Wikipedia:Peer review/The Secret Garden/archive1

The Secret Garden

I have been adding a summary to this, which I feel is too detailed. Or is there such a thing as a too detailed summary? Plus, is the correct name a summary or a synopsis? Please treat all three as questions. Lee S. Svoboda 21:43, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I will start somewhat less topically by noting that I am, personally, quite fond of this novel. In answer to your question, both summary and synopsis intimate concision and overview – for our purposes, we should view the two terms as overlaping. Unfortunately, I do find the section in question to be lacking in language, grammatical cohesiveness, and logical flow. These are areas where, I think, it could be significantly improved. Try to aim for clarity, avoiding convoluted sentences, for example: "...doctor who came from London, the only good docter Colin had had, had thought Colin..." I tend to view the citations as being out of place, and likely you should rethink the approach of including these as such. There seems to be an overemphasis placed on the attempt to reconsruct the actual narrative esp. through dialogue. Thus, I think you should aim towards a more objective and detached exposition. Try to condense major developments in a manner which is less emotionally-involved (esp. with the characters in the story).

Hope this helps, good luck with the revision. El_C

I know nothing about this novel. However, it seems to me that the lead section needs to be expanded a to increase the "wow!" factor, that makes the author want to read on. It's a very interesting synopsis... but it seems incomplete. Is that a synopsis of the whole story, or 90% of it? Also, a reference section is still needed! - Ta bu shi da yu 06:02, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The current synopsis (slightly rewritten since Ta bu shi da yu's comment, and substantially since El C's) covers pretty much the entire book. My only reference for the work I've done on the article is the novel itself, which seems too obvious to list as a reference. --Paul A 06:15, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Even though it seems obvious, we should still have the book itself as a reference! - Ta bu shi da yu 13:14, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)