Wikipedia:Peer review/Le Cid/archive1

Le Cid

Hi, Kyra!

Great job on your article so far. The cast of characters was well laid-out, and the plot summary was easy to follow. Have there been performances of Le Cid in recent years? Do you have any way of finding out if it is still performed/how frequently it is?

I definitely think you kept the article neutral and factual.

You may want to try adding in links to other things within the words in the article. For instance, a link to Aristotle's Poetics might help inform the reader as to what standards audience members may have been holding the play to. Also, perhaps a link to Jean Chapelain, mentioned when talking about the critical review of the play, might be helpful to show what role he served.

Otherwise, I think this is a very well thought-out article that uses visuals and content together very well.

Thanks, Emmaosmundson (talk) 23:15, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Kyra!

Your article' structure is clear and comprehensive, and the sections of "Characters" and "Plot summary" are brief, explicit, which is easy for readers, who are not familiar with it, to follow and grasp. I think more information about its background will be great to help readers understand this play. Also, is there any other translations of this script, except for the English and French one? And any other adaptations of the play were performed before? If they have, when and where? Both will be some useful information for the wiki page, if you can find out. Besides, if you can access with some comments/critique articles by later scholars and add in the page, that would be a good supplement.

Hope my suggestion could assist your editing work in some way.

Thank you.

QsCarolyn (talk) 20:44, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Comments from Tim Riley

An interesting read, but if you are aiming at GA or FA there is some way to go. First, and most important, we are short of citations for too many statements. Secondly, the prose needs polishing.

• Lead
  • Please see the Manual of Style page on lead sections. They should summarise everything of importance in the main body of the article and should not contain any information that does not feature in the main text.
  • "subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic practice known as the Querelle du Cid" – ambiguous. To make it unambiguous we want something like "subject of a heated polemic, known as the Querelle du Cid, over the norms of dramatic practice"
  • "a heated polemic" – is the noun quite the right one here? Our WP article defines the word as "contentious rhetoric that is intended to support a specific position by aggressive claims and undermining of the opposing position", whereas a "querelle" suggests a debate or argument.
• Background
  • based off of the life – this is not English. I imagine it is supposed to mean "based on the life"
  • "lived approximately from 1043" – the adverb is in the wrong position and seems to modify "lived" rather than 1043. "lived from approximately 1043" would more clearly convey your meaning.
  • "a sell-sword figure" – at a guess this neologism means "a mercenary". It occurs in none of the three dictionaries I regularly use: the Oxford, Chambers and Collins.
  • "further given" – "further" seems to serve no purpose here.
• Performance History and "La Querelle"
  • There is not a single citation in the whole section. In particular, the last sentences of paragraphs, expressing opinions – "rather realistically", "proved" – need to be justified by citing a reliable source for each.
  • "controversial due to" – in good prose "due to" is not used as a compound preposition. "Owing to", which has been accepted as a compound preposition for at least 200 years, would be grammatically acceptable, but "because of" is plainer and better.
  • "Académie Française" – you italicise this in the lead but not here. Consistency needed.
• Characters
  • I cannot find any firm stipulation in the Manual of Style, but my experience is that it is usual to use spaced en-dashes rather than hyphens in lists of this kind.
• Plot summary
  • The summary is adequately written, and is clear enough. I prefer to cite the page numbers of a published text for each scene or act, but that's just my view, and uncited plot summaries generally seem to be acceptable at GAN or FAC.

I hope these few points are of use. – Tim riley talk 10:11, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Afterthought: looking at other recent requests for peer reviews I now realise that your work on this article was part of your course-work, and that some of my jargon, above, (GAN, FAC etc) that would be intelligible to regular contributors to Wikipedia may well be double-Dutch as far as you are concerned. I hope you will pick and choose from my comments above, and follow up the ones that you find useful. Tim riley talk 11:37, 26 November 2017 (UTC)