Wikipedia talk:Copyediting reception sections

Feedback

Most of this advice is sound, especially for shorter Receptions, but it really depends on the depth of Reception coverage that exists. If little has been said in summary of secondary source reviews, the WP editor inherits the job of summarizing the reception without veering into original research. For example, verb choice can be seen as editorializing or inserting a POV. And sometimes a reviewer concern is worth mentioning specifically in an article, but is otherwise mundane on its own. This isn't an apology for boring prose but more a recognition of the difficulty of the task—it can be dry ...and compounded by other factors. For instance, some WP editors insist on using the reviews' authors as the in-prose attribution rather than their publication titles (despite the reviews being much better known metonymically by the publication affiliation). A few points to consider for strengthening the essay, but feel free to ping me for more feedback—I generally agree.

On the changes to the example, I think the bigger point is that the older draft did not signpost its paragraphs, so the reader had little expectation of what to come next. Similarly, there remain few breadcrumbs in the individual sentences. People like Harold Bloom can be linked and likely will be familiar to those interested in the subject, but for a general audience and the sake of the other people mentioned, all jargon and unfamiliar language should be introduced. Why does X's opinion matter? Because X is a professor of so-and-so or has authored a contemporaneous book on the subject. Because X is a literary critic in Y magazine, with any context explained. Now this isn't necessary for all entries, but the point of the detailed Reception—and as I read it, your core complaint—is that "A said B" prose is boring precisely because it lacks the context that gives meaning to A's opinion. czar 03:30, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, good points -- the fact is that often no summary of the reviews exists, so, as you say, the editor inherits the job. I'll see if I can think of something sensible to say about that. I like the metaphor of breadcrumbs; I'll see if I can use that. Yes, the core complaint is certainly about context, though I think if you think in terms of a narrative that the reviews fit into then along with context you also can gain other benefits, such as a natural sequence, and opportunities to vary the prose rhythm.

Thanks for the feedback. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 04:19, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

The original example and the re-write explicitly has the original research problem, though. And the essay seems to reccommend that approach :( Take "The book has been widely praised by genre commentators, academic critics, and literary reviewers."; your "source" for this is a set of quotes from people who fall under these titles. You are correct a reliable source for this statement probably doesn't exist - what I would like to see is these essays noting that it is okay and a good thing not to include such content. Certainly at FAC level we should be pragmatic about perfect language vs. factual accuracy. --Errant ^(chat!) 07:49, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree that this is something that must be watched, but in this case there's no question that "widely praised" is accurate; it's one of the most praised books in the history of science fiction. I think this is something that has to be left to editorial judgement and discussion; and as you say, we should allow a little leeway in summary citations. I see a variation of this sometimes with review aggregator websites: I believe there's a games review site (I think it's Metacritic) that characterizes the average gamer review for a game with language such as "universal acclaim". Saying that Metacritic describes a game as having received "universal acclaim" is fine in a reception section; saying "the game received universal acclaim" is not, at least not if cited to Metacritic. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 08:59, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

What are your views on reviews of secondary literature? The Bloom collection of essays from 1987 is a good example. A review of Bloom's collection of essays is here. If you were really giving context you would say that: (i) Bloom is "an American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University" (but was he back in 1987? OK, he "was made Sterling Professor of Humanities in 1983".); and (ii) that he was writing in the introduction to a collection of essays that formed part of the 'Modern critical interpretations' series. That may be excessive for a Wikipedia article, but the essential problem is that we are trying to distil down the essence of the reception, and in so doing, nuance can be lost. Certainly the article (tLHoD) needs to say who Bloom is (currently there is only a link). I would also point to the collection of essays as a perfect example of further reading to point people at. Going back to the review of Bloom's essay collection, it was published by the American Library Association and written by Joe R. Christopher of Tarleton State University. It says "This is the fourth collection of essays on Le Guin, but the first focused on one book." That kind of overview of the state of secondary literature on Le Guin is what is needed (but obviously more up-to-date). Carcharoth (talk) 12:03, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

You make a good case, but I would guess there's too much case-by-case variation to make a broad statement. An article about a Philip K. Dick book is likely to have prominent literary figures cited in the reception section; an article about The Skylark of Space, less so. Editorial consensus on what's appropriate is what's needed. For example, you recommend that Bloom's background be mentioned in the article, rather than just linked; I think that's often a good idea, but not always. A reviewer named in the article might have a link, but it's not always necessary to do more than the link.

