Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/Chris Gardner

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Chris Gardner[edit]

My goal for this project is to bring it up to GA, and if possible FA, status.

I am aware that the article could use a more NPOV. Perhaps my adjective choices are too dramatic? I tried my best to balance out the sources, but I find that most of the information that I find tends to focus on the movie The Pursuit of Happyness or the most recent twenty years of Gardner's life. Therefore, his autobiography provided most of the information I included about his early life.

Constructive suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Brinabina 21:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yannismarou[edit]

Nice job, but I do believe that there are some serious POV problems. This is my review:

  • In some cases the tone of the prose gets hagiographic. This is not our goal in Wikipedia. A I say somewhere else "The prose can be sentimental but not un-encyclopedic or POV. Sentimentalism is a great weapon, if you know how to use it. If you don't know this "art", don't try it!" These are some examples from the lead, which IMO are problematic: "Gardner owes the greater part of his current success to his mother's early encouragement and to the sense of responsibility and high expectations placed on him, then her only son." "Chris Gardner's childhood was fraught with discouraging circumstances and hardships. Despite enduring abuse at the hands of his mother's husband, Freddie Triplett, Gardner resolved that he would someday become a loving and dedicated father to his own children. This determination, in addition to his mother's early encouragement, motivated him to succeed at life and business even when the odds appeared to be stacked against him."
  • "Gardner's journey from a homeless single father to self-made millionaire is portrayed by the 2006 major motion picture .
Gardner's book of memoirs sharing the same title was published earlier the same year by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers." Why do you break the paragraph here? And why do you break it with a <br />? And not with an empty line, as we do when we want to create a new paragraph in Wikipedia. IMO there is no opinion two have two stubby paragraphs in a row at the end of the lead.
  • "Gardner's journey from a homeless single father to self-made millionaire is portrayed by the 2006 major motion picture The Pursuit of Happyness, [4] starring actor Will Smith." Cite in the middle of a sentence only if it is absolutely necessary; otherwise at the end of the sentence. And do not leave a gap between the punctuation mark and the citation.
  • "Early years" is another example of problematic and potentially uncyclopedic writing. What abou his education? Why he was in foster care? First, we give the necessary infos; then we assess the info if necessary and again in an encyclopedic way. And I also think you should repeat infos of the lead enriched (when he was born? Where?). The article starts from scratch! The problem of uncyclopedic writing is not confined in this section.
  • "Then, just after the birth of Chris' first son". When? Was he married? You suddenly speak about his son, without having told us anything relevant previously.
  • "In 1983 and in four years succeeded in making a notable impact on their yearly revenues". Per MoS do not wikiling single years. Only full dates (May 8, 1978).
  • I was thinking that "Business ventures" is fine, and then I read that:"Gardner is currently working on an investment venture with South Africa that will create hundreds of jobs and introduce millions of much-needed foreign currency into the nation." Isn't it a bit ethnocentric?
  • "Adamantly determined to raise". I don't like "adamantly"; it looks like a verbalism and a bit POV.
  • I would like to have more infos about his personal life. I don't think I learnt everything I wanted. Does he also have a daughter? I thought I learnt that by accident.
  • I also think more infos could be added about his course towards success. As a reader I got the impression I was given just a short summary version of this interesting story.

--Yannismarou 19:02, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Yannismarou,

User Brinabina and I have done a lot of work on re-editing the Chris Gardner article. Your comments were very helpful. Below I respond to each of the points you've raised and what we've done to correct it:

  • The lead is now more concise, condensed into two paragraphs. The sentences you highlighted as being problematic have either been deleted or reworded to be less sentimental and more factual.
  • 'Gardner's journey from homeless father to self-made millionaire is portrayed by the 2006 major motion picture" has been altered to Gardners personal journey is portrayed in the 2006..."
  • The footnote citations in the article have been altered, where possible, so that they appear at the end of the sentence.
  • I have rewritten and reordered 'Early years', adding in additional background info - hope this reads better now.
  • 'Then just after the birth of Chris' first son' has been changed to 'Then shortly after the birth of Chris Jr. in 1981'
  • I have removed the wikilink from 1983
  • I have removed 'much-needed' from the phrase :"Gardner is currently working on an investment venture with South Africa that will create hundreds of jobs and introduce millions of much-needed foreign currency into the nation." so that it has less enthocentric connotations
  • I don't like 'adamantly either - it has been removed!
  • Info on Gardner's daughter Jacintha has been added.
  • The whole article has been streamlined and various points have been enlarged upon.

We'd be grateful if you could re-read the article and give us your feedback. SJCharlton 09:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Yannismarou

Thanks for your review. I have made several edits that preserve the changes made by SJCharleton, while improving clarity, flow and NPOV. Here are some of the major changes. Please give us your opinion on them:

  • The lead section has been restructured for clarity and better chronology, then a second paragraph has been added as a concise summary of the article.
  • I added information about his sisters.
  • The beginning of “early years” was modified to include his date of birth.
  • I added infos about his experience as a medic in the Navy and his clinical research in the field of cardiology.
  • I added a section called “marriage and fatherhood” where I included infos about his failed marriage and his decision to forego the pursuit of a medical career, as well as the chronology of the various challenges he faced in the pursuit of a position in a stock brokerage training program.

I hope that our changes will get the article to GA status. Brinabina 08:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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