Wikipedia:Peer review/Halo (Beyoncé Knowles song)/archive2

Halo (Beyoncé Knowles song)

Previous peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I've been working on it many months. I'd like to nominate it for a featured article, but I need comments about what is missed. Thanks, Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 20:34, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: The basics are here, but the article is not yet ready for FAC. The main problems are related to the Manual of Style and prose issues. I made a fair number of small proofing changes, and I have further suggestions about prose, style, and layout. After looking these over and making any changes you think would be helpful, you might ask one of the volunteers at WP:PRV#General copyediting or at WP:GOCE to copyedit again.

Lead

• "It was released as the fourth single of the album on January 20, 2009, in the United States mainstream radio by Columbia Records." - Flip to active voice? Suggestion: "Columbia Records released the song, the fourth single of the album, to mainstream radio in the United States on January 20, 2009." This leads to a question, though. Do record companies typically release songs one-by-one to radio?

  Changed and sometimes songs are released by radio at first. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• "According to Bogart, Ray LaMontagne's "Shelter" was one of the inspirations for pen it." - This does not make sense as written.

  Reworded Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• "It has been modified twice, into a tribute to Michael Jackson following his death, and as a tribute to the victims of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, which Knowles sang on the television broadcast Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief featuring Chris Martin from Coldplay on the piano." - Probably too complex. Suggestion: "It has been modified twice, into a tribute to Michael Jackson following his death, and as a tribute to the victims of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. Knowles sang the second version on the television broadcast Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief, which featured Chris Martin from Coldplay on the piano."

  Changed as suggested. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• "Halo" was covered by Florence and the Machine in 2009... " - Since not all readers will be familiar with "covered" in this sense, perhaps link it to covered or add a brief explanation or use a different term such as "recorded by"?

  Linked. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

Background and composition

• "All the instruments, arrangement and recording of the single were in charge of OneRepublic frontman, assisted by Christian Baker; vocal recording was in the hands of Jim Caruana; and Mark "Spike" Stent mixed "Halo", being helped by Matt Green." - The instruments were not in charge of the people. Suggestion: "The OneRepublic frontman, assisted by Christian Baker, were in charge of the instruments, arrangement and recording of the single; vocal recording was in the hands of Jim Caruana; and Mark "Spike" Stent, helped by Matt Green, mixed "Halo"." This leads to a question: who was the OneRepublic frontman? If you mean Tedder, it would be better to say "Tedder" than "the OneRepublic frontman".

  ChaNged. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• "The single, which was launched with the B-side "Diva",[6] was released on January 20, 2009, in the United States by mainstream radio... " - Was it released by "mainstream radio", or was it released by Columbia Records?

  Oops Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• "The writing of the track was speculated to be intended for the British singer Leona Lewis." - Was the writing intended for Lewis, or was the track intended for Lewis? Who speculated? It might be more clear to say, "According to X, the writers originally created the song for British singer Leona Lewis" or something like that. The passive voice often embodies vagueness; the active voice requires identification of an actor (subject) or actors and is therefore often stronger and more informative.

  See Below. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• "There was a rumor that Cowell might have had something to do with the leaking of the... " - Is it possible to say where the rumor surfaced? Was it published? Did it surface in a media interview?

  Removed. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• On my computer screen, the quote box in this section slightly overlaps the next section. This could be fixed by moving the quote box up by about four lines.

  On mine too, so see below. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

"Already Gone" controversy

• The section consists mainly of two long block quotes and two song samples. Since the "Background and composition" section already includes a controversy, you might consider moving the Lewis controversy into this section and renaming it "Controversy" or "Controversies". Then perhaps one of the blockquotes could be rendered in abbreviated fashion as a paraphrase. This would still leave a problem with the first quotebox, which would have to be moved down into the "Controversy" section to make sense, and you might have to eliminate one of the song samples to make the layout work. As it is, these two sections combined seem over-reliant on the long quotations.

  Merged both sections. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• Blockquotes don't need quotation marks. See WP:MOSQUOTE.

  Removed. Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

Critical reception

• "New Music Reviews, a column from Daily Mail wrote "On 'Halo', Beyoncé sings in a lower register... " - Word or words missing? Maybe "In "New Music Reviews", a columnist from Daily Mail wrote... "?

  Reworded. Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 07:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

• Nested single and double quotation marks that bump against one another should be separated by an nbsp code. See WP:NBSP to see what the code consists of.

  Done. Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 07:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Chart performance

• "The track debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on the issue dated February 7, 2009, at number ninety-three." - Generally, numbers bigger than nine are written as digits unless they start a sentence or appear as a mixture of big and little numbers within a sentence. Since I saw that you were using digits (such as 84 in 84 beats per minute), I changed a couple of numbers earlier in the article, but here is another one, and I see more further down in the article. I'll leave them for you to adjust as you see fit.

  Written out, more encyclopedic Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• Constructions like Hot 100 and number 107 need no-break codes to keep them from being awkwardly separated by line-break on computer screens.

  Done Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

• When quoting song lines, use a spaced front slash rather than an unspaced front slash; e.g., "Haiti, we can see your halo / You know you're my saving grace / ". Ditto for the other similar quotations in the article. MOS:SLASH has details.

  Done Tbhotch^{Talk C.}

References

• Does citation 2 need an url and accessdate?

Online source, but as far as I remember, it is not considered a reliable source at all.

• Are the nested parentheses necessary in citation 114?

  Per source?

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR; that is where I found this one. I don't usually watch the PR archives or check corrections or changes. If my comments are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 04:27, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

• Of course they helped me, and alot!. I may ask for a c/e and nominate it for FAC. For PR, I could take some of the, but I'm incredibly busy now. Anyway, thank you so much :) Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 07:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)