Take a look at The Pale Emperor, which is at PR with a note saying the editor would like to take it to FAC. If I get time I'll try to do a rewrite of at least part of the reception section, which I think suffers from some of the problems I identify in this essay. It's situations like this that I had in mind: an existing article, with the reception information already in place in the text, which has prose and readability problems. I wanted to provide a toolkit and examples so that other editors could improve these sections. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:42, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I had a quick look. May try and look again later (I had hoped it would be an SF article!). My immediate thought is that a critical reception section in 2016 for an album released in 2015 will suffer from recentism. Sometimes you just have to wait for later reaction. If there is no later reaction, that says something as well. (I realise that this is less than helpful for music albums and video games, where reaction and article writing tends to be contemporary, though some more considered reaction does come later, surely?) Carcharoth (talk) 13:06, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I think reviews are quick and true critical commentary has to wait, but the reception section has to cover both, so the problem can't be kicked down the road. I picked The Pale Emperor just because it's at PR, but I'll bet you a nickel you could look through sf novel GAs and find something worth improving. If you give it a shot, let me know and perhaps we could collaborate on the talk page. It would be good to have another example to add to this essay (though I think a music or video game example would be even better, since we already have a book example). Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:14, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

it's one of the most praised books in the history of science fiction; well that's a statement that should surely be sourceable. And it's very important such statements are sourced, and not synthesised by editors. -Errant ^(chat!) 18:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

In one sense "widely praised" is a vague statement. How wide is wide? If you remove the word 'widely' you get "The book has been praised by genre commentators, academic critics, and literary reviewers." But then what book that has any pretensions to be any good hasn't been praised in some way? I did find something in Ursula K. Le Guin (1984) by Charlotte Spivack (sadly now deceased) that says:

Critical reception of The Left Hand of Darkness displayed a tension of opposites appropriate to the novel. Winner of both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and reviewed in major journals, it was clearly acknowledged as a major work. At the same time, however, a debate raged as to its overall success. Central to the debate from the beginning was..."

There is also numerous mentions of the response of Lem to the work. It looks like people have already written mini-histories of the critical reception at the time (Donna White's is the one used mostly in the article), and it is those accounts (without focusing solely on what one person says) that should be used as a basis for a reception section in the Wikipedia article. Will ask what White had to say about what Spivack said. Carcharoth (talk) 00:18, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Video games

A note concerning video games, since you mention them in the essay- a common recommendation made for video game reception sections at the GA+ level (all levels, really), as since unlike books they have some more clearly structured "areas" for review, is to organize the reception by area instead of a list of by reviewer. That is, for example, have paragraph A cover what the reviewers you are using said about the gameplay, and paragraph B about their opinions on the graphics, segueing into music and sound design, and paragraph C be about what types of fans they thought would be interested in the game, or likely longer-term impact of the game on the genre/medium/game series. Expanding each section into multiple paragraphs, of course, if there were specific bits that reviewers talked about in more depth, or had a larger impact on the medium at large. Unlike books, modern video games generally have a wealth of possible reviews to choose from, which means that it's a long-running problem to have review sections on not-well-developed articles just be a list of what 12 reviewers said about the game: "Graphics good, but he didn't like X about the gameplay", ad nauseum. --PresN 00:41, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

As it happens I'm reviewing a video game FAC right now, and I found that Czar has been putting comments at the head of each paragraph to indicate the scope, which seems a good idea -- for long and complicated reception sections, at least, and perhaps for all of them. The breakdown by area you mention for video game articles seems a sensible approach for almost all these sections, unless there are so few reviews there's no way to group them.

Perhaps the advice in the essay can be summarized as

1. Decide on an organizational approach, and assemble the quotes into paragraphs on that basis.
2. For each paragraph come up with an overall statement of what the paragraph will tell the reader, and use this to create an thematic opening sentence, possibly citing one or more reviewers.
3. Within the paragraph, look for ways to assemble the statements to make an argument supporting the paragraph's goal. Avoid using "A said B" if at all possible; instead try to find summarizing statements that are not direct quotes, and support them with quotes as needed. Try to achieve variation between direct quotes, indirect quotes, and summary descriptions.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:50, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I've now added a summary section based on the notes above. Czar, PresN: is this essay something you'd link to in a review as worthwhile advice for other editors? If not, can you tell me why you wouldn't? Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:21, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I've found that long essays only interest editors who are seeking out the info. Most editors just want quick bullet point tips. If it were written with a summary at the top and then followed as a guide rather than an assertion of a position, I think it would be more useful for linking. My 2¢. The bullet points might also fit in the video games WikiProject style guidelines. And, in general, I still don't see an active solution to "A said B" unless we resolve to use less of those personal opinions in lieu of more generalized conclusions. The tradeoff is that WP editor generalization can easily lose validity if a general statement is made from non-general sources. czar 16:32, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

Your point about long essays is a good one. I've moved the suggested actions to the top and changed the original essay to be a "worked example". Perhaps others might contribute "before" and "after" examples; reading those might convey some of the intent better than any amount of instructional prose. I also take your point about the risk an editor takes when they generalize; I think that's an area where editorial judgement is always going to have to be exercised. I'd be delighted if any form of those bullet points were to end up as WikiProject guidelines, of course! Thanks for the feedback. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:32, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

• Another stray comment: Worse than the "A said B" issue and perhaps the biggest Reception section problem is the use of extended quotes. I recommend that new writers avoid quotes entirely unless absolutely necessary—get those paraphrasing muscles working czar 19:39, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
• Another thought: I also advise to start general and end specific in each paragraph. So if the reception is thematically grouped, start by stacking similar assertions together. (Some reviewers thought X about Y.[1][2][3]) Then use specific flourishes from the reviewers to qualitatively highlight what is important about this opinion. Or use a selection to highlight a potent dissent. Along with overquoting, the laundry list of A said B often springs from not parsing the material enough to find what stacks. And unless the opinions are drastically different, they often can/should be stacked or just excluded. czar 19:26, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

  I added a "paraphrase" bullet point, though I think my wording could be improved. I didn't add the "general to specific" point: I think you're right that that's often a good structure, but I don't know if it's a completely general statement. The point about "not parsing the material enough" is spot on -- essentially that's what I'm trying to get at when I say the editor should first decide what point the paragraph is going to make. That's not possible if you're not parsing the content you're planning to add. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:35, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes it's hard to see the shape of those paragraphs before one reads through everything, so some guidance on how to organize those thoughts before writing paragraphs might be helpful. Once locked into a structure, it's easy to lose sight of how things might reorganize to fit together. At that point, it's easier to break the paragraph back into bullet points again, combine like with like and recast the paragraph. czar 22:06, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Wider applicability

This essay gives good advice, but I found myself thinking that the advice applies to writing from sources in general, not just reception sections. And the essay is more about writing and organising sources and summarising them, not 'copyediting' (the title of this essay). All the advice given here applies to any section or article where you are summarising the views of others (particularly when summing up the 'legacy' or 'influence' of a person in a biographical article). More generally, knowing when to bring in extra detail, when to gloss something, when to quote, when to paraphrase, when to explain and avoiding clunky phrasing and writing, all those are general writing skills. You also have to be familiar enough with the sources and confident enough as a writer and summariser to do some of what is described here. Some of this can be taught, some of these skills can be acquired through experience.

I also get the impression that this advice is more for 'finished' articles, where all the material (though avoiding repetition) is there and the material just needs better organisation? Although nothing is set in stone here, it can help to explain to others (and editors who come along later) the approach taken, so that people don't need to reinvent the wheel and feel a need to re-organise things. A talk page section can help here - explaining what is being done. Sometimes what is needed is copyediting. Sometimes extensive re-organsiation. Sometimes starting again from scratch.

It is important also to emphasise that writing (even when it can be made formulaic and you are 'only' organising material and opinions obtained from sources) is a creative act. To get flow and 'good' writing, you can follow guidelines, but you need to have a feel for how to write. That isn't even touching on tone and style, and how to stay with (or avoid) a dry encyclopedic 'voice', or alternatively to impart some of the feelings of others by the judicious use of a quote. Also, different writers given the same sources, will impart the same information, but in different styles. That is not wrong, and it is possible for different approaches to be 'correct'.

