Talk:The Heart of a Woman

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

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

Reviewer: Jezhotwells (talk) 17:34, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I shall be reviewing this article against the Good Article criteria, following its nomination for Good Article status.

Disambiguations: one found and fixed.[1] Jezhotwells (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Linkrot: none found. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Checking against GA criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   In the lead we have: and marries a South African freedom fighter. - but in the plot section we have: In 1961, Angelou meets South African freedom fighter Vusumzi Make. They never marry, but she and Guy move with him, first to London and then to Cairo, Egypt, where she plays "official wife to Make, who had become a political leader in exile". So, which is it?

   Well, it's both. They were acting like they were married, but technically, they never were; they never went to a judge, priest, or minister to make it official. But I can see how it could be confusing, so I changed the lead - replaced "married" with "became romantically involved with". As for the plot section, I do say that she "plays" Make's official wife. Doesn't that imply that they behaved as if they were married? Christine (talk) 12:37, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

   Indeed it does but I welcome the change in the lead. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:13, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

   Prose is good. I made a couple of minor copy-edits.[2] Accords sufficiently with MoS

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

   On-line references check out. I assume good faith for the off-line ones. No sign of OR. Sources appear to be RS.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   My concern is the lack of a Reception section. Although there is plenty of scholarly and critical comment throughout, the article lacks a reception section and publication details as recommended in Wikipedia:WikiProject Books/Non-fiction article. The reception section should contain contemporaneous reviews, etc. sales figures would be good as well.

   Duh, of course. