Wikipedia:Peer review/Barbara Kingsolver/archive1

Barbara Kingsolver

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I've listed this article for peer review because it's the first biography I've worked on. It was quick-failed for GA (Changes per recommendations made) and has been greatly improved from it's start-class beginnings a few weeks ago. A thorough peer review would be much appreciated, as I'd like to take another stab at GA soon. I've never written a biography article before, so any and all help would be appreciated.

Thank you! Jhfortier (talk · contribs ) 22:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, as a disclaimer this is my first peer review, so don't kill me for not being completely thorough.
Not at all! I've made some forays into Peer Reviews and can say for sure that more thorough is always better.
I notice the article has no images. So maybe if you can, try to find an image, fair use or not.
I've made some requests on Flickr, but fair-use stuff has been difficult to find. It's definitely on my to-do list.
The article appears to be missing the persondata.
Added
The Bellwether is awarded in even-numbered years, and includes guaranteed major publication and a cash prize of $25,000, fully funded by Kingsolver.
Be sure to include the type of dollars these are. It could refer to US, Canadian, etc. currency.
Done.
She has also been published as a science journalist in periodicals.
"Which periodical(s)?" one may ask.
Added a citation to the author's official bibliography -- although this isn't the most desirable reference, finding the actual publications would be difficult, as they're all from the early/mid 1980s and in minor journals. I have a reference to a NY Times article saying she was published there, and a link to the bibliography, hopefully that's good enough for a GAR...
Since this article is about an American woman, generally preferable to use American English according to the manual of style.
Ack, you've caught me! I"m Canadian! Could you possibly point out the non-US English usage?
Honours and neighbours —Mike moral ♪♫ 05:24, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed.
The section "The Bellwether Prize" should probably be renamed "Bellwether Prize" per the MOS.
Done
Make sure multiple footnotes are listed in order.
Done
Make sure the citation style is consistent.
Done as best I can do.
Watch for abbreviations, that they are either explained or eliminated. Especially i.e., etc., no., Inc., Corp.
Could you point them out?
Sorry, just a generic point.
Make sure all title headings are correctly capitalized.
Done
Kingsolver is also an accomplished poet and essayist. She has published two essay collections, High Tide in Tucson and Small Wonder: Essays and a selection of her poetry is published in an anthology entitled Another America. Her prose poetry also accompanied photographs by Annie Griffiths Belt in a work titled Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands.
Perhaps a brief overview of these works can be added, but short and concise.

—Mike moral ♪♫ 04:14, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give this a go in the next few days. One of the most difficult things is finding reliable third-party references for these so that they don't come off as OR (this has been the main thing preventing me from writing a good 'literary themes' section). Perhaps if I delve back into the NYT archives they'll have something...

I've responded to the points as I complete them (some of the citation stuff will take longer). I so appreciate this review, thank you!Jhfortier (talk · contribs ) 04:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've added one more point and addressed your questions. —Mike moral ♪♫ 05:34, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks, the fresh perspective is always so helpful! Jhfortier (talk · contribs ) 05:57, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. —Mike moral ♪♫ 06:13, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Belovedfreak

Personal life

Carlisle, Kentucky and Belgian Congo could do with wikilinks. if you want to be careful about overlinking (which is a good idea!) you could delink Democratic Republic of the Congo since Belgian Congo is more relevant to her life, and the DRC is immediately linked from that article. Although... if she went there when she was 7, wouldn't it have been the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville)?
"At the age of seven, her father..." - makes it sound like it was when her father was seven
The lead says that she spent a year in Africa, but the time span is not mentioned in this section

Writing career

Could we have publication dates for all of her books?
"Her most famous work of fiction is arguably..." - "arguably" is a bit vague and weasely; who argues this?
Can you add any more detail about the background of the writing of her books? One thing that struck me straight away is that The Poisonwood Bible is set in central Africa. Was this inspired by her early life?
"Kingsolver is also an accomplished poet and essayist." - who says that she is accomplished?
"She has also been published as a science journalist in periodicals" - I see that this has been mentioned above, but could you actually name the periodicals and the subjects she's written on?

Reception

"U.S. President" doesn't need to be linked here, it doesn't add anything to this atrticle, and will be linked to from Bill Clinton anyway.
"Her 1998 bestseller, The Poisonwood Bible, won..." - is there a citation for this sentence?
James Beard Award, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Bellwether Prize and The New York Times Best Seller list can all be linked (note "The", and put The New York Times in italics).
You say she has won these awards "among others" - why leave use hanging? What others?

References

There's some work you can do here to make these more consistent and comprehensive. I've added a bit of info to some as an example, but for each one check if you have author, date, title, publisher, accessdate etc, where possible. Books should have ISBNs. Only sources that are titles of books, newspapers, magazines etc should be in italics. Websites should not (eg. Oprah.com). Having said all that, I'm not sure that it's necessary to have all the "format" fields filled in. I've not seen those used so extensively before. Eg. (book review) and (website).
Consider converting dates and accessdates to Month date, year format. This is not a GA requirement, but reduces confusion as yyyy--mm--dd can be ambiguous. People don't always know which is the month and the day. Spelling out the month helps that.
The citation currently at #28 - that goes to the Bellweather Prize information - is a good exmaple of where more detail is needed!