In this example, I would personally put more chronology context, such as the year each reviewer was giving their opinion, as that gives the reader some idea of whether it was an immediate reaction or came later. For the essay generally, more specific examples (of well-written 'Reception' sections) would also help. One more thought: some works have literature where this summarising of reviews has been done already (by authoritative and academic sources) - it is important to follow those analyses or summaries of a work's reception when they exist. Carcharoth (talk) 12:09, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Carcharoth -- thanks for the comments. To your first point: the impetus to write this was repeatedly seeing reception sections at FAC that had problems. That's why the focus is on fixing text that's already been written, and why I titled it "Copyediting", although you're right that that's a bit misleading. I'd like to keep the essay focused on that, because I want to be able to cite it for that specific problem. Czar comments above that people ignore long essays, and I think he's right; I also think people are more likely to pay attention to an essay that seems to be targeted at the specific problem they're trying to fix. If I ask someone to go and read a "how to write better articles" essay I think I'll get less response than with something like this.

That's not to say we couldn't have other essays with similar contents but a different focus, of course. Tony1 has written some excellent "how to" material, and perhaps we should have more. Some of your other points about factors this essay doesn't touch on are good, but again I was trying to avoid putting in every piece of writing advice I can think of; perhaps other essays targeted at other aspects of article writing could include some of those points.

I like the idea of having more examples; I'd been thinking along those lines myself. I think I'm going to add a note asking readers to add further examples of good reception paragraphs, and perhaps additional "before and after" examples. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:02, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I will try and find examples (if you feel brave, have a look at The Lord of the Rings#Reception and The Hobbit#Reception and Reception of J. R. R. Tolkien). Would the Shakespeare one be Shakespeare's reputation? One point that may also need making is that it is not strictly necessary to wall off 'reception' material into a section titled that. Sometimes it makes more sense to use a quote or a review somewhere else in an article. The quote from Bloom about Le Guin and Tolkien is interesting. It reminded me of an essay Le Guin wrote on Tolkien that is available online, see here. I'll pop a link to that on the talk page of the Le Guin article. Carcharoth (talk) 11:48, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

SF reception sections

More interested in SF reception sections (books and films). The Skylark of Space#Reception is tempting... Are there any SF classics out there with particularly good reception sections? 2001: A Space Odyssey (film)#Reception looks interesting as well. Maybe worth listing some examples here? Carcharoth (talk) 13:17, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm at work so will have to follow up tonight or tomorrow, but yes, let's get some examples, and maybe look at one that could be worked on. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:25, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I found a couple of GAs we could look at: City at the End of Time (Bear); Dragon's Egg (Forward); Childhood's End (Clarke); The Years of Rice and Salt (Robinson). There were a couple more. What are you thinking is the goal here? Find a great reception section and include it as an example? Find a bad one and work on improving it? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

A said B

Could we possibly expand this part of the essay to include cases that say "A of C said B?" Based on this diff I reverted on the Sonic Forces article. jd22292 (Jalen D. Folf) (talk) 17:44, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

I added a short note; you're right, that does happen a lot, and it's usually even worse than "A said B". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:24, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

My objection was that JD's edit did little to remedy such an issue. All that was done was removing the author of the publication, which in of itself, isn't particularly an issue. Sergecross73 msg me 19:45, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

• A of B said C is at best lazy, repetitive writing (it usually comes in sets of three+ successive sentences with similar style) and at worst, confusing clutter (give the reader two new names—the author and the pub—to hold in their head, both most likely unimportant when the point of the sentence is to contrast and generalize reviewer sentiment). If the reviewer him/herself was independently notable, then there could be a point in mentioning the name. But for the ABC structure: In a single sentence, not a big deal, but in a paragraph, it's illegible. czar 19:57, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Decide on an organizational approach

What other organizational approaches really exist beyond "thematic"? A long time ago, I used to organize by review in as book articles as each reviewer took a different angle and did not share themes, but I try to avoid it whenever possible. If "thematic" is the only recommended organization strategy, we should just say that and offer a few examples. P.S. It looks like the page move included your sandbox history pre-August 2016, Mike. Want me to put that back for you? czar 20:32, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, please put that back; thanks. And I'm fine with thematic being the only recommendation; if someone suggests another approach we can discuss it here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:46, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Filling holes re: generalized statements

As a small study, in this peer review, a user read this essay and wrote this Reception section. No slight on this user, but I think his ensuing edits show what parts we can tighten in this essay's advice.

