Talk:Women's March on Versailles/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Malleus Fatuorum 21:42, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

General

• Many of the section heading begin with "The", contrary to the advice offered by the MoS: "Do not use a, an, or the as the first word (Economy of the Second Empire, not The economy of the Second Empire), unless by convention it is an inseparable part of a name (The Hague)." [1]

Y I changed all of these headers except for the subsection "An Orléanist conspiracy?" I think that header should remain in the form of a question, and the indefinite article helps, do you agree?

The Manual of Style is quite specific on this point: "The final visible character of a title should not be a punctuation mark ...",[2] and GA criterion 1b requires that an article "complies with the manual of style guidelines ... for layout". Malleus Fatuorum 18:03, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Y True. I've changed the header to "Orléanist conspiracy theory".

Lead

• "The march evolved among women in the marketplaces of Paris ...". How does a march "evolve"?

Y Reworded to "began".

• "Their demonstrations quickly became intertwined with the purposes of revolutionaries who were seeking liberal political reforms ...". You can't intertwine a demonstration with anyone's purposes. Perhaps what's meant is that the revolutionaries took advantage of the demonstration?

Y Reworded to "activities".

• "These events effectively ended the independent authority of the king", The lead quite correctly does not capitalise "king", yet elsewhere thoughout the article it is frequently capitalised. A case can be made for capitalising or not, but the article needs to be consistent.

Y Standardized spelling throughout, and did the same for "queen".

Background

• The second paragraph needs to be cited, looks like an essay at present.

Y Two citations added.

Early plans

• "Despite its post-revolutionary hagiography, the march was not a spontaneous event". Strictly I think a hagiography is a biography.

Y Astute. Changed it to "mythology".

• "Numerous calls for a demonstration upon Versailles had already been made". You can march upon but you can't demonstrate upon.

Y Changed to "mass demonstration at Versailles".

Beginning of the march

• "... a disquieted group of market-women who were distraught over the chronic shortage and high price of bread. From their starting point in the markets of the eastern section of Paris then known as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the angry women *...". In two sentences they're variously called disquieted, distraught, and angry, which seems strange.

Y Removed "disquieted" and changed "distraught" to "infuriated".

• ... many bearing kitchen blades and other home-made weapons". Surely a kitchen blade wouldn't have been home-made at the end of the 18th century?

Y Reworded "home-made" to "makeshift".

Siege of the palace

• "The crowd traipsed the distance from Paris to Versailles in about six hours". Traipsed is too informal a word for the register required of an encyclopedia article.

Y Reworded to "skipped merrily" "traveled".

Deputation to the king

• "... Maillard and a small clatch of market women trooped triumphantly back to Paris". What's a "clatch"?

Y A mistake! It's me juxtaposing "clutch (of birds)" with "(coffee) klatch". I still like "clutch", but I'll reword it to "cluster".

Notes

• "Some writers, such as Hibbert and Webster, lay a heavy share of suspicion upon the Duke". You can't lay a "share of suspicion on anything", no matter how heavy.

Y Reworded to "impute significant influence to the Duke".

References

• Seems to be a bit of a hotch-potch. Why are Scurr, Sorel, Dawson and so on not included in the Bibliography?

Y Blind spot! I added them all to the Bib now. SteveStrummer (talk) 04:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

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.