Draft talk:Madeleva Manifesto

Review by Figureskatingfan

Hi, I'm reviewing this draft as per User:Engmaj's request. Please excuse my pickiness; I'm treating this like a GA review, hoping it will help this article be published.

Overall impressions: I agree somewhat with the draft rejecters' comments about its tone and sources, although I think that it has great potential. I'd add that this article doesn't mine its sources adequately; see below for suggestions. I'm sure we can get it to a place where it can be accepted by other reviewers. I tend to try and find a similar WP article when I'm working on a new article or expanding an existing one, to see how other editors handle similar content. I did a kinda-short search on Google and WP for other "manifestos": Southern Manifesto (which unfortunately doesn't have a lead, although its content seems high-quality), Leap Manifesto (which is long because there's lots of information out there about it and doesn't have a signatory section), and Manifesto of the 343. The last example seems to be more like this manifesto, so I suggest that we use it as a model.

Lead: Currently, the first paragraph is more of an introduction than a lead. Remember, leads are supposed to summarize an article. This is why I tend to write leads after I write the body.

Stay tuned, more later. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:46, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Will look at those other examples. However, the Manifesto of the 343 led me astray earlier, because it includes the entire text of the manifesto. An earlier draft of the Madeleva Manifesto did the same and was immediately dinged by other editors. It took some repetitions of my question about why I couldn't provide the text when that WP article did before someone finally replied saying that the Manifesto of the 343 had been translated from the French Wikipedia and French editors had different standards. That said, I think it will be worthwhile for me to look at those models and study them more closely. I appreciate your help!Engmaj (talk) 20:31, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh now I remember that you had mentioned that dinging. Of course, there are other similar articles that do provide the text, like the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which I realize isn't a manifesto but its topic is close enough and should be a model for this article, I think. But since this has been pinged, we should probably comply. The solution, I think would be to see if we can find a source that describes Madeleva. The content of any WP article should follow the sources; I take notes first and then summarize and paraphrase from there, which will also take care of your source mining problem mentioned above. At any rate, I'll see if I can finish this review if not today, tomorrow. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:10, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Lead (cont.)

• I think we should keep the first sentence in the lead because it seems to summarize the topic and move the rest of the paragraph to another section. Ref1, though, doesn't support the statements made in the next two sentences; it's just a publication of the manifesto on the CNR, so you need to find a source that does. Ref2 does support it, though. A good solution would be remove ref1, since you already have it in the "External links" section and put ref2 after the word "Millennium".

A Message of Hope and Courage

• We should probably remove this section, as per the discussion above, and because it's not sourced. I know that you're trying to summarize each point, but it's too close to opinion-making, something we shouldn't do. There are two ways I see to handle this: remove the second entirely and not bother with it; and see if any source summarizes it. If the sources don't help us, I'm inclined to go with the first choice. If we keep it, this section needs to be renamed because it doesn't follow MOS:HEAD, perhaps to "Discussion".

How The Madeleva Manifesto came to be

• This section should be renamed, as per above, perhaps to "History" or "Background".
• I think the content in this section is fine and well-written. No peacock terms. I went ahead and added some links and did some minor ce.

Signatories

• I have just two picky comments. The second-to-the-last sentence doesn't need the bracketed note because WP articles don't include inline explanatory notes. You could put it in a "Notes" section; my suggestion is just to remove it. Also, the last sentence needs a source; I suggest citing the St. Mary's pdf.

Mining sources:

I'm being picky, but with smaller articles you need to be because we want to include as much as we can to bulk up the content.

• Ref 2, p. xix: Include quote in History/Background.

• Ref 3: I think that there are lots of gems from this article you can use. Instead of talking about it here, though, I can demonstrate what I mean by putting in the info myself, since the content here is short, if you like. Just let me know if that's okay and I'll do it.
• Ref 4: More mining could be done. For example, on p. 7 in the first paragraph, it states that the manifesto invites other women to imagine a different future, etc. On p. 8, it states that the manifesto is addressed to young women. Both points would be perfect to add to a possible Discussion section. The article goes on to talk about Wolff's influence, which could be used to bulk up History/Background. A few paragraphs later, it defines gospel feminism, which you could also use in the History/Background section. I could go on, but hopefully you get my point.

This is all I can do at this setting. More later, but this is a good start for now, I think. Let me know if I can clarify and if you have any questions. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:38, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Continuing:

Response and Legacy sections:

Both these sections need to be rewritten. According to MOS:PARA, single sentences break up the flow of the text. The easy solution would be to combine all the sentences, with transitions between them, of course. I also suggest that you combine the two sections into one and call it "Response and legacy" because as the above guideline states, short sections are also not recommended. You could probably bulk it up with more content from the sources, too; for example, you could use your sources to define gospel feminism. This might be a better place to define it.

This is how I'd rewrite the first paragraph:

The Manifesto was well received by the audience at the public session in which it was presented and some of them brought it to their local area to disseminate its message.[6][8] Renee M. LaReau, a pastoral associate at a Catholic church in Ohio and reflecting as a Catholic female Generation Xer for America magazine, saw the Manifesto as confirmation that women "must be respected as leaders and given public roles in the church".[9] One later commentator in Crisis Magazine, however, contested the Manifesto's association with Catherine of Sienna, offered a contrasting vision of St. Catherine, and criticized several of its signatories for expressing opposing views elsewhere.[10]

References

Ref2:

• This source doesn't really support your claims in the first sentence of the Background section. On pp. viii-ix, it states that Hellwig contributed to the reunion of the Madeleva lecturers and helped write the manifesto, but it doesn't say anything about a charter. I'd change that to better reflect the content in the source. If I were you, I'd go through all your sources to ensure that you're supporting your claims correctly.

• Ref2 is also not formatted exactly correctly. See Genevieve, a saint article I've been working on recently. You'll notice that for using sources with multiple pages, I put the source in the "Works cited" section and the source with the page number in the "References" section. You can also use the sfn template. I can do it for you, once you take care of the first item.

Ref4:

• Ah, now I see what happened with ref2! Ref4 (p. 6) supports your claims about a charter. Easy fix!

• Ref4d actually spans through both pages on the NCR story pp. 6-7) and ref4e is on p. 7, so you'll have to do with it what I described above with ref2.

• The NCR story describes the Manifesto quite a lot, so you might want to use its content to flesh out a "Description" section as per our discussion above.

User:Engmaj, I'm now done with the review. Hope it's helpful; let me know how else I can assist. We can even do a zoom session if you like, just let me know. Best, Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:54, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks so much, User:Figureskatingfan, for all your work on this. Some of your suggestions from the first round of comments have already been incorporated. Yes, I'd appreciate a bit of time on Zoom to discuss and will reach out to you to schedule. Walking me through how to do the "Works Cited" and then page numbers in "References" would be helpful since I have never figured out how to do that. I have some further thoughts about some of your other recommendations that might be easier to hash out if we were together in real time. Again, thanks very much! Engmaj (talk) 18:10, 15 October 2023 (UTC)