We can do a better job here of explaining the idea of "stacking refs" for a combined assertion without (1) becoming an unsourced generalization, or (2) delving into original research. Here was my response in the review:

Reviewers praised the attention to details and the storytelling while some criticized the voice acting and technical aspects

Any sentence in any article that can be easily challenged needs a direct reference. In this case, unless you have a single, authoritative source that asserts this, you'll need to cite each of the individual reviewers. And constructions such as "Reviewers praised the attention..." are open-ended but "Most critics lauded", "was generally considered a success", "multiplayer options received little discussion" are not. (We cannot discern the entire field of criticism or what "most" critics think, as obvious though it may be. We depend on reliable sources to have command of the field for those assertions.) Instead get less specific: cast as "Critics lauded", citing the examples.

Mostly just flagging this here for our purposes as I can't edit right now but would like to revisit in the future czar 15:43, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Good examples

Collecting some examples here of where this page was applied to worthwhile results:

• Spain in Our Hearts#Critical response

czar 13:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Quotations

Added a section about the overuse of quotes. It is a common problem in all reception sections. See [1] for a bad example. AIRcorn (talk) 20:18, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

There was already a section on this called "Don't overuse direct quotations." czar 20:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Okay. I was looking at the numbered sections. This is a big enough issue (supported by legal and MOS) so deserves a numbered section. AIRcorn (talk) 20:38, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

A thought

Check out these excerpts from Descent (1995 video game) (currently a FAC nom):

• Charlie Brooker of PC Zone noted the game's intense environment and similarities to Doom and praised its multiplayer and ability to taunt opposing players, with only minor criticism directed toward its slight repetitiveness.

• Edge criticized the slightly repetitive gameplay

• His only criticism was the high system requirements (the port required a Power Macintosh to play) and a difficult learning curve.

Putting aside other copyediting issues I could raise with these quotes, the bolded parts trouble me. (I don't mean to pick on that article specifically - it's just the most recent example of something I come across a lot in reception sections.)

To me, they're non-neutral - they imply that these problems exist. For example, "Edge criticized the repetitive gameplay" presupposes that the gameplay is repetitive, and it was criticised for this. By contrast, I would be fine with "Edge found the gameplay repetitive" or "Edge criticized the gameplay as repetitive".

Consider this distinction:

• Harry criticised Paul for his sexism presupposes that Paul is sexist, which Harry criticised him for.
• Harry criticised Paul as sexist makes no claims about whether Paul is sexist, only that Harry thinks he is and criticised him for it.

Do other editors share this feeling? @Mike Christie:? Popcornduff (talk) 15:00, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree on all points. I think this is something that could be usefully be added to this essay, if you want to give it a shot. Czar, any comments? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:46, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll put something together to discuss. Popcornduff (talk) 18:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

How's this? See the bottom section. Popcornduff (talk) 19:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

I think that looks fine. It's a pity the examples don't make direct reference to this point, so if you clean up a reception section and have to make changes like this it would be worth adding another example section. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:01, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Cool. I've added it to the essay - I may take a look at the examples soon. Popcornduff (talk) 12:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

• Makes sense re: unfounded generalizations, but I don't think this is categorically wrong. If it's a single reviewer, yes, of course, wouldn't want to infer that their experience is universal. But if multiple reviewers criticize a steep learning curve, it's safely inferred that the experience is common. czar 15:51, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• • I don't think the question of how common the perception is is part of it. It's a question of stating opinion/subjective perception as fact. Popcornduff (talk) 12:44, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Summarizing reception without original research

The essay states Be vigilant to avoid original research in these sentences, such as "Praised by most reviewers" when you can't be sure you've seen a representative sample of all the reviews, but it isn't clear to me whether it's possible to summarize the critical reception of a work without veering into original research. For instance, The Sacrifice (Oates novel) currently has It received mixed to negative reviews from professional critics, who criticized its lack of nuance and empathy, though some reviews were more positive in the lead. This is a summary of the reviews cited in the "Reception" section rather than a statement attributable to a reliable source (and for most books, there's little hope of finding such a source). Is it possible to formulate sentences like these in a way that doesn't violate Wikipedia's policies on OR and SYNTH? Ruбlov (talk) 15:45, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Rublov, I think this is a case-by-case decision. If you're familiar with a given field and know who the most important reviewers are, it can be fine to summarize in that way -- for example, if you have access to book reviews from the leading US and UK papers (I won't bother to list them all) plus perhaps sources like the London Review of Books, that's a good selection to draw conclusions from. Or in a particular genre, such as detective fiction, or a particular academic specialty, you may be able to draw conclusions. If your sources don't seem representative of the authoritative sources for your field you have to be more cautious. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:25, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Solicited thoughts from Reidgreg

