Talk:Ulysses S. Grant/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: –– Jezhotwells (talk) 16:53, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

   A remarkably large number of sentences start with "Grant", please consider varying this. Fixed

   Used pronouns, "General", "Union General", and "Ulysses".  Not fixed

It is difficult not to use the word Grant, since this article is on Grant. Since sentences also contain other names, using pronouns would not be optimal and could cause a mix up in meaning. I can attempt to reduce the amount of Grant name references. {Cmguy777 (talk) 02:54, 11 April 2010 (UTC)}

1. Forced to comply, Buckner relinquished 12,392 Confederate prisoners of war, including himself. A little clumsy, implies they were already prisoners  Fixed

   One such friend was Joseph Seligman, whom Grant offered the position as Secretary of the Treasury - "who was offered the position of ... by Grant"  Fixed

   Johnson tried to use Grant to defeat the Radical Republicans by making Grant the Secretary of War in place of Edwin M. Stanton, whom he could not remove without the approval of Congress under the Tenure of Office Act. - I think there is a misunderstanding about the use of the word "whom". "Who" is correct here. See this Fixed

   In his re-election campaign, Grant benefited from the loyal support of Harper's Weekly political cartoonist Thomas Nast and later sent Nast a deluxe edition of Grant's autobiography when it was finished. Rather complex sentence with much interior repetition, simplify  Fixed

   Grant's notable accomplishments as President include the enforcement of Civil Rights to African Americans Very clumsy - "enforcement to"?  Fixed

   Grant confronted a Northern public tired of committing to the long war in the South, ... Confronted?  Fixed

   A distinguishing characteristic in the Grant Presidency was Grant's concern with the plight of African Americans and native Indian tribes, in addition to civil rights for all Americans. Grant - Grant  Fixed

   In Boston, soup line kitchens run by Overseers of the Poor doubled in overcrowded city tenements. - clumsy "In Boston, the number of soup kitchens doubled ...."  Fixed

   and an insatiable speculation by Wall Street financiers drop the "an"  Fixed

   By October 1, $50,000,000 had been released into a stringent economy ... What is a "stringent economy"?  Fixed

   ''Many farmers and working men in the South West were anticipating Grant to sign the bill in order to get the needed greenbacks to continue business. Very clumsy  Fixed

   Grant unexpectedly vetoed the bill, against popular pressure to sign, Clumsy  Fixed

   Right - let us stop here. Articles should be ready for scrutiny when nominated at WP:GAN. This article needs a thorough head to toe copy-edit. I really cannot evaluate the prose, excepto say that it is poor, until that is done. I shall look at other aspects, and place on hold, but I am not going through any more of the prose until it has been renedered into good clear English.

   The article is being improved with better narration. The battles sections have been summarized. To edit anymore would mean to have a separate article on the battles.

   Consider using WP:SUMMARY style and leaving the detail in sub-articles

   Fish informed Daniel Stickels, the U.S. Spanish ambassador, that reparations were demanded by Spain for this act of "peculiar brutality". The Spanish Rupublic's President, Emilio Castelar, expressed profound regret for the tragedy and was willing to make reparations through arbitration. Presumably "the U.S. Spanish ambassador" Stickels was the US ambassador to Spain. So if reparations were being demanded by Spain, how come in the next sentence Spain i sw willing to make reparations. This is nonsense.

   I have had to fix many elementary mistakes of grammar, gross geographical errors, badly formatted cites, mistakes of grammar in the first few sections examined after those previously looked at, as seen in this diff.] I think that it would be best if this is failed now, allowing you time to get a professional copy-edit., rather than rushing to try and fix things. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 01:24, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   All books published since 1973 should have ISBNs if at all possible. All books need publisher details

   Is Sparknotes ref #18 [1] a reliable source?

   ref #21 [2] An online book store is not a reliable source.

   Confusing citation style. Some books are cited separately on each occurrence, others cites using the footnote and then a works cited section. Consistency is needed

   ref #111 [3] Virual Tourist is not a reliable source  Fixed

   ref #116 [4] is a blog

   ref #117 [5] is a wiki

   I assume good faith for the books

   Some of the books in the Bibliograpphy ae also used as sources. It is all rather confusing. Consider splitting off the full bibliography into a sub article linking from here. Obviously there lots of books on such a famous figure.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   Consider using WP:SUMMARY style and leaving the detail in sub-articles

   The war sections are summaries. It is hard to summarize without leaving vital information out. Grant was involved with so many battles, it might be imperative to have a separate article on his Civil War record.

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, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   File:US Grant Portrait Postage 1895.jpg is too big and its position relative to File:GrantBirthplace.jpg sandwiches the text.

 Fixed

1. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   OK, as mentioned above, I shall place this on hold for seven days. The major item to check is the prose. See if you can find someone to go through it line by line. Try reading to yourself out aloud. This can help identify clumsy styling. If you don't think you can make significant progress in seven days, please let me know. I am watchlisting this page and will check back regularly. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 18:33, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

   OK, although some errors have been corrected, many more were discovered as soon as I recommenced examining the article. Get someone from the WP:Guild of copyeditors to go through this line byu line. and then when it is ready, renominate at WP:GAN. The backlog elimination drive has succeeded in reducing the waiting time to, at most, a few weeks, so take your time and then renominate. This article about a major historical figure deserves to be made into a good article and then a featured article, and this can be done, but it will take cconsiderable work. I suggest that when you think it is ready for GAN you take it to WP:Peer review to get other eyes to look over it. Not listing at this time. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 01:24, 11 April 2010 (UTC)