Talk:The Story of Yoga

GA Review

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

Reviewer: MWright96 (talk · contribs) 10:33, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Going to review for the GAN October 2020 Backlog Drive. MWright96 (talk) 10:33, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:45, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

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 (reference section): 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 and other media, where possible and appropriate.

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

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Lead

• The lead is lacking in content such as what critics actually thought about the book and a summary of what the book contains

Extended.

Context

• "Alistair Shearer is a cultural historian of India. He was a lecturer at SOAS." - think these two sentences can be merged together

Done.

• south India could start with a capital letter and be wikilinked

Done.

Content

• "The first part steps through the history of yoga, from ancient times onwards," - what part of the ancient times exactly?

Dating Indian manuscripts is notoriously difficult and scholars disagree on almost everything about it. I've added a date from Shearer.

• "The modern history covers the Theosophical Society, Swami Vivekananda's coming to the west, "roguey yogis" like Pierre Bernard, muscle builders like K. V. Iyer, yoga at the Mysore Palace with Krishnamacharya, and pioneering teachers who brought yoga to the west, like B. K. S. Iyengar." - try not to use the word "like" three times in the same sentence

Edited.

• "The book concludes with coverage of the enormous growth in yoga's worldwide popularity," - I believe using another word that is formal in place of the one in bold will help things here

Edited.

Illustrations

• "They depict temple sculptures of yogis; early book illustrations, both western and from India; portraits of yoga gurus; and photographs of various practices, historic figures, and celebrities." - don't think semi-colons are appropriate for this sentence

It's not easy to punctuate it any other way, as commas are already in use to separate phrases within the listed groups; the sentence would become unreadable with a mass of commas of two invisibly-different types. It may be that this style is more usual in British English than other varieties.

Reception

• Consider adding the authors of the respective reviews for the newspapers where applicable

Added several.

• I can see The Irish Times is used in this section but that there is no review from this newspaper

Fixed.

• "but the book denies that yoga is any sort of magical quick fix." - think this text could do with a form of rewriting to be more formal

Edited.

• "The Sunday Times noted that three million people practice yoga in Britain, and that a multi-billion dollar industry has grown from yoga's roots in India." - repetition of "yoga"

Edited.

Interview

• "He then learnt Sanskrit to study the texts. He agreed the book was controversial" - consider merging these two sentences together

They're not about the same type of thing, nor the same period of time.

• "but it depended on why people were doing yoga." - practising

Edited.

• "but it was not "the full meal", it was "selling yoga short"." think there are a few words missing from this portion of text

I don't, but I edited it for you anyway.

References

• References 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 should mention that a subscription is needed to access the sources

Added.

• Reference 8 should mention it was accessed via PressReader and the page number should be included

Added via and accessdate; no page number is available.

Will put the review on hold to allow the nominator to address or query the points raised above MWright96 (talk) 13:25, 25 October 2020 (UTC) Shall promote to GA class. MWright96 (talk) 20:03, 25 October 2020 (UTC)