Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 20:53, 11 July 2008 [1].

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings[edit]

previous FAC (01:26, 11 March 2008)


I am nominating this article for FA because the book is notable. Caged Bird is a landmark piece of literature written by one of the most important writers of our time, Maya Angelou, and deserving of FA-status. More literature written by African American authors should receive this kind of recognition on WP. Its previous nomination, which was premature, was made in anticipation of Angelou's 80th birthday in April, but it was not ready at that time. However, the book's 40th anniversary is in 2009, so I would like to see this article passed to commemorate it and to honor Angelou. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • On first glance, it's an interesting read. The criticism section, though, is strange because it lumps together two unrelated types of criticism. I would break it out into a section called "Censorship" and a section called "Critical reception" where you could aggregate/add both critical and laudatory comments about the book and note honors won etc. Calliopejen1 (talk) 06:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Couldn't resist being bold. Check out my edits and see what you think. Calliopejen1 (talk) 06:37, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Cal, I appreciate your boldness. I made one major change: I combined your version of the Background and title section with mine, written earlier, because I think that it flows better. Thanks for linking the page numbers; I wasn't aware that this was best practice. It's so cool that going through the FAC process makes you learn new stuff! ;) --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
  • I must confess that the last time I read Angelou's book was way back in high school, and my memory is not that great. It would help if someone comments here who is more familiar with her work.
Well, go back and read it then! Good holiday reading, ya know. ;)
  • I think the article has made a lot of headway since its previous FAC. However, I also think it has a way to go. Be prepared to continue to work on it.
Thank you. To be honest, as this article's main editor, I don't even consider that a "real" FAC, since it was very premature. I regret the nom. And yes, I'm prepared to do more work, even if things are tight this week due to the Independance Day holiday and other work/RL crunches. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Plot needs a copy edit for clarity and comprehensiveness.
I've worked on this some tonight, but I'm sure that it could use more input. I'll look at it again in the coming days. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you're going to include character descriptions, include only major ones.
Done, cut minor characters. This section was originally divided into "Major characters" and "Minor characters", like how Uncle Tom's Cabin is structured, but an editor combined the two. If recommended, I'll revert it back.
  • The Critical reception is not comprehensive enough. More should be added. Please state who is making the comments.
This is addressed below. I'm not sure how the Critical reception section can be more comprehensive, but if this article doesn't pass this time (which I suspect will occur), I'll do more research about this before the next nom, I promise.
  • Please include a Style section.
It occurs to me that this can be done by re-naming the sub-section "Caged Book as autobiography". I'll also add some content from Angelou's bio page. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 17:51, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • When discussing thematic issues, use direct quotes from scholars, use their names and what kind of scholar each is. African American literature scholar Jane Doe states..., for example. I see this is done occasionally, but any time quotes are used to describe the book or Angelou's writing, it should be clear in the article (not just from the citation) who is doing the describing.
I'm pretty sure that the changes I've made today go farther in addressing this concern. However, I'm not sure if I've done exactly what you've asked. If not, please clarify and I'll do what I can.
  • Make sure any claim of literary quality has a citation and an attribute. For example, who makes this claim: Angelou and other female writers in the late 1960s and early 1970s have used the autobiography to restructure the ways to write about women's lives in a male-dominated society.?
I think I fixed this, and other instances of this problem.
  • I feel as if the article doesn't discuss the impact the book has on literature. This should be included in your expansion of the Critical reception section. The book was part of a genre of black women's writing in the 1970s that included Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. What has the impact of this genre been on culture and literature?
Hmm, this will require more research. Oh, I see what you meant above.
T'anks! ;)
  • Oops, add: book covers are usually first edition covers. Can you find an image of the first edition? --Moni3 (talk) 14:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done!
  • Comment "Plot summary" can be renamed to "Plot" since I don't think people would assume that it's the entire plot, verbatim :) Gary King (talk) 16:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Other FAs use "plot summary"; this is probably just personal preference. Karanacs (talk) 03:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll leave it as is. It was advised, in this article's last nom, to use Uncle Tom's Cabin, and that's what it does. I can understand the concern, though, since Caged Bird is a series of episodes, and by no means is each episode described; only the "most important ones" are included. Perhaps more discussion is warranted. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 05:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

