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Talk:The Elegance of the Hedgehog/GA1

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GA Review

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Greetings, I am the skomorokh and I will be reviewing this article for WP:WGA. The article is generally well-developed and is a great candidate for Good status. There are largely superficial issues with prose quality, grammar, structure, tone, and attribution, but the skeleton of a GA is certainly here, and only slight expansion will be needed. I will expand by listing specific issues shortly, with changes to be discussed rather than demanded, and will allow a week or so for the necessary improvements to be made. I should be contactable at my talkpage at any time. Thank you for nominating this article, and I hope we can get it up to standard without difficulty. Regards, the skomorokh 04:12, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

General comments
  • All quotes need to identify their author inline, unless it is obvious who is being quoted. So for example, 'Reviewer Suzy Leclerc, writing in La Bataille, remarked that "quote"'.
Lead section
  • "Philosophy teacher" is ambiguous, at least to an Anglo-American audience. A university-level teacher is called a lecturer, while a high-school teacher does not need to be defined by subject (few people are notable for being high school philosophy teachers).
  • "Accounts" does not seem to be a valid verb. You could say "The story is an account of", or "The book tells the story of", or "The plot follows", for example.
  • The second sentence is a little dense; you might want to consider splitting it up into two shorter, simpler sentences.
  • The translations sentence could be phrased more smoothly; a conjunction (such as "and", "while", "as") should be used instead of a comma to link two clauses in a sentence.
  • The lead section does not summarize the entire article. Try to include a line in the lede for each paragraph in the text, or consult WP:LEDE for more detailed advice.
Plot introduction
  • You start with the sentence fragment "The story revolves around two important characters: ", but only name one character in the sentence. I recommend you simply name both characters and the fact that they live in the same building instead, and leave their descriptions to later sentences.
  • The descriptions of the characters are great, but a little more context on the setting/backdrop of the story would be a help.
  • Is Renée male or female? Females whose wives have died are "widows"; "widower" means a male whose wife has died.
  • What is Renée an autodictat at? Why would the residents be outraged if they found out?
  • Can you clarify whether Renée specifically disdains the bourgeois residents, or just class and social order in general?
  • "Guises" is not a valid verb; I think you mean "conceals her cleverness by acting unassuming", but it's unclear due to the non-word.
  • Try to avoid sentence fragments separated by commas - it's okay for three sentence fragments, as in "Joseph, a local builder, climbed the wall", because it's clear that the middle fragment describes the noun in the first fragment, but in lines like "Another character, Paloma Josse, a precocious girl dismayed by the privileged people around her, decides that life is meaningless", it's not clear whether Paloma Josse is the other character, the precocious girl, or both.
  • "The two characters' lives overlap after the death of a celebrated restaurant critic who had been living upstairs. A cultured Japanese businessman named Kakuro Ozu, whom Renée befriends, takes a room in the same apartment building." There is no link for the reader to show the connection between these events. Words like "and", "then", "before", "subsequently" can be helpful to show the relation between events.
  • You ought to be clearer as to what the important points of the plot are. It's not clear what the significance of the end of the novel is. Using the conclusions of some of the reviews could be helpful here. The Guardian review claims that the novel is a crash course in philosophy, but this is not clear from the plot summary.
Characters

Okay, there is a bit of a problem with this section, as its scope seems very similar to the Plot introduction section, which is made up mostly of character descriptions. One way to resolve this would be to remove most of the details about the characters from the Plot introduction, and just describe the sequence of events - leaving the descriptions of the character sections. Some novel articles contain very small characters sections - see the featured article Pattern Recognition (novel) - but since this novel seems so character-driven, it might be better to simply merge the two sections into a Synopsis. You could start by depicting the initial state of the characters and the setting, and then go into how events change them.