I feel like the essay could better define its scope. It covers a couple aspects of copy editing, and might be better stated as 'reorganizing' or 'layout of'. Similarly, it deals with what is often the Critical response subsection of the Reception section of articles (as is the case with the example True Detective (season 1) which has other Reception subsections). Also, this seems to be working on the assumption that you're beginning with an existing, well-researched section with a wealth of sources and no policy issues. I'm not saying that you should retitle the essay "Reorganizing critical response sections for Featured Article candidates" but it'd be good to have something toward the top of the lead (or to create a lead) to inform readers of what to expect and what is required before beginning.

A lot of this essay deals with rephrasing "A said B". I feel like more should be said about why this is important. The only reason given is These quickly get dull which sounds a lot like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I feel like it should do more to define the problem, to make the case that for employing the advice which follows (perhaps noting FA criteria 1a well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard). Is there any community consensus for this? Has there ever been an RfC about it? What about researching Reception sections of recent FAs and see how many passed with and without "A said B"?

I feel like a bit more style could be used to make things clearer, such as when lists should be ordered, unordered, and nested (i.e.: does the order matter, are points subordinate, if something else is numbered should an ordered list be distinguished using a-b-c, i-ii-iii, etc). For example, under "Step one", there is a numbered list followed by "Step 2" and "Step 3" – and Step 2 refers to (1) from Step one. Also, double quotes are used in different situations; you might mix up the styles a little bit like Avoid "A said B", verbs such as said or wrote, and For example, Many critics disliked the poor special effects presupposes that the special effects were poor ... rewrite as Many critics felt the special effects were poor. The {{tq}} text stands out quite a bit, but this helps distinguish the longer inline quotes from the instructions, and vice versa.

Smaller points:

• At one point the essay briefly switched from the second person to the first person I think should be included: which I found a bit jarring.
• If six reviewers say X, you should report that X was a widespread opinion This is probably intended for the specific example, but taken generally it seems rather arbitrary and an invitation to push a POV by cherry-picking sources. What if there are sixty other reviewers saying the opposite? According to Wiktionary, widespread is a synonym for universal, so I'd think you'd need a high proportion of reviewers.
• The separation and wordiness around the Category list and Narrative list lost me on first read. I feel like it would be clearer if these were integrated together (after all, it is a single step).
• Step 2 begins with a question – rather than a statement of its purpose like Step one and Step 3.
• Step one starts by discussing the whole section, then narrows its focus to the proposed Praise paragraph. Step 2 focuses on the Praise paragraph (and would presumably have to be repeated for the others). Step 3 continues with the Praise paragraph ... and it seems to lose focus. It certainly goes into more than the opening sentence Design the paragraph's internal structure. Perhaps there should be additional steps for some of those paragraphs.
• Before the Rather than paragraph, should there be a Step X: repeat steps 2 through ? for the other paragraphs. That would serve to conclude the step-by-step before introducing the finished 'after' example.
• You link to the articles which examples are taken from, which I believe satisfies attribution requirements for copying from elsewhere on Wikipedia. Providing an {{oldid}} could also be useful to see the example in context and identify its date.
• I wouldn't mind seeing some examples from pre- and post-FAC, and some smaller examples (where the before and after can be reasonably viewed on one screen).
• I'd like to see how the method handles an example where sources overlap narrative categories. e.g.: source A addresses success-praise-influence, source B addresses success-influence, source C addresses success-praise, etc.

