Talk:White House vegetable garden

Initial comments

The Obamas show their support in the organic movement by planting a vegetable garden on the South Lawn at the White House late in March[2].

this is opinion not fact.

Obamas' --get punctuation right

elminate "even" and any other editorializing language. Otherwise this section is clear, coherent and well-sourced

Purpose

this whole section comes only from one source and is worded and structured too closely to it.

Positive outcome is vague. This section is about political and educational functions of the garden. But it has to be more widely sourced, not just lifted from one article in the Times.

Controversy section needs thorough reorganization. The material on lawns and vegetable gardens is not closely enough tied to the topic of the article and strays too far from it. Subdivide this section into the two controversies you mention and sort and select sentences accordingly.

Good start, but lots yet to do here.

Rudolph2007 (talk) 02:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Comments May 22

All members of the team need to read and respond to these comments. Dont add your signatures to the article itself, only to comments on talk page.

Lead is good overview, but needs copyediting and proofreading in many places. Three of you should be able to find the errors.

Always place footnotes after period

History

The material about John Adams is garbled, redundant and incoherent.

"The White House and its lawns were developing at a fast rate, until the war between the United States of America and the British Empire from 1812 to 1815. British troops attacked Washington D.C. on August 1814.[4] They set fire to many public buildings including the president’s home. Most of the white house was damaged and some of the lawns were completely destroyed[5]. This was a big setback for the White House's development. President James Madison started the reconstruction of the damages immediately after the attack. A few years after the reconstruction of the White House, President John Quincy Adams made contributions of his own."

This is unnecessary and often irrelevant detail. Delete

"Minor changes were made to the White House lawns after World War II." Adds nothing

"In 1978, President Jimmy Carter petitioned to plant a garden on the White House lawns, but was rejected by the House.[13]." He wasnt rejected. Hard to understand what this sentence is saying. Provide more detail.

"denied by the White House" unclear what this means. Dont use apostrophe for simple plural. Give more detail about the roof garden. Was it for vegetables.

The first revision of this section, making deletions and providing more information and clarification, should be done by Bn229. A final polish should be done by the other members of the group. The research here and range of sources are adequate.

Obama's vegetable garden

You're all struggling with that pesky apostrophe. Learn the rules here and apply them: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/621/01/

first sentence has misplaced emphasis--what's the main point? Provide the year with the date. this is information that will be used not only this year.

"Among the seeds chosen to be planted there are" recast sentence to delete "there are" and use a verb that expresses the assertion of the sentence

that add variety to the patch.--delete

In addition to the plants two bee hives will be added near the chef’s kitchen which will be overlooked by, Charlie Brandts, a beekeeper and White House carpenter[20]. --eliminate unnecessary words and punctuation.

These twenty –three experienced fifth grader advocates --what does this mean?

The President will be assisting in the project by pulling weeds, something Mrs. Obama states the family will be doing “whether they like it or not,”[21].--full of random punctuation. Remember the rule about closing quotation marks and commas and periods?

Purpose

diet that would sometimes consist of eating

was advised to be altered

clean up these awkward phrases

not to chastise Americans that do not grow vegetable gardens but

delete

changes could start at home by increasing home cooking

awkward phrasing

take a leading role in

unnecessary words

The first lady is confident “that through children, they will begin to educate their families and that will, in turn, begin to educate our communities”[21].

who is the "they" in this quote?

Environmental & Cost Benefits

do you mean Environmental and Economic Benefits?

Foodies and Environmentalist are content with the patch of fruits and vegetables growing at the White House.

this sentence is a mess

The project has also proved to be cost efficient by the roughly two hundred dollars spent on the purchasing of all the seeds that will be grown year round[21].

this sentence doesnt express your meaning

Political change--try Political implications

symbol that has evoked change i

the symbol doesnt "evoke"--i.e.produce--change, it represents change

There are many supporters that

what's wrong with this expression?

The White House’s executive chef Walter Scheib believed that gardening their own ingredients is an idea that was well overdue and states

this introduction of the quote has tense errors, is awkwardly phrased and doesnt get directly to the point.

Controversy

uproar too strong a word

The Obama's lawn conversion to a vegetable garden is causing an uproar in the lawn supporter community. Inserting a vegetable garden instead of the classic American lawn demonstrates the domain of the front yard coup. The switch from the American lawn to the organic garden has become more than just a shift in plants.

This paragraph is only about lawns and doesnt introduce both controversies. The expression is awkward and unclear.

The Obama's choice to tear a 1,100 sq. ft. section of the South Lawn to start an organic vegetable garden has encountered some resistance [23].

Citation is to wrong source

a letter arrived for her. This letter was from

why two sentences? what's relevant?

This whole section remains disorganized. Separate and sort out the two parts of the controversy. One is lawn vs. garden; the other organic vs non-organic gardening. Each of teh two sections needs to be completely rewritten, using proper paragraph structure: topic sentences relating to thesis, supported by relevant and coherently presented support.

Summary

The research and content here is valuable. The presentation is far below publishable quality.

C- Rudolph2007 (talk) 16:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Article title

I plan to move "White House Vegetable Garden" to "White House vegetable garden" to better follow the Manual of Style capitalization rules. Can anyone think of a reason for not renaming it? Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 22:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

sludge

Apparently the garden soil is contaminated with toxic sludge:

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/92869?fp=1

bleccch!

70.90.174.101 (talk) 21:47, 31 July 2009 (UTC)