    • There are specific stuffs mentioned in the second section that are inappropriate, I believe, if merged in the preceding section. I think its fine now—maybe a slight trim, if necessary to avoid redundancy. --Efe (talk) 05:24, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Minor characters subsection is rather short and distractingly bolded; unless there are more characters that can go in here, I recommend you convert it to prose and try to build a decent-length paragraph out of it.
Writing, style, and themes
  • This section starts off by jumping right into a quote without any context. An introductory sentence saying something broad about the writing/style/themes would be welcome.
  • You use three successive quotes from Barbery without identifying the source - are they from the introduction/afterword to the novel, or an interview? When did she say these things?
  • "Comprises" is well-chosen, but it can be taken to mean "makes up" or "is made up of", so it's better to omit the word entirely so as to avoid confusing stupid readers ;)
  • "Accordingly" means roughly "because of this"; I don't think this is what you want to say, as what the critics conclude surely had no causal role in how the chapters were written.
  • "Most critics considered Barbery's narrative presentation to be essayistic." This claim lacks a citation.
  • The quotes in the critics paragraph are unattributed, and the paragraph itself is too short to stand alone - is it possible to write full five or six-line paragraphs on the themes, writing, and style?
  • "Barbery incorporates several themes into the novel. Philosophy, for instance, is much referenced throughout, getting thicker as the story rolls on" This is a great start to a paragraph, just the kind of context the reader needs. However, you have already discussed philosophy in the preceding paragraph, so it seems a little unusual to start introducing it here again.
  • If you are quoting part of a sentence someone said, it's poor form to continue the quote with full sentences. Instead, you can do something like 'Barbery admits that she "followed a long, boring course of studies in philosophy". She comments: "I expected it [long quote here]".
  • "There are also literary citations referencing comic books and movies." Do you mean actual citations/footnotes by the author, or just that sometimes comic books and movies are mentioned? If the latter, the term is "there are allusions to" or "cultural references to x and y appear".
  • "Critics wrote that the novel is "quite radical in its stand against French classism and hypocrisy"." This is quite interesting; is it possible to illustrate this with textual support from the novel? Could you explain how the characters/plot relate to this theme?
Publication
  • Is there a reference for being a "leading" publisher? See WP:PEACOCK. If they are a significant/respected publisher, it's good to say so, but only if you can reference that claim.
  • "Translation...had help". This treats "translation" as something of an autonomous agent; perhaps something like "the publisher was assisted in the translation process by..."
  • Can you say anything about how significant it is that the book was chosen by the French Voice program, or for what reasons it was chosen?
  • The paragraphs in this section are very short, again. Is it possible to expand or merge them?
  • "L'Élégance du hérisson was translated ... in the title" This is poor phrasing. You could say something like "The English version was called The Elegance of the Hedgehog" or "L'Élégance du hérisson was translated ... as The Elegance of the Hedgehog".
Reception
  • "An acclaimed literary work, critics and press alike regard Elegance of the Hedgehog as a publishing phenomenon". Again, watch the commas. Here, "an acclaimed literary work" appears to refer to "critics and press alike".
  • You need to be consistent in using either The Elegance of the Hedgehog or Elegance of the Hedgehog.
  • Why is the comparison with Dan Brown worthy of comment? A little context would help (such as citing how popular Brown's books had been).
  • "According to Viv Groskop, a writer for the British newspaper The Guardian, the philosophical element in the novel partly explains its appeal in France, where philosophy remains one of their compulsory subjects.[4] Anderson agreed, commenting that the novel became popular in France because it is "a story where people manage to transcend their class barriers".[7]" This is very good.
  • What do you mean by "commercial websites"? Amazon and so on? If so, why is this worthy of comment?
References
  • Generally well formatted; though The Globe and Mail ought to be linked, and publishers of newspapers should be added where possible.
  • What makes Frenchculture.org a reliable source?
    • Comfortable with the site because they publish articles about novel ... but.
External links
  • Very good, assuming that there is no useful website about the book that is not a reliable source.

That's it for now, I'll have more substantial comments to make once the minor issues are addressed. I recommend you have a look at the novel articles which are at WP:FA, for guidance and possible models. I'm happy to give a little extra time to address issues due to your current RfA (good luck!) and the iterated review. I have this page watchlisted, but feel free to contact me on my talkpage if you feel the need. the skomorokh 18:29, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comprehensive assessment