There was just the one instance, and it's now fixed. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise sources look okay, and the links check out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. You've made a great start with this article, but it is not ready for FA status yet. It's been over a decade since I read the book, so I don't remember a lot of the details, but I do remember the emotional impact it had on me. I suspect there must be reams of information written about it, but I felt like the article didn't go into enough depth to really make someone who hasn't read the book understand why it is important or why it is so powerful. I realize that is a bit vague, and here are some concrete examples of issues I see.
    • The Background and title section does not say that King's assassination inspired Angelou to write this book. The lead does say this, however, and the two need to be reconciled. There is also additional information in the lead that is not in the body (King assassinated on her birthday). Is there any more information about what part of the conversation made Judy Feiffer believe that Angelou needed to write the book?
    • The text says that Judy Feiffer suggested that Angelou write an autobiography; the image caption says Jules Feiffer was the one. This needs to be reconciled.
This has been solved by changing the caption of JF's photo.
    • Plot summary issues:
      • In some places it assumes more knowledge than most readers will have. For example, it is not well explained that Maya's real name is Marguerite.
      • Something like this "and are labeled like baggage." - may need to be cited or explained better. As it stands, that seems like POV
Fixed by adding the citation.
      • The section may need better organization. I don't remember the story well enough to help with this.
    • In my opinion, the characters section should really not describe events that are not at least alluded to in the plot summary. Much of this section is written in a very in-universe style. There ought to be some information about the character beyond just a plot summary, or else that character should not be listed separately.
    • I would move Themes above Critical reception.
Done, but by Awadewit.
    • The Critical reception section seems a little short. I would suspect that with such a groundbreaking book there might be more information.
    • Is there any information on which events in the book are made up?
    • Much of the article needs a copyedit. There are run-on sentences and other long and clunky sentences.
    • The Themes section needs some attention paid to the organization. For example, in the as autobiography section, paragraph one says Scholar Joanne M. Braxton sees Caged Bird as "representative of autobiographies written by black women in the post-civil rights era"., but this is actually explained in more detail in paragraph 2.
    • "The challenge for much of African-American literature is that its authors have had to confirm its status as literature before it could accomplish its political goals," -- what political goals was this book trying to accomplish? This sentence appears at the beginning of a paragraph about literary goals, which doesn't make sense.
    • What is somatophobia?
The definition is a hatred of one's body, and is a concept in feminist literature. There's no WP article on the term, unfortunately. The best way to clarify it is to create one, but being lazy, I copped out and deleted the phrase, since the concept's already in the sentence, anyway.
    • The Themes section has a lot of quotations. I think most if not all of these should be marked in the text with the name of which scholar is being quoted. This is done to some extent, but probably doesn't go far enough.
    • Most of the time the article uses "Angelou", but occasionally is refers to her as "Maya"
    • Cliffs Notes as a source? Please, no. There must be so many other sources to get good literary criticism for this book.
    • Is poetryfoundation.org a reliable source?
    • There ought to be at least a brief mention of the movie that was based on the book.

Karanacs (talk) 03:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

These are all excellent suggestions. Instead of addressing them at the current time, it's my intention to allow this nom to close, spend the time it takes to address them, and re-nominate. I'll cut-and-paste the suggestions I haven't been able to address in the article's talk page and state that they've been addressed at that time. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment
    • On my screen/system setup, the last image, Image:Tizian 094.jpg hangs down a little into the References section, squeezing a very tight 3-column reference setup into about two-thirds of the page width. First, the typical approach is for no more than 2 columns of references. Second, add the "upright" tag to that image (and all other portrait-orientation images) and it won't be so large. Third, so that it won't hang down into the references, either move the image up a paragraph or two, or add {{-}} before the "Notes" section to prevent it. — Bellhalla (talk) 04:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like this issue was taken care of when Awadewit restructured the sections.

Oppose While this article has improved dramatically since the last FAC, there are still a few sections that need to be researched and expanded. Here are my suggestions:

  • I would remove the character list, especially since it repeats much of what is in the plot summary and the "Themes" section.
  • In her 1999 essay, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Cannot Read", author Francine Prose criticized Caged Bird as "manipulative melodrama"[19] and "overrated" - This single piece of criticism is awkward - surely there has been other criticism?
  • The "Critical reception" section needs to be expanded. There is much more to say on this front. Considering it was a bestseller and nominated for a book award, there must have been lots of contemporary reviews. It has since become a classic and is often assigned to undergraduates, so there is a lot of scholarly reception as well.
  • There needs to be some sort of "Influence" section that explains the book's effect on other literature, other writers, etc. As Moni3 mentions, it was part of a specific movement in the 1970s among black American writers, but the reader doesn't really come away from the article understanding this larger literary context.
  • The picture of James Baldwin is from 1955 - I don't know how helpful that is for the reader. He wasn't this young when he was commenting on Caged Bird.
I changed the caption; by including the date of the photo.
  • It was already mentioned in the last FAC that CliffsNotes is not a reliable source. That needs to be replaced.
  • The last paragraph of the "Style" section seems to belong in the "Background and title" section.
  • Once major revisions have been made, I would suggest you find good copyeditor as I saw some grammar mistakes (e.g. verbs that didn't match nouns) and other small problems.

I hope these suggestions are helpful. Awadewit (talk) 14:10, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, they are. Thanks for the copyediting/restructuring that you've done, A. As far as your comments I haven't addressed at this time, I'll focus on them more extensively at a later time, as I state above. --Figureskatingfan (talk) 18:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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