Talk:The Man I Became

Note

Hello, welcome to the talk page for The Man I Became! Feedback welcome! Turnerhamilton (talk) 19:02, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Notes

Hi! I have notes:

• The themes section needs work. Keep in mind that we can only summarize what has been explicitly stated in source material. The section should be specifically about the book, as opposed to being more general about the author. Here's this portion as an example:

Verhelst is one of the most prominent writers of Flemish Postmodernism.[2] Flemish Postmodernism characteristically criticizes modern society as well as contemporary thinking in general, which can be seen in The Man I Became's satirical tone with the subjects of smartphones, emphasis on small-talk, and corporate life as the narrator becomes increasingly integrated into human society.

The first sentence is about Verhelst as opposed to the book. The source was also published before the book was released, so we cannot use it to back up details about the book itself. While Verhelst is a writer of Flemish Postmodernism, this doesn't automatically mean that every book he publishes is part of this genre so what we need is a source that discusses the book and states that it falls within this genre. We're that limited when it comes to things - while the book does fall within this genre, without a source that explicitly says "X is Y" we cannot label something as falling into this specific of a genre. It doesn't matter if it holds the hallmarks of the genre - we need sourcing with that specific term, as us saying it's postmodern without it would be seen as original research. So for example, Stephen King is well known for horror but in 1987 he published a fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Dragon. Him publishing horror doesn't automatically make this a horror novel and in order for it to be considered this you'd need to have either King labeling it as such or sourcing that describes the book as horror, if that makes sense. Another example would be a situation where someone describes an animal that sounds exactly like a cat. While it sounds exactly like a housecat, us saying that it's a cat is our own interpretation. It could be that they're describing a fox or some other animal, but just happen to make it sound like it's a cat. We're that limited in what we can do, as we can only summarize what has been said without any new interpretations. Basically, what you need here to add the postmodernism claim is a source that specifically uses this term.

I also want to note that any statements that someone is the most prominent or best at something is traditionally seen as an opinion and must be attributed to the writer, as this could be subjective to the person reading the page. (IE, they could say that someone else is the most prominent person or the best.) The second also needs to be attributed, as it comes across as it's also something that we are stating as opposed to something that is in the source itself. Even if something seems obvious, we cannot make our own interpretations.

• The literary elements section needs work along the same lines, as it comes across as a personal interpretation. I can't emphasize enough that we can only summarize what has already been said. I would recommend looking at To_Kill_a_Mockingbird#Themes as an example of how sections like this should be styled.

• Make sure that you avoid flowery language unless it's part of a quote or is attributed to someone. For example, the term "invokes" is a personal word as it signifies that something brought about specific connotations, actions, or feelings in a single person or specific people. It's not meant to be seen as a term that can be universal to everyone, as the basic term itself is meant to signify that one person is doing something or calling on someone to feel a certain way - or that their actions have brought about specific emotions or actions, even if this was not what was initially intended.

• The publication and reception sections need to be written into prose format. You especially want to avoid this with the reception section, as a list of quotes can sometimes come across as promotional and at the very least, is kind of difficult to read and isn't Wikipedia's typical style.

• The publication section states that the first ebook version was published in 2016, however a look on WorldCat shows that there was a Dutch ebook released in 2013 when the work was published overseas. This needs to be corrected - always be careful when it comes to translations since we don't want to assume that the English translation was the first of a specific edition or type.

• Be careful of sourcing. Sabotage Reviews would very likely not be seen as a reliable source on Wikipedia because they sell sponsorships that give the sponsor a strong and final say in how they're promoted on the website. What this means is that if the sponsor wanted, they could ultimately restrict the website from putting out any negative reviews of their services or books. This poses issues with not only conflict of interest for the site, but also neutrality. This doesn't mean that all of their reviews are shills, but it does bring all of their work into question as a result. The only time a site of this nature can be seen as a reliable source is if they're routinely cited as a reliable source by other reliable sources, especially academic and scholarly sources. It's possible that it is a reliable source, but we'd need to be able to prove it and offhand there definitely looks to be stronger sourcing out there.

I hope that this helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:28, 24 April 2019 (UTC)