Talk:I'll Make a Man Out of You/GA1

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GA Review[edit]

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Reviewer: Esprit15d (talk · contribs) 14:10, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Body review[edit]

I want to commend the editors for their work so far. I am really impressed with the attention to detail, adherence to policy, and thorough coverage of the topic. Here are my suggestions:

  • The article has some subtle (and, most likely, unintentional) neutrality issues. I would encourage the principal editors to review the neutrality policy—especially the subheadings WP:SUBJECTIVE, WP:SUBSTANTIATE, and especially WP:ASSERT—before proceeding.
  • in the lead, the statement "turned down because he sounded too old" has to be attributed to someone, even if it is not referenced. Like "the producers thought..."
  • Done. Easy fix. Changed to "a role for which he was ultimately turned down by the directors because they felt that he sounded too old."--Changedforbetter (talk) 18:47, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Film and music critics have received": The song received reviews. The critics don't receive the song.
  • "Critics have also drawn comparisons between the song and Disney's Hercules": put a comma after Hercules
  • "The song has since appeared on several best Disney songs lists": I would say: "best of Disney song lists" (and put best of in quotes, since it's a colloquialism)
  • "including Total Film and the New York Post's": Should say "including those of Total Film and the New York Post's"
  • "Frequently discussed by film critics": remove "Frequently"; it's too subjective.
  • "Co-director Tony Bancroft believes that": Comma after "that"
  • " Osmond's character Shang is hit in the stomach": commas before and after "Shang"
  • "The scene begins with Shang shooting an arrow into the top of a tall pole and challenging his soldiers to retrieve it, each of whom initially fail until Mulan, maintaining her femininity and intelligence as opposed to relying solely on brute strength, eventually succeeds.": the part in bold is an opinion, is not credited to anyone, and thus amounts to original research. Since the gender implications of the scene are discussed later, I would move it there, or take it out.
  • Done. Since there is definitely enough covered in this section, simply removed.--Changedforbetter (talk) 18:47, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The paragraph that begins, "According to the book Literacy, Play and Globalization: Converging..." needs a topic sentence. It should be clear going in what the consensus was and/or any recurring themes in the gender commentary.
  • Got it. Added a topic sentence in addition to basically shifting more of the paragraph's focus towards Mulan's character development.--Changedforbetter (talk) 19:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "While the earlier, all-female musical number "Honor to Us All" "functions as an account of the constructedness of female gender," "I'll Make a Man Out of You" "juxtaposes and makes explicit the contention that gender is a cultural product."[20]" This statement has to be openly acknowledged to someone in the text, or it seems like Wikipedia agrees with this person, versus just reporting what this person said. (see WP:ASSERT)
  • "One critic observed that...": Why not just say who the critic was?
  • " In "a humourous reversal toward the end of the movie", Mulan and her male allies disguise themselves as concubines in order to infiltrate the palace and rescue the emperor while "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is reprised in the background.[23]": needs to attributed to someone
  • The paragraph that begins, "While the earlier, all-female..." also needs a topic sentence. Why were these opinions amassed and put here in the article? To show what?
Solved. The above sentence is added onto the previous paragraph; the remaining paragraph is been reformatted to be specifically about the comparisons to Hercules and G.I. Jane.--Changedforbetter (talk) 19:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • " "I'll Make a Man Out of You" is "a heroic power ballad"[28] and anthem[29] that features an upbeat,[30] "thumping" rhythm.[31]": Should read " "I'll Make a Man Out of You" has been called "a heroic power ballad"[28] and anthem[29] that features an upbeat,[30] "thumping" rhythm.[31]. The approach in writing this article sometimes feels like the editors would find a commentator that agreed with their opinion, include it, then put it in quotes. The tone should be more more informational and less like an essay. (see WP:ASSERT)
  • Done.I get it. I can assure you that the inclusion of such citations in no way means that I necessarily agree with them. Will fix as much as I can.--Changedforbetter (talk) 19:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Music and lyrics" has several sentences that have minor neutrality issues, but I think the whole section would be improved if, after that first strong sentence, a thesis/topic sentence was included that summarized all the major opinions, and then just continued with all the opinions that are already correctly included and cited there.
  • "Written in the key of G major in common 4/4 time at a "steady" tempo of 110 beats per minute": Remove the word steady; subjective without any need to be.
  • Done.--Changedforbetter (talk) 19:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""I'll Make a Man Out of You" is "a heroic power ballad"[28] and anthem[29] that features an upbeat,[30] "thumping" rhythm.[31]": subjective and therefore requires attribution.
  • Fixed.--Changedforbetter (talk) 19:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Similar to the song "A Girl Worth Fighting For", the "ironically titled"[34] "I'll Make a Man Out of You" "play[s] off Mulan's secret" because Shang is unaware that she is actually a girl.[35] ": subjective and thus requires attribution.
  • Done.--Changedforbetter (talk) 19:48, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "lyric "I'll make a man out of you" is....": That quote should not be italicized, or any other quotes in the article.
  • "The song's lyrics "initially define masculinity in opposition to femininity"[19] with its first verse beginning...": an opinion that needs attribution
  • Done.--Changedforbetter (talk) 20:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"*"Its "roaring" chorus reads,...": an opinion. Honestly, a lot of these quoted adjectives can just be eliminated. Keep in mind, it is not the purpose of Wikipedia to guide the readers' opinions. They can go elsewhere for that.

