Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Katharine Hepburn/archive1

Initial comments from Laser brain

Oppose, 1a. Very good, but looks a bit rough around the edges and will need a bit of work to meet criterion 1a. Only got through early life thus far, but some of these problems may have been repeated throughout the article, so you have some things to check for. Probably not far off.

• "In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known ..." I would suggest rewording to avoid the "was/is best known" dilemma, since she is arguably still known for these things despite passing away. See how it's worded in Charlie Chaplin for example.
• "Her work began to slow in this decade, and is dominated by the pictures she made with Tracy." Clarity needed... the she worked more slowly? Or she just did fewer films? Need to fix the non-parallel tenses.
• "Hepburn's output expanded" is a non-precise term. Grew in size? Or in number?
• "In the 1970s she began appearing in television movies, for which she found her greatest success in her later years." The "for" is awkward—if you turned the sentence around you would have "She found her greatest success for television movies"
• "Hepburn was famously outspoken and evasive with the press" Needs rewording for clarity. Could read that she was both outspoken with the press and evasive with the press, which seems contradictory.

• Hmm it may seem contradictory, but it kind of is true. Whenever she interacted with the press she didn't hold back, and she was very well known for both this brash attitude and a desire for privacy. But fair enough if it needs to be worded differently. --Lobo (talk) 20:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• "Hepburn received a total of 12 Academy Award nominations for Best Actress throughout her career, and her four wins is a record for a performer." What is "a total of" doing? Also, comparative quantities should be either spelled out (twelve and four) or written as numerals.
• Hyphenate "20th century" when used as an adjective. Fixed in lead but check for others.
• "Katharine Martha instilled in her daughter the belief that women are equal to men, and the virtues of perseverance, independence and fortitude." Needs rewriting for parallel structure. Check whole article for parallel structure problems since a couple have already appeared.
• "She graduated with a degree in history and philosophy in June 1928." Degrees in history and philosphy?

• No she only received one degree, in both "history and philosophy" (see the page about her at the Bryn Mawr website). --Lobo (talk) 20:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

• "She received good notices for her small role, with the Printed Word describing her as 'arresting.'" Unsure what "good notices" are. In constructions such as this, you can eliminate the "with" to make the sentence smoother. Also, check WP:LQ for this and other similar sentences. Unless the period is part of the quotation (ie, the sentence ends in "arresting" in the source), the period belongs outside the closing quotation mark.

• Well I copied the format as Hepburn wrote it in her book, but I suppose it's possible that she inserted a full-stop herself (since I believe that's standard practice in AmEng?) so yeah, maybe it's best to remove it from within the quote marks in case it wasn't part of the original comment. --Lobo (talk) 20:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Will finish review later. --Laser brain (talk) 19:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for giving your time to this anyway. If you do feel up for continuing reading and giving more suggestions (maybe on the talk page) that would be great, and I'll do my best to address them. That's up to you though of course. I'll try and deal with these issues tomorrow. I think I'm going to give the lead a big overhaul. --Lobo (talk) 20:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep, I will get through the rest of it shortly. Like I said, I don't think it's far off. --Laser brain (talk) 21:21, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Update. Got up to Independent star. I just made changes along the way instead of listing them here. Feel free to revert anything you don't agree with. Again, it's very good. It appears that the lead may have been the weakest part of the article, which happens surprisingly often. A couple things:

• "This failed to materialize, and the picture was a commercial failure." Avoid beginning sentences with the ambiguous "This"; ESL readers in particular have a difficult time processing this construction. Specify: This what?
• Found "leading-lady" and some other terms inconsistently hyphenated throughout. Please check for these.
• The Millionairess: Worth mentioning that it would become a Sophia Loren film only a few years later?

More later. --Laser brain (talk) 17:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Reply: Heh, it actually makes sense that the lead was the weakest part, because it was re-written fairly recently, and has had far less time for polish and attention. And it's so difficult trying to cover all her 96 years in such a small space. Like I said on your talk page though, I have now substantially reworked it. I feel it is a big improvement, but please check and see if any problems remain. Thanks for fixing MoS inconsistencies, these are the sort of things I'm blind to because I'm so used to the text. I'll do my best to check for any more. Fair comment about starting sentences with "This", I'll sort those. I personally don't think it's necessary to mention The Millionairess film...I'm wary of adding any new words to this massive article, particularly not ones that aren't directly related to KH. --Lobo (talk) 17:46, 11 February 2012 (UTC)