Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Peer review/Scenes of Clerical Life

Scenes of Clerical Life

I've expanded this article substantially over the past few weeks and would like to take it to GA-standard if possible. I have two main concerns:

1. General Wikipedia conventions that I have failed to pick up on due to my inexperience as an editor.
2. With regard to this article specifically: have I succeeded in placing the work in context? I have a feeling that more may be needed to establish the religious climate in England in the first half of the nineteenth century, but am wary of letting it take over the article.

But really I'm open to all comments and suggestions for improvement. Thanks! El Staplador (talk) 12:05, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Review from the_ed17

Overall, this is a very nice article! Good work so far. My comments are literally in a random order as I go from top to bottom and back up and back down...etc., so sorry for that. :) (My comments are for this version)

• WP:LEAD says that the intro should be a summary of the entire article. Though I only skim-read the article, I didn't see any mention of poverty, alcoholism or domestic violence anywhere!
• Your references can be combined...a pain, I know, but someone at GAN, or at the least FAC, will ask you to do this.
  • Take a look at The Sword of Shannara, one of 'my' articles. See how the books are formatted so that the {{cite book}} templates go in a separate 'Bibliography' section and then the in-line cites have Author, Page(period)? Try that to clean up your reference section.
  • Heck, if you want, look at USS Nevada (BB-36). I put all of my books outside of the 'References' section to be consistent. That isn't required by any means, but it can help you keep track of all of your books. :)
• Please try using {{cite web}} for your web references...only a link and access date aren't enough!
  • Also, use ref naming for different reference #'s for the same thing (Refs 27-28).
• When you use <ref name="blah blah> just have a short little word or two that describes your ref. No need to get so detwiled and take up unnessessary space in the edit window.
• You are allowed to have successive sentences covered by one cite...so you only need one [1] in the lead.
• Refs come after punctuation (i.e. lorem ipsum.^[1]
• No spacing between double cites (i.e. ^[3][4]) and no spacing between punctuation and refs (i.e. blah blah,^[5] blah blah.)
• I didn't see this in the article, but in case you add a page range in there (I.e. Author, pp. 307–309.), you have to use an endash. Same for year ranges!
• GAN might not require it, but FAC will ask for the character list to have out-of-universe info on the characters, not just "rehashes" of the plot. I.e. symbolism, why the author made that character how she did, etc.
• Well, you could expand the background part, but if you are really afraid of it taking over, try using {{main}} with the article (whatever the name is) Religion in England in the 19th Century or Religion in England#Whatever section you need to link too.....I really have no idea what article you would use, but it was an idea. =)
• Hope this helps. I'll have this page watchlisted, so if you want to reply, go ahead and do so on here. Cheers! —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:44, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this. These references really are my nemesis! Thinking about it, I could probably cover the relevant parts of the religious question if I did a brief overview in the Background section and made a new section for Themes. Then I could emphasise the social issues that are also covered... why didn't I think of that before? I did have a look for an article that I could link to, but there didn't seem to be anything specifically saying "here is what was going on in England in the 1820s", just vaguely relevant articles about various religious movements. Looks like I'll have to write it myself if I want it ;-) El Staplador (talk) 10:18, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

No problem! I can help with the references if you'd like - just ask. :)

PR's, GAN's and FAC's bring out obvious stuff that you've missed...trust me. Don't get too mad at yourself.

I didn't know if there was an article...it was just a guess on my part. If you do write up something fo rit, remeber to nominate it at T:TDYK! Cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

So I lied...I helped with the refs anyway. :D So sue me. All comments below this line do not refer to the "version" linked above.

Ref #19 needs the year in which it was published.

"In English" is not needed in ref #28.

If anyone in later reviews asks "why are refs #1 and 15 reliable?", tell them that they were written by university professors.

Does ref #1 require a subscription? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 19:31, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the work on the refs - I appreciate it! What I've used from ref #1 is all from the first page, for which a subscription isn't technically needed since it seems to be a free preview. I was slightly confused by #19; it's an encyclopaedia from bartleby.com [1], and I couldn't pin the date down to anything more precise than 1907-21.El Staplador (talk) 10:16, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

No problem!

Never mind then. :)

Humph. Well, I'm not exactly sure on what to do then... Leave it to your GA reviewer or, if you take it that far, to the FAC people. The guys and gals at FAC will call you on it, and then you can just ask them! Cheers, —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:34, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

(<--) In the "Religious Context" section...this para needs a ref.

During the period that George Eliot depicts in Scenes of Clerical Life religion in England was undergoing significant changes. While Dissenting (Nonconformist) Churches had been established as early as the Church of England itself, the emergence of Methodism in 1739 presented particular challenges to the Established Church. Evangelicalism, at first confined to the Dissenting Churches, soon found adherents within the Church of England itself. Meanwhile, at the other end of the religious spectrum, the Oxford Movement was seeking to emphasise the Church of England's identity as a catholic and apostolic Church, reassessing its relationship to Roman Catholicism. Thus in the early 19th century Midlands that George Eliot would later depict various religious ideas can be identified: the tension between the Established and the Dissenting Churches, and the differing strands within Anglicanism itself, between the Low church, the High church and the Broad church.

—Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:36, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Done, assuming that the History Channel website counts as a reliable source. El Staplador (talk) 15:50, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Is there anything in the way of numbers? Publication statistics, # of copies sold, anything of the like? —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 14:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Probably; I'll see what I can find... El Staplador (talk) 15:50, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the History Channel is definitely an RS.

Alright...good luck. :) —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 16:39, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

'Themes' section added. El Staplador (talk) 10:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)