I looked over some of the reception sections I've written and I'd like to try giving this method a shot... but I'm involved in a couple of editing drives and this is about as much time as I can spare right now. I hope this is of some help. Best of luck! – Reidgreg (talk) 00:37, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Reidgreg, thanks for this; sorry it's taken me a few days to respond (I've been out of town and busy). I'll take a look at the specific points you raise and respond, but I just wanted to say I agree with your first comment -- this is not really an essay about all aspects of copyediting reception sections, nor does it restrict itself to the issues that copyeditors often restrict themselves too. It would be more accurately titled "How to fix some common problems with certain types of reception sections", but I think we're stuck with the title we have as the essay has been cited quite a bit. I should be able to go through your comments and respond in detail in the next couple of days. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:30, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Reidgreg, thanks again for this. A couple of specific comments below.

• I agree re the styling and have changed the last bullet point in the header to use the same style templates that the MoS uses.
• The steps were numbered "one", "2", and "3", so I changed the first to "1" for consistency.
• For the category/narrative distinction I took out the subheadings; I hope that breaks up the flow of the ideas a little better. I'm not sure about the wordiness comment -- there's only a line or two of prose before and after the category and narrative bullet lists.
• Re Step X, I don't think it's necessary -- the text says "rather than provide a similar analysis of the other two narrative paragraphs" so I think the reader understands that we're skipping that step.
• Yes, it would definitely be a good idea to link to more examples of before and after. I was impressed by the work Darkwarriorblake has just done on RoboCop at FAC and have added links to the before and after versions to the list of examples at the end. Please add any more you come across that you think are worth listing.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:06, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Do not need to write it's reviews said?

The example of True Detective season 1 writes:

Pizzolatto and Fukunaga, as sole writer and director of the entire series, were able to exercise much stronger control over the show than is usual for a TV series, which let the show take risks: the pacing, dialogue, and cinematography all departed at times from the expectations for a television drama.

---

91. "Review: McConaughey & Harrelson amaze in HBO's 'True Detective'". Uproxx. January 7, 2014. Archived from the original on May 24, 2017.

98. Hughes, Sarah (February 18, 2014). "Is True Detective, starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, the best US detective show since The Wire?". The Independent. Archived from the original on November 6, 2015.

But the article presents these statements directly without indicating that they are from Uproxx and/or The Independent, and without mentioning that they are from reviews. I also don't like to write "reviews said" or "noted by reviews" repeatedly. But is it okay to present an opinion directly? Or because of two or three reviews agree and no opposition is found by the editor's research (or require several reviews' agreement, but you just need to cite two as representatives), the statement is viewed as a fact rather than reviews opinion, thus we do not need to say its some media's opinion? --For Each element In group ... Next 00:45, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it depends on the nature of the statement. Here I would argue that "able to exercise much stronger control" is a statement that can be taken as factually true based on the source -- it's not an opinion. Things that are clearly opinions shouldn't be said in Wikipedia's voice, but I think this one is OK. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:57, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Application in Good Articles

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#1a and 3a in Reception sections with isolated reviewers on how this essay's advice should be applied in relation to the GA criteria on writing quality (1a) and breadth (3a) czar 02:32, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Widely

I was going to link this essay for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Yoshi's New Island/archive1 but saw (as mentioned above) that the first example used "The book has been widely praised", which is exactly the issue from the FAC. Unless a source explicitly says this (namely the "widely" part), it reads as original research to infer that from the several individual, non-aggregative sources so I'd recommend rephrasing. czar 00:45, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

The essay does say 'Be vigilant to avoid original research in these sentences, such as "Praised by most reviewers" when you can't be sure you've seen a representative sample of all the reviews'; perhaps adding the caveat at the end there to the "Consolidate details" bullet would help? There are cases when one could use language like "widely" -- for example if a book is praised by reviewers in six or seven of the more prestigious newspapers I wouldn't have a problem with it (though sometimes people jump to "universally praised", which we can never assert). Usually it's a bad idea to put in "widely" anyway, since adverbs weaken a sentence more often than not. But I don't think it makes sense to completely forbid it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:02, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking mainly about changing that "widely" sentence in the Le Guin example. Agreed that it doesn't need to be forbidden but I do think it's still liable to be construed as original research even if it's eight prestigious newspapers in agreement. I stick to the advice that the sentence needs to describe the group citation and that any claim beyond the group requires a secondary source that says so, i.e., "multiple reviewers said they liked it" (about the group) vs. "reviewers often liked this" (extends beyond the group). czar 02:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I like that distinction, though I can see I'd be less rigorous than you would. What wording would you suggest, then? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:33, 13 November 2024 (UTC)