Talk:Dewey Readmore Books/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 07:25, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Initial reading

1a. Prose quality.

• In the lead section, New York Times should be italicized and linked.
• In the "Worldwide fame" section, "his fame spread international" is unidiomatic. Either "became international" or "spread internationally".
• In "Later years and legacy", the first sentence "Early in life...finicky eater" is a bit of a run-on, with four completed thoughts that could each potentially be separate sentences.
• The book title Dewey's Christmas at the Library should be italicized.

1b. Specific MOS guidelines.

• Lead length is only one paragraph, but this is appropriate for the length of the overall article. The lead appropriately summarizes the rest of the article, with none of the usual problems of claims that are not later expanded.
• The overall article layout is fine but the references and notes are out of order from each other per MOS:FNNR.
• No issues found with inappropriate words, fiction, or lists.

2a. Reference formatting.

• References appear to be consistently formatted in Citation Style 1, with manually formatted short citations to different page numbers of earlier references. Two exceptions are that the People and Publishers Weekly sources are formatted as {{cite news}} and {{cite web}} (both should be {{cite magazine}}) and put the magazine name in the |publisher= parameter (should be |magazine=). (I don't actually care how this is coded, but the net effect is that the magazine name isn't italicized, and it should be.)

2b. Reliability of the sources used.

• All sources appear reliable, but the most frequently used source (Myron) is offline, so I can't fact-check the claims made to it. Footnote 3 (the Des Moines Register 1988 piece) is also offline, or at least has no url provided.

2c. Valid sourcing of all claims.

• Early life section, "given the title of staff supervisor", not validated by footnote 5 (Dewey's bio).
• Same section, "his birthday was celebrated on November 18 of each year", also not validated by same source.
• Section "Worldwide fame", claim "He gained further recognition when he was featured in Gary Roma's late 1990s documentary Puss in Books" does not appear in the next footnote (footnote 10, Gallagher).
• "He appeared in calendars": also not in the source.
• "subject of an episode" of Paul Harvey's show: the source only says that he was "the focus of radio talking points" by Harvey.
• Section "Later years and legacy", claim that the moratorium on finding another cat was "later extended indefinitely", footnote 5: the source says only "Dewey will never be replaced." It could mean what our article claims it to mean, that there is an official moratorium on finding another cat. But it could also be merely a flowery way of writing that Dewey was one-of-a-kind. It would be better to have more-unambiguous sourcing for this claim.
• "The book told the story of Dewey's life at the library, interspersed with the difficulties faced by the town and Myron in her personal life, and how Dewey helped ease those burdens": the source says only that the book "chronicles the life of Dewey and the Iowa farm town".
• "previously unreleased stories about Dewey": not in the source (Publishers Weekly).
• "That same year" (2010 release date for Dewey's Christmas at the Library): not in the source (Savannah Morning News).

2d. No inappropriate copying.

• Earwig found no significant copying, but I was unable to check against the offline sources.

3ab. Broad but not too broad.

• No issues seen. The article is short but that is probably appropriate for an article about a cat who lived a mostly-uneventful life in a library.

4. Neutral.

• No issues seen.

5. Stable.

• Largely rewritten last May, cleaning up some major problems with non-neutral language and apparent original research. Has been very stable since.

6a. Image licensing.

• The image is not freely licensed, but its fair-use status seems clean.

6b. Image relevance and captioning.

• No problems seen.

Overall verdict: close to good quality, but with some issues (particularly with sourcing) that need to be addressed before it can be passed. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:24, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the very thorough review! I have a bit of a busy week/weekend this week, but I'll try to address these properly within the next few days. Thanks again! Canadian Paul 09:11, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

I've taken care of most of these; regarding the concern #1 under 2c, about the staff supervisor, the source states "Dewey even had his own job description. Check out Dewey as a supervisor of our staff." I was trying an awkward paraphrase there; perhaps I should just quote directly? Regarding the Roma documentary, the source does mention it (albeit not by name) and I thought that the fact that Dewey appeared it would be an intrinsic cite (like a plot description for a movie) and wouldn't require a citation? I can look up the details and cite if necessary, however. Similar comment about the previously unreleased stories and the publication date of the book: I feel that it is another intrinsic cite but can be explicit if need be. Otherwise, please let me know what else needs to be done! Canadian Paul 15:21, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Ok, all comments either handled or responded to; passing. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:35, 17 July 2017 (UTC)