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GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
    The quality of prose varies. There are many abrupt sentences and stub paragraphs; the article does not flow naturally from one topic to the next. Perhaps a copyedit from a native English speaker could help? Many quotes still go without attribution in the text, contrary to MOS:QUOTE
    Please be specific. Someone has edited this, so I was confident in passing this to GAN. Thanks. --Efe (talk) 11:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
    The plot introduction section could do with some more inline citation, even if it is only to page numbers of the text itself; otherwise, the referencing is of a high quality, well done.
    The plot does not need citations, as long as its sourced in the main text. Every word, I believe, in this article is fully-sourced. --Efe (talk) 11:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
    Again, there are too many short paragraphs which do not go into depth on the topics they raise. This is particularly noticeable in the Content and Plot introduction sections; too little context is given to the reader, and not enough links between one topic and the next. What is the role of Mr. Ozo? How does Paloma's family act towards her? What is the effect of Burbery's style/writing choices? There is no sustained discussion of the core metaphor of the hedgehog, or the novel's treatment of class consciousness; only one line is given to covering the two narrators' development as the novel progresses. An awful lot of this source, for example, goes unused, and all of these [1] [2] [3][4][5][6][7][8] critical reviews.
    We'll try to add those. --Efe (talk) 11:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
    With regard to Raul's Razor, one get's the impression that the author of this article is favourable towards it subject, but I don't think this is a significant concern as the topic is an uncontroversial work of fiction.
    I think I'm loving the novel but I hope my writing tends not to be POVic in nature. Just tell me, or cite some phrases/sentences there if there are any. --Efe (talk) 11:31, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
    a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/Fail:
    As it stands, the article falls short of the GA criteria in prose quality and comprehensiveness in particular. Most of the remaining issues here would be addressed by extracting all the relevant content from the available sources and seriously expanding the article to describe the novel in-depth. I'm confident that this can be done with a little work, and will give a final judgement on the article (or ask for a second opinion) in a week's time.

Regards, the skomorokh 04:01, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Skomorokh, if I fail to finish this on time, please feel free to delist the nom. Thank you. --Efe (talk) 07:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As long as work is being done, I'm happy to keep it on hold a while longer than normal, considering all the effort you have put in to it thus far. Skomorokh 07:37, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the consideration. --Efe (talk) 07:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Skomorokh, I am really thankful to you and Julia. But since the due date will be tomorrow, delist the nom, please. I will still be adding more info, as required, and, afterward, be needing copy editing from Julia. Thanks a lot. --Efe (talk) 11:46, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all, the article has progressed a lot during the review; the concerns I wrote above were consciously pitched at a level above WP:WIAGA because I think this article can, with expansion and copyediting, make it all the way to WP:FA. There are still sections seem too short and do not flow very well, but all that WP:WIAGA requires for prose it that "the prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct", which I am satisfied this article does. Likewise, you still have direct quotes used without explicit in-line attribution in violation of the Manual of Style, but all the GA criteria requires is that the article comply with the Manual "for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation". Finally, although there seems like there is much more to be said about the style, characters, themes etc., and I would not call the article a comprehensive treatment of the subject, all that GA requires is that "it addresses the main aspects of the topic". You've covered all the bases of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines (plot summaries are redundant for a short article like this, I feel). Nor does the article go into unnecessary detail. On the question of neutrality, yes you can tell that the "author" of the article is positive towards it, but it certainly "represents viewpoints fairly and without bias." So I think all that needs doing for GA specifically is one last push to copyedit the prose. I wouldn't dream of failing an article that so much work has been put in to. Well done on all you hard work, and I hope to see you and the article again at the peer review. Sincerely, Skomorokh 15:44, 2 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are really hardheaded. Just kidding. Since you're persistent that its good enough, I will ask Julia a little copyedit to fix some glaring ungrammatical phrasing since I have added more in the plot summary and some reviews (earliest known reviews in France). Hopefully we can make it before the last minute. --Efe (talk) 12:32, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article now more than satisfies the Good Article criteria, and I have passed it without reservations. I strongly recommend sending this to peer review and ultimately to WP:FAC; with expansion from existing and additional sources, including from the book itself, there would be little holding this article back from featured status. Congratulations to both Efe and Julia for your tremendous effort and interest. Regards, Skomorokh 19:00, 3 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My gratitude to Julia and Skomorokh. --Efe (talk) 01:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At last I found you here guys, three cheers!!! Julia Rossi (talk) 02:55, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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