  • Remove "namely Lea Salonga as Mulan, Eddie Murphy as Mushu, and Harvey Fierstein, Jerry Tondo and Matthew Wilder himself as Yao, Chien-Po and Ling". There's no need to make a cast list in the middle of that paragraph.
  • This sentence starts off with "According to The Phoenix, ..." but then lists opinions from three different sources, which is misleading.
  • "Osmond's vocal range spans one octave, from D4 to F5.[41]": This sentence needs to be placed somewhere where it is more relevant to the surrounding text.
  • Okay. Moved to the earlier part of the section which talks about its music.--Changedforbetter (talk) 20:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "was very positive in his review of the song": Except in rare occasions when a review has to be truncated, and some context gets lost, there is no need to introduce the value of a review. Just state what they said. It will obviously be a good review or a negative one. Avoid using the word "very" ever.
  • Per WP:WEIGHT, Irving Tan's review is too long. I would consider removing "Additionally, Tan joked that the song "would no doubt bring down the wrath of feminists like flies descending on exposed, week-old mustard if unwittingly released on radio today."[11] since it's social commentary, and says nothing about the merit of the song. Also, whenever a quote is timestamped ("today") time information needs to be included with the quote.
  • Wikilink the word "duffer" to wiktionary since it is not a common word.
  • I'm sorry, but I just can't seem to locate this word in the article. Where is it exactly?--Changedforbetter (talk) 20:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • RM links to dvdizzy.com, since that site has copyright violations.

"*Easy fix. Done!--Changedforbetter (talk) 20:02, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Great job so far, and look forward to seeing the changes. I will be reviewing the media and references soon. For now, I'm placing this article on hold.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 15:24, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for offering such a thorough review. Looking forward to your thoughts.--Changedforbetter (talk) 22:43, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
First off, great work on the changes. The article is already looking better, and a lot of the neutrality issues have been corrected. More comments:
  • You didn't address this: *"While the earlier, all-female musical number "Honor to Us All" "functions as an account of the constructedness of female gender," "I'll Make a Man Out of You" "juxtaposes and makes explicit the contention that gender is a cultural product."[20]" This statement has to be openly acknowledged to someone in the text, or it seems like Wikipedia agrees with this person, versus just reporting what this person said. (see WP:ASSERT)"
  • I think already addressed this yesterday. I inserted, "Additionally, while the earlier, all-female musical number "Honor to Us All" "functions as an account of the constructedness of female gender," "I'll Make a Man Out of You" "juxtaposes and makes explicit the contention that gender is a cultural product", according to Johnson Cheu, author of Diversity in Disney Films: Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability.
  • Use Ctrl+F to find "duffers" on the page.
  • Ohhhhh really cool, useful tool. Thanks! Alright linked to Wiktionary.--Changedforbetter (talk) 18:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Featured on the film's": Change "featured" to "appearing", since the word feature appears twice really close together
  • "dubbed it the film's best song while...": comma after "song"
  • Done.
  • "songs for Mulan because "Disney was trying to find different songwriters that ...": who said this?
  • Alright. Changed to: according to co-director Tony Bancroft, "Disney was trying to find different songwriters that ... would give kind of different sound to each of the songs."--Changedforbetter (talk) 18:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "While Zippel, a Broadway lyricist, was recruited because the directors were impressed by the songwriter's work on Disney's Hercules (1997), at the time Wilder, a pop singer and record producer, was best known for his hit single "Break My Stride".: Add a citation to this sentence.
  • "Schwartz had written a song called "We'll Make a Man of You" for " when Mulan is trying to learn to be a soldier";[3] it was eventually replaced by Wilder and Zippel's "I'll Make a Man Out of You" when Schwartz was forced to resign from Mulan by Disney executives Peter Schneider and Michael Eisner because the songwriter had also agreed to write the songs for rival film studio DreamWorks' animated feature film The Prince of Egypt (1998).[4]": While gramatically accurate (impressive!) this sentence is very unwieldy. I recommend breaking it down into two or three more concise sentences.
  • I applaud you on the neutrality fixes, but I made some minor copyedits just to polish the edits a bit.
  • "dark side of the moon": missing a comma
  • This may seems like a minor point, and I won't fail for this, but this article has inconsistent usage of quotation marks with terminal punctuation. In England, a quotation mark comes before the terminal punctuation (questions marks, full stops, etc...). In the US, the quotation mark comes after the terminal punctuation. Since this is an article that deals with an American topic, I would encourage the latter, but I really don't care, and Wikipedia doesn't have a preference, as long as it's consistent.
  • Yeah I know. The only reason I haven't been paying attention to this is because, as you stated, "Wikipedia doesn't have a preference". But I will look into establishing a consistency after the review process has been completed.--Changedforbetter (talk) 18:10, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the singer is backed up by a macho-sounding choir[41]": Citations come after punctuation or at the end of sentences
  • "was ranked fourteenth": Change to "number 14"
  • Add a "Personnel" section that includes all the participants on the song, including the persons who played the instruments, and make sure the entire section is properly cited. Most article include a note that says "Credits adjusted from the liner notes" that have an inline citation behind it.
That's all my further prose critique. Again, good work.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 16:16, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No disrespect to you Esprit15d , but as the secondary editor of this article and as someone who has watched this GA review take place, I honestly think some of your suggestions are counterintuitive to the article. The article God Help the Outcasts had an identical style in regard to directly quoting descriptive phrases in the prose, which was praised for colouring the article with useful adjectives that added greater context for the reader. Every single sentence in every single article should in your view begin with "according to ____", which is utterly ridiculous - I fear this is a philosophy you are leaning towards. An example of something else I question is "number 14" - I think "was ranked fourteenth" is actually the correct grammar for that sentence. I also disapprove of your edit which makes the sentence now read: In what Athalya Brenner called "a humourous.... With the removal of her credentials or book, the reader is left wondering who the heck this person is and why her opinion matters. This had reduced the quality of the article. Anyway, my point is I this this GA review needs a second opinion in case the result is counterintuitive.--Coin945 (talk) 16:25, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(1) That is why I encouraged the principal editors to read the policies before proceeding. I'm not sure if you did so or not, but I think you have mistakenly taken this as my personal philosophy, since I noticed you are directing your comments to me personally, but it is not. Wikipedia policy, and precedent throughout the GA and FA process has established that ALL opnions and quotes have to be attributed to someone, as Wikipedia doesn't have ANY opinions; it only states facts. (2) Feel free to change back the "Athalya Brenner" statement, as the way it was at first was not wrong, I just thought it sounded more concise; both ways are certainly correct. (3) At your suggestion, I briefly looked up the article "God Help the Outcasts" and it is actually an excellent example of proper attribution of opinions and quotes, and I hope you and any other editors use it as model for this article. That article is particularly good, since it finds differnent ways of phrasing the attribution, so it has strong prose. There are a few places in the article that incorrectly states opinions in the "Wikipedia voice", but overall, it is a strong article. (3) The reason I suggested the change from "fourteenth" is because in English grammar (and Wikiipedia policy) numbers over ten should not be spelled out. So, techinically, it should be 14th. As an editor, you have a choice: number 14 or 14th. I personally don't have a preference. As far as getting a second opionion, I think that is the decision of the reviewer to make if they need help with something (correct me if I'm wrong), but I don't need any help as this article has not been particularly difficult to edit, and so won't be calling for a second opinion. As the article is goiong currently, with the few other corrections needed, I have every intention of passing it.--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 17:02, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your response. :)--Coin945 (talk) 23:42, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Images and references[edit]

Here are my comments:

  • The image of Donny Osmond and the screenshot of Shang and Mulan are great, and have the right tags.
  • I think you already know what's wrong with the caption under the music sample: major attribution problems. Also, if I were you, I'd do myself a favor and just make that caption simpler.
Done.--Changedforbetter (talk) 17:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the citations of "Animated Views", why is "Animated Views" listed twice?
  • This is like this because these are two different articles written by two different authors.--Changedforbetter (talk) 17:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Same thing for "The Seattle Times"
  • I could only find one citation for The Seattle Times in the article.--Changedforbetter (talk) 17:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove the ultimate Disney link, looks like a fansite/copyvio
  • Removed.

Everything else looks terrific. Great job!--Esprit15d • talk • contribs 16:16, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article looks terrific and, in my estimation, really is a good article according to Wikipedia standards. I'm promoting it!

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