Talk:Phineas Gage/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Maunus (talk · contribs) 01:17, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I will review this article. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:17, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

First read through: The article is excellent and will be a GA soon. I do have some comments and suggestions that I hope may be helpful. I will have the article on hold at least untill reading the nominator's response to my comments.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:25, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article is currently in a state of quality that clearly passes the GA criteria, the only thing precluding my passing it is the requirement of stability. Once the article has been in a stable state for three to four days I will pass the article, if it still conforms to the criteria. Meanwhile, I will not be following the debates on the talkpage or the article's development. I will be unwatching the page and will ask the nominator or some other contributor to notify me when the article is reasonably stable. I will not fail for lack of stability unless the instable state protracts beyond the limit of what is reasonable for a review. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:54, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well-written:
1. the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and
2. it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

This is one of the cases where the criteria are not fully helpful. The article is definitely well written, but at the same time the prose is definitely not "clear and concise" - but rather flashy, wordy and convoluted. Many sentences are much too long for easy reading and to my mind overuse complicated constructions with embedded clauses and even quotes, too frequently using dashes to splice sentences into eachother. To me this serves to draw attention to the prose itself and away from the content. I am not going to fail on this because of the admitted subjectivity of taste of writing, but I will very strongly recommend a copy edit with ease of reading in mind, breaking up complex sentences and disentwining some of the flowery language. This I would particularly recommend in the lead where the two first paragraphs are in fact each a single sentence. To quote Faulkner, sometimes to achieve good writing one must kill all one's darlings.

Verifiable with no original research:
1. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
2. it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines;[3] and

It is very well supported by citations. In fact I find the amount of quotes from primary sources, both in the text and in the notes, to be excessive to the point of sometimes being confusing, but on the other hand this is also really useful.

1. it contains no original research.

Yes

Broad in its coverage:
1. it addresses the main aspects of the topic;[4] and
2. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Here I concur with FiachraByrne in wishing for a section describing in more detail the use of Gage's case by subsequent neurological and psychological theories, as well as in popular and educational literature. The "use and misuse" section is quite scant here, taking into consideration that Gage's case is used so widely. Particularly it would be interesting to know whether his case support any such theoretical points at all?

Neutral:
1. it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.

yes

Stable:
1. it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

yes

Illustrated, if possible, by images:
1. images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content

yes

1. images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions

yes

Comment The prose is mostly fine but I agree there might be an over-reliance on the dash technique. For example this sentence:

"In 2009 a daguerreotype portrait of Gage was identified—the first likeness of him identified other than a life mask taken around 1850. "

Could be rewritten as:

"In 2009, a daguerreotype portrait of Gage was identified, the earliest known likeness of him other than a life mask taken around 1850. "

The lead section and first few paragraphs seem to have the most dashes. There are folks much better than myself at grammar. Check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors for requests for help. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I hacked at these dashes in the lead section, and left a comment at Talk:Phineas_Gage#Revision to the introduction. A few more of the dashes might be removed, but they are no longer a fixture that would annoy a reader unused to or unappreciative of this stylistic choice IMO. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:02, 14 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. With respect to the concerns about the prose, I've made some edits that I hope simplify some of the more complicated sentences. Perhaps those concerns are no longer a significant issue. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:37, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - yes, it was worth pausing in this case. I've smoothed out some more sentences and removed some of the dashes to make the style more typical of Wikipedia. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:24, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment b reviewer As I wrote, I wasn't going to fail it on prose, but I do think the changes constitute an improvement. I am going to let it sit a little longer as there seem to be several editors working on the article right now, so when it finds a stable state - I am guessing in a couple of days - I will read it over again and probably pass it. By the way, who is the actual nominator? User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:28, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This edit says it's CurlyLoop.

I've come fresh to the article, which is informative and interesting. There are still 'citations needed' in the Notes; these could be fixed by a little textual surgery, and the Notes are indeed a bit too copious; if all those explanations and quotations are needed, probably more of them should be in the text really. I agree, too, that the 'Theoretical use and misuse' section is probably too slender, given the depth the article goes into otherwise: 'due weight' implies a fuller treatment of the extensive theorizing about the case. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:46, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article is struggling to comply with "the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation." as the prose is neither clear nor concise, and it does not comply with the MoS. My efforts to copyedit it have now been reverted three times without good reason so I am withdrawing from helping improve it, but I would be very put out if this article passed. Not to put it too bluntly, there is a WP:OWN problem here. Unless that is fixed, the chance of brining it to the requisite standard (for MoS and prose) seem slim. --John (talk) 18:04, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have reinstated one of your reverted edits that removes a lot of superfluous in-text markup from the source. There is definitely too many editors working on the article right now for it to pass the criterion of stability. I do want to pass the article though, because it clearly is very close to the standard, so I will keep it on hold until it finds a stable form hopefully though consensus building here on the review page or at the talkpage. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:11, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What has "too many editors" got to do with stability? The issue that's being fixed is the quality of the prose; there's very little, if any, material being added. Eric Corbett 17:37, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of what kind of work is being done an article that have six to eight different editors editing simultaneously over a period of days is not stable. Particularly not when coupled with somewhat heated discussions on the talkpage requiring consensus to be formed.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator's comment Sorry about the slow reply, I have been busy IRL. I broadly agree with the reviewer's conclusion and further comments about the prose, especially the use of dashes. I'm not as confident about the conclusion that it's not broad enough as, compared to the main contributors to this article, I'm no expert. So it's hard to know what's missing. I'll have a look at how easy it is to clarify the prose and try and address the other typogrammatical problems too. Thanks! CurlyLoop (talk) 10:24, 19 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]