Wikipedia:Peer review/Lily Cole/archive1

Lily Cole

This peer review discussion has been closed.
Lily Cole has been a GA for a while and now I'm just looking for a bit of feedback on what more I can do for the article directed at a possible future FAC. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 07:25, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments from Maria

Interesting article, and what a lovely young lady. Knowing that your intended goal is FAC, here are some things I would suggest:

• The lead is somewhat skimpy, especially on personal details. To better fulfill WP:LEAD, I would suggest including her place of birth and early life, possibly even before the fact that she was discovered by chance, and a little more on her educational history, since that encompasses an entire section on its own. Currently there is also no information about her charitable work, or her distinctive red hair. Lots of stuff to pick from here to help boost the lead.
• I see a couple points throughout where single quotes are used instead of double quotes: 'only girl', 'Model of the Year', etc. I know it's common English practice, but the MOS prefers double quotes.
• The main problem you may have during an FAC, I think, would be in regard to the prose. It becomes choppy in places, especially where simply listing career achievements. The latter sentences in "Magazines and fashion shows", for example, are particularly listy; she did this, appeared on that, then did this, etc. You may want to combine these stand-alone sentences and vary them structurally/stylistically, so they aren't so "samey".
• Marks and Spencer (for whom Cole modelled at the time), however, stated that it "stood by Lily"[32], arguing she "is a popular, high profile, model who is very much in demand, and this is one of the key reasons why we have chosen to work with her" -- This sentence is problematic, very wordy, and has such a breadth of commas that it's difficult to read in places. Also, is "modelled" a British spelling?
• Speaking of commas, they are somewhat overused throughout the article for my tastes. This, for example: In November 2009, it was announced that Cole would feature, topless, in the 2010 edition of the well known can very well simply read "would feature topless in the 2010 edition" without any issues.
• Watch the repetition of "It was announced", "In [year]" and similar phrases; I have a tendency to overuse such phrases as well, but variety is the spice of life, etc. :)
• Cole played the lead female role of Valentina, the teenage daughter of Christopher Plummer's Dr Parnassus (the title character) whom Parnassus has promised to The Devil (Tom Waits) upon her 16th birthday,[47] in the 2009 film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, directed by Terry Gilliam and scripted by Gilliam and Charles McKeown. -- Another long, difficult sentence. While I see the attempt to vary the sentence structure here, perhaps the film should be named upfront? The following sentence is just as long and confusing.
• At the premier for The Imaginarium..., Cole was pictured wearing thigh length brown pinstripe boots with matching blazer and hotpants next to director Terry Gilliam. -- I'm not sure what "was pictured" refers to; photographed? If so, perhaps try "was photographed next to director Terry Gilliam wearing thigh length..."?
• I'm not so sure about referring to the film as The Imaginarium.... Is that how the critics refer to it? I would think Doctor Parnassus would be the logical short-form, but if that's what the majority of critics use, then ah well.
• Is there any way to crop the film promotion image? It's gorgeous, but my eye goes straight to the cameraman in the background.

I hope these comments help. Like I said, the only thing I see holding this article back is the need for a copy-edit, especially in regards to sentence structure, in order to ensure the prose is "engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard". Best of luck! María (habla conmigo) 15:33, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not surprised the prose came up- I copyedit a lot myself, but I just kind of picked the article up, rather than writing it from scratch. I definitely give it a good copyedit and I have a habit of overusing commas, so I'll take a few out. Thank you very much for your time, I really appreciate the constructive criticism! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:58, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Comments from Belovedfreak

Good job so far! I agree that the lead needs to better summarise the article. Just a couple of things I noticed:

• The citations need a little more consistency. Some are missing publishers, in some cases, newspaper titles aren't italicised. Article dates & retrieval dates aren't consistently formatted either.
• "She gained a First in her examinations" - it's not explicitly clear what this means, do you think people unfamiliar with this honours degree system will know what that means?
• I see some information has recently been added to the charity work section which will need copyediting.

Good luck, --BelovedFreak 13:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your time! I hadn't thought of the first two, but now you mention it, it seems blindingly obvious! I'll try to work on that later. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:58, 27 March 2010 (UTC)