Wikipedia:Peer review/Hard Times/archive1

Hard Times

I have been working on this article flat-out for two days, with 'CRUSHING' effort. While I realise it is not perfect, I contrasted and compared it alongside the pinnacle of the literature featured articles, and believe that with a few adjustments, it could be a featured article. What say you? Perhaps there are some grammatical errors in the article, or it is too sententious, or given to judgment or non-neutrality. Who knows? I have tried to find these and have eliminated them draft by draft, so I adjure you to scrutinize this article! Knucmo2 16:52, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good article, but could perhaps use some editing for style and clarity. There are a few commas in incongruous locations, and some sentences are rather longer than is needed. Also the indented paragraph should use the colon indentation method rather than actual indentation (which converts the text to PRE). Thanks. :-) — RJH 16:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the remarks and valued opinions. I think it's a contender for a Featured article. I have edited it for overstretched sentences, indented the paragraph correctly, and removed some of the surplus commas. Please reread it and see what you think.--Knucmo2 22:06, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I went in and made some minor tweaks. Hope you don't mind. — RJH 15:32, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Killer. I commend what you've done with the article, minor as the adjustments were, it's well on the way now. I think I'll add some more material to the critics section, and perhaps clarify some of the background information, with some extra material I picked up.--Knucmo2 18:02, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, thoughtful article. I'd like to see all of Dickens' work done this way! However, I am missing references to contemporary versions of Hard Times (e.g., the television series, see IMDB. Also, although the section on literary criticism is good, I'd like to see a bit more on the influence of the novel on society. I mean, Dickens wanted people to understand and know social mishappenings, but did he achieve his goal? -- Cugel 11:42, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

I certainly concur. When I was writing the article, I had some idea of inserting something about what the novel achieved, I know it was an inspiration for Gaskell's 'North & South'. What sort of heading could it go under. Perhaps there are some critics who commented on this (I shall look), and maybe this could be featured in the article's critical response section.--Knucmo2 22:30, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In the The Old Man and the Sea the articles the section on films is unsurprisingly called films, so a section called mini series would be appropriate. Or you could call it The novel's influence like in The Brothers Karamazov and include other things like the books influence on other writers. I don't really like the ===h3=== headings in the themes section, I think they could be written into the text, reducing the length of the table of contents. If possible the lead should be expanded a bit too perhaps by adding a two-three sentence synopsis. Also I think the people on FAC will ask for inline citations for things that aren't general knowledge from the Background and publication and the Critical response sections, so you might want to consider adding them--nixie 22:42, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the headings point. It's irrelevant, inspect other FAC articles that have a myriad of sub headings and sub-sub headings, yet the article flows. I think this seems to be more of a matter of personal preference rather than actual improvement of the article. A succinct synopsis in the introduction would be suitable. The inline citations is a good point also--Knucmo2 23:12, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)