Talk:Understanding The Lord of the Rings/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: AryKun (talk · contribs) 11:20, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

• Will do. AryKun (talk) 11:20, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

  Many thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:31, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Comments

• The article seems extremely short at first glance.
  • The article says what it needs to say. Mere length has never been a criterion, as it is no guide either to quality or coverage; and indeed verbosity is not an advantage. In the case of this article, a substantial amount of complex text has been avoided by using a table which encapsulates a large amount of information about the book's construction in its three editions, making the organisation clearer in the process. In any case, the article is over 2000 words long, which would take around 15 minutes to read out loud. Printed out, the body of the article takes up 6 pages of A4 paper.
    • Post-review postscript: I suspect that this is a tool issue. Wikipedia's "readable prose" counting tools ignore even lengthy texts within table cells. An article like this one that summarizes much of its information in a text column is thus seriously underestimated by the tools: 700 words instead of 2000; and of course, phrases condensed into a table cell are invariably shorter than the full sentences (with all the redundancy they inevitably contain) that they replace. Caveat emptor. I've added a note to the WP:Article size page. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:47, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

• The background could be expanded a bit to include some of the themes and the reception to both The Hobbit and LOTR, since that would help a casual reader understand the later Reception section without necessarily having to read through a dozen other articles.
  • Background/Context sections have to be extremely brief, not least because they quickly go off-topic (original research by synthesis, using sources that do ot name the subject, here the book). Summaries of Tolkien's novels would certainly fall foul of this rule here.

• Isn't "The books contain no illustrations." better suited to content than Publication history?
  • Moved.

• "fellow-Inklings" no hyphen
  • Gone.

• "Jane Ni(e)tzsche" Just drop the "e", looks weird and variable spellings of her name are tmi for this article.
  • Done.

• Images are properly used and licensed.
  • Noted.

• Spot-checks:
  • Rios Maldonado, Mariana (2022). "Critical Insights: The Lord of the Rings (2022), edited by Robert C. Evans". Journal of Tolkien Research. Verifies all claims made
  • Ratliff, Ron (2004). "Understanding the Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Critics (Book)". Library Journal. Verifies all claims made
  • Chassagnol, M. (1 April 1983). "N. D. ISAACS and R. ZIMBARDO, eds.: "Tolkien: New Critical Perspectives" (Book Review)". Études Anglaises (in French). Verifies all claims made, but fix the formatting.
    • Done.

• All I have really. AryKun (talk) 12:44, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
  • AryKun: Many thanks for the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:00, 23 August 2023 (UTC)