university was all-male, I would think that's a bit unnecessary, since every university in the world was all-male in 1861 (with the very rare exception of an occasional female student). Ergo Sum 18:16, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to the source, isn't it Gibbons who ordained him, not Kain?

Georgetown University

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  • " In September 1875 he went to Frederick, before returning to Georgetown in 1877 as a professor of rhetoric." - what's the significance of him going to Frederick? Could be removed.
    • Even though it's not terribly important, mentioning that he was in Frederick for a year avoids misleading the reading, who might think that he was at Georgetown for the whole period from his appointment in poetry to his appointment in rhetoric. Ergo Sum 18:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "rhetoric" wikilink?
  • "commencement exercises" shouldn't it be singular? nevermind
  • "He also proposed that Healy Hall's main auditorium, which remained unfinished, be completed and named Gaston Memorial Hall after the school's first student, William Gaston" - probably reordering required nevermind
  • "In the summer of 1886, a new building was constructed for the School of Medicine.[14] The larger building was designed by Paul J. Pelz and was erected on the corner of 10th and E streets in Northwest Washington, on the former site of the mausoleum of John Peter Van Ness's wife." - I think this a little bit off topic and doesn't relate to the subject. Maybe the construction could be mentioned briefly, since it's mentioned in the lead.
  • "Bishop John J. Keane, Catholic University's first rector,[16] attempted to resolve this dispute by offering to purchase Georgetown University,[17] tendering this proposal to Doonan" - I don't know exactly how, but this statement feels like a cliffhanger. If it's not that significant, I would recommend to shorten it and make it clearer.
    • It's a pretty significant event, since it would have merged two large universities. I'd added that the offer was unsuccessful, which should give the sentence some resolution. Ergo Sum 18:38, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Replace all "these" with "that" or "the". This goes for other sections as well.
  • "...were praised by the Jesuit provincial superior, Thomas J. Campbell, as he left office with a debt of only $40,000 to $50,000." - I would try not use the values. Also, "left the office" seems to appear all of a sudden, could it be altered to something like "by the end of his presidency"? And "he left.." confuses Doonan with Campbell.
  • "For several years, Doonan promoted the idea that a centenary celebration be organized,[7] culminating in the official celebration in February 1889." - replace culminating with "which eventually culminated.." or something else.
  • "Leading up to this, Doonan purchased in 1885 two cannons in St. Inigoes, Maryland, for $50." reorder and possible reword

Later life

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References

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  • "James Aloysius Doonan was born on November 8, 1841 in Augusta, Georgia." - ref 1 doesn't support this. Cite another ref.
  • Wait, are they really his parents, the source states "descendant".
    • Given the circumstantial evidence, that's the only plausible (I would say possible) explanation. Since Terrence Doonan's home hosted the first Catholic baptism in Atlanta in 1846, and it would be very strange to assume that the baptism was of someone other than Doonan's child, and James Doonan was born in 1841, it would logically follow that the baptism was of James Doonan as a 5-year-old child in his father's home. Ergo Sum 21:20, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • "..first Catholic baptism and confirmation in Atlanta were performed." - the source doesn't say it was first confirmation.
  • I'll assume good faith on ref containing minor facts, the rest I'll try as much as possible.
  • "the significant debt of $300,000" - it's not exact according to source.
  • why he has a different first name in his burial sources?
  • "tendering this proposal to Doonan.[18]" - can't find this in the source.
  • having difficulties accessing Easby-Smith 1907. Can you verify them?
  • "Easby-Smith, James Stanislaus (1907). Georgetown University in the District of Columbia, 1789-1907: Its Founders, Benefactors, Officers, Instructors and Alumni. 1. New York: Lewis Publishing Company. OCLC 633425041. Archived from the original on December 15, 2018. Retrieved December 15, 2018 – via Google Books." would be beneficial to add page numbers.
  • "Maryland-New York Province (1912). Catalogus Provinciae Marylandiae-Neo Eborancensis Societatis Jesu [Catalogue of the Maryland-New York Province of the Society of Jesus] (PDF) (in Latin). Meany Printing Company. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 4, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2019." same for this

Results

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GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
    Mostly great with some issues here and there
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    consensus required
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:

I keep this on hold for 7 days. ImmortalWizard(chat) 19:26, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@ImmortalWizard: I believe I've caught up to all of your comments. Ergo Sum 19:17, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Ergo Sum: Alright, passing this; an excellent article. I would recommend having a peer review and getting people who have corresponding knowledge involved for further polishing. The one thing I can suggest is to make it more comprehensive. Apologies for being a bit harsh over doing the fact checking. To me, verifiability is as important as the content. ImmortalWizard(chat) 20:17, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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