Talk:Marching Men

Comments

First, nice expansion here! It's a little tough to write about an obscure first novel but I think you've done a nice job. A few comments:

• Lead - as a general summary of the page, I'd suggest maybe moving a few pieces of detail from the lead into the separate sections. I.e, maybe only mention that it was published by Lane in the lead & put the three-book detail elsewhere (background maybe - not sure), and the sentence re written before he became established can go the background.
• Background - is a little skimpy but should probably have the detail from the lead moved into it. Also I'd suggest moving the "Publication history" section from the bottom and consider combining with the "Background" and rename as "Background and publication history" - this has the added benefit of moving the image up so it doesn't hang into the refs section. As an example see "Big Two-Hearted River" - I'm in the process of building and at the moment the two are combined. As another example see The Red Badge of Courage (or The Sun Also Rises) where the two sections are separated but kept close together. I tend to use background sections to add a bit of biographical information that might not make it onto a main bio page; do we know what inspired him to write this novel? I'm not as up on this as I should be, but was he at all inspired, influenced by Dreiser or Sinclair? If any of this info is available, consider adding it in.

• Plot and characters - I know we still have this format at WP:NOVSTY (or at least I think we do) but personally am not crazy about it. Consider some consolidation here - I tend to mention the characters in the plot section and avoid character sections. The two books linked above are good examples of this. The trick is to keep the plot sections as short as possible, yet to convey a good summary. It's not easy - generally I don't read the book until I'm done writing about it, so as not to overwhelm the plot section. I do have more comments about the plot section, a few pieces are a little confusing, but will wait to see how this section develops.

• Themes - very nicely done.
• Critical analysis - also well-done
• Prose - I saw a few minor glitches that I can fix with a copyedit. Generally nicely done.
• MoS - I've made a few minor changes - but overall looks well-done.

I don't know how this will do at GA - in its current state it might well pass, depends entirely on the reviewer. But with the fixes mentioned above, I think you'd be in fine shape to take to GAN. I'll keep it on my watchlist and watch your progress - please to don't hesitate to ask questions if you have any. Good luck, and well-done! Truthkeeper (talk) 14:01, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for this. I'll work on the changes. Re. inspirations, the only person I didn't mention that came up several times in the literature is Thomas Carlyle who inspired the McGregor as heroic man theme, but I have so many inspirations in there already that I didn't want to plug any more in. A case can be made that Anderson was swept up in the naturalism of the time which would link the aforementioned writers. Will look into it and throw what I find into the article. Thanks again for the review. Hopefully I can get this thing knocked out in the next few days depending on other responsibilities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Olegkagan (talk • contribs) 21:42, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Marching Men/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Maclean25 (talk · contribs) 05:51, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Good article review (see Wikipedia:What is a good article? for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   Two images used (both hosted on the Commons): File:Marching Men Cover.jpg tagged as cc-by-sa and File:Marching Men Advertisement.jpg tagged as public domain.

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Comments/Questions

• In the lead, can "Today, Marching Men is largely forgotten..." be re-phrased. It seems to be close to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Relative time references. The lead should only be summarizing what is already in the article, is this sentence a summary of something more thoroughly covered in the article?

Agreed, the "Today" was not good form. See what you think of the adjustment I made. I believe that the sentence refers to the latter part of the "Literary significance and criticism" section. --Olegkagan (talk) 01:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• Perhaps Great Man theory would be a good wikilink for "Emersonian Great Man"

Done.--Olegkagan (talk) 22:02, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• Can you add a quote from the novel? Nothing quite communicates the novel's style like a quote directly from the text.

There is a quote under Themes: Order versus disorder section. I can certainly pull another quote from the book, but where do you think in the article it could go?--Olegkagan (talk) 22:02, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I thought that was a quote from Anderson talking about the novel. I didn't realize that was a quote from the novel. maclean (talk) 15:41, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

• Is the novel written in first-person or third-person? maclean (talk) 15:41, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

It's in third-person. --Olegkagan (talk) 19:04, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

• This article covers all the major aspects and is competently written. Perhaps the fact that it is written in the third-person should be included into the article as it describes part of the writing style. Otherwise, it meets the GA criteria and I am comfortable with passing it. maclean (talk) 00:33, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to read and review the article! I'll see about sticking more about the writing style into the article in the future.--Olegkagan (talk) 01:58, 25 May 2012 (UTC)