Talk:Tolkien's frame stories/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Haleth (talk · contribs) 13:31, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Alright, let's do another one. Will be back soon with comments. Haleth (talk) 13:31, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:54, 31 July 2021 (UTC)

General comment: The copyvio detector program I've used to run an analysis of the article have indicated that a substantial aspect of the article returned a high "violation possible" result to sections of prose in The authors of Middle Earth: Tolkien and the mystery of literary creation by Giuseppe Pezzini. Of course, Pezzini is referenced and cited in one instance, so there is no possibility of deliberate copyvio or plagiarism. Taking into consideration Criteria #2(d), could you give a bit more context behind the similarities, or consider whether any further attempts at paraphrasing the article's prose is necessary?

Well, I'm surprised by the high score from the tool, given the small and fragmentary text matches that it has found. Those are mainly titles of books, notably "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Red Book of Westmarch" (several times - perhaps the repetition confuses the tool); also the phrases "at the end of"/"at the time of" which it obviously finds highly suspect. The only substantial overlap is in the lengthy title of Bilbo's memoirs, where we both necessarily quote from Tolkien. I suppose you've raised this so that I can knock it on the head in public, but to be honest there's really nothing there to knock.

I just think it's a good idea to address any potential copyvio concerns given that it is a GA-criteria to assess. Since you've explained that there is no substantial overlap in prose and no further paraphrasing is required since the stuff that do overlap are mostly quoted from Tolkien, that should address the concerns of anyone who may consider reassessing this article due to copyvio issue. I'm passing the review. Haleth (talk) 11:21, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

It otherwise appears to be a very well-written and solidly researched article. I have left my comments and questions about specific passages in the following paragraphs. Haleth (talk) 01:35, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks.

Lede

• He described in detail how his fictional characters wrote their books and transmitted them to others, and showed how later editors annotated the material. By "later editors", you are referring to in-universe characters who edit and annotate their material, right? If so, maybe you can tweak the sentence to emphasize that?

• Done.

• The legendarium, the body of writing behind the posthumously-published The Silmarillion, had a frame story that evolved over Tolkien's long writing career. Why is it in past tense, since the body of writing continued to be developed and contributed to by Christopher Tolkien up until his recent passing?

• All right, "has" it is.

Tolkien's legendarium

• With Ælfwine's exploits, even though it is an in-universe summary, it appears to be all written in past tense, which contrasts with the example of the Red Book of Westmarch above. Is it because you determined that this falls under the "distant past" style of framing rule as determined by the Middle-earth wikiproject?

• It could be played either way, I think. Made it narrative present tense.