Images

With regard to images, fair use wouldn't be appropriate here. She is a living person, so theoretically a free image is obtainable. Have you thought about trying to obtain an image from Kingsolver herself, or her "people"? See Wikipedia:Requesting copyright permission, User:R. Baley/Acquire a free image and User:Malik Shabazz/Requesting free content if you're interested in trying that.

More sources?

If you don't have access to books on Kingsolver, have you tried google books? I did a quick search and came across this, this and this for example.

Hope this helps! Good work on getting it to this stage.--Beloved Freak 20:59, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, this was very helpful. I just have a question (perhaps more to be added later?):

With respect to the publication dates -- I've given the years in the 'works' section, but do you think they should be put in the Writing Career section as well?Jhfortier (talk · contribs ) 01:35, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that would be helpful to the reader. it's something that I, as a reader, felt was "missing" as I went through. It's part of her biography, part of what she's got up to in her life, and helps to add context. I like to think of the list of works as a kind of appendix to the article. I'll try to keep an eye on this page, but if you have any questions, and I don't seem to be responding, please give me a nudge on my talkpage. Also, let me know if you can't view those google book page for some reason, as I know they sometimes have a limit.--Beloved Freak 13:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can definitely see your point; I'll work on integrating the years in the next day or so. I think the difficult part, from my perspective, is finding a way to state the years without getting too repetitive. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

And those google book links were great! I had honestly never used google books before (I'm mostly in Scholar, myself) and they were quite helpful. I've integrated two of them into the article, where they nicely replace some of the links to the official bio (which aren't as reliable/neutral). Many thanks for your input! Jhfortier (talk · contribs ) 15:37, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, that's been done. You're right; it really does enhance the content of the article! Jhfortier (talk · contribs ) 15:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Cryptic C62[edit]

Resolved comments

"...is an American novelist, essayist, poet and activist" Is there any way to clarify what sort of activist she is? It's a fairly broad term on its own...
The lead should have at least one sentence for every major section of the article. The only section that's missing is the recently-added Literary style and themes section.
"Kingsolver has received numerous nominations and awards, such as the National Humanities Medal and the and has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize." Something obviously went wrong when writing this sentence! I'm not sure exactly what you were trying to say here.
"...took the family to the Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville), what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo" I appreciate the effort to clarify the nomenclature of the country they visited, but I don't think the DROC was ever actually referred to as "Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville)". As much as we like disambiguating things with parentheses, governments seem to think the practice is unattractive. There are two ways I would go about writing this sentence: "took the family to what was then referred to as the [[Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville)|Republic of the Congo]]." or "took the family to what is now referred to as the Democratic Republic of the Congo." It would also help if you had the name of the town/city they went to.

The above have all been dealt with

"where she earned a Master's degree in ecology and evolutionary biology" I suspect that these may have been separate degrees. If that's the case (which it might not be), a better phrasing would be "where she earned Master's degrees in ecology and evolutionary biology".

Amazingly, this is true; she attended U of Arizona in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology... a strange combination, to be sure, but there we are.

"which eventually lead to some freelance feature writing" The phrase "feature writing" pertains to journalism, yes? Some people may be confused and think that it pertains to science writing. Or perhaps I'm dead wrong and I just don't know what feature writing is in regards to science. Either way, can has more clarity plz?

I'll definitely work on clarifying this bit -- it's difficult, because most of the interviews and other third party references just say "feature writing" and it seems like a mix of science writing and contributions to anthologies. Perhaps I'll just amend that section.

Here's a passage from my book that might be helpful here: "Her graduate school experience led her toward more directed and meaningful work, that as a scientific writer, which indirectly began her career. It led to her beginning to try some freelance journalistic work, and that led to the writing of her first written but second published book-length piece, her study of the 1983 strike of copper miners and their wives against the Phelps Dodge copper mining company. As previously mentioned, her coverage of the strike led to her first national publication in 1984... She wrote poetry while in college, but lacked the confidence to begin serious creative writing until much later. For this reason, her journalistic work is particularly important." (DeMarr p. 9) --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:48, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

...so I think the sentence could be rewritten "which eventually lead to some freelance journalism". --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:23, 3 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Try to avoid one-sentence paragraphs whenever possible. If a topic cannot be expanded or merged into a full paragraph (such as the Rock Bottom Remainders), perhaps it should be removed or linked in the See Also section.

I'll try to work this into another paragraph; I think it's an interesting fact, and she's written an essay about her time on the road with the band, but there just isn't much else to say.

Perhaps it can be expanded into a full paragraph using that essay. I'm guessing that in the essay she discusses how her experiences with the band affected her writing or whatever. More specific information on when she was with the band would also be useful. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:48, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I expanded the section a bit, adding a few more details (instrument played, when the band was first formed) to make it a bit more substantial. I get the feeling that a GA review may suggest I remove it, but for now I think it's ok. Jhfortier (talk · contribs ) 19:21, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the material in the Personal life section would be better placed in other sections to avoid redundancy. The bit about journalism should be in the Writing career section. I think the Doctor of Letters part should go in Honors, but it's up to you.
I think the Writing career section would be more easily understood if it were written in chronological order rather than broken apart by genre, especially since her early scientific and journalistic writing were such an important precursor to her fiction work.
What does "overlapping narratives" mean?

More to come. When you address an issue in the article, please leave a comment under the issue here so I know whether to move on or not. Thanks! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:34, 26 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Will do from now on; thank you for your ongoing thorough review. Jhfortier (talk · contribs ) 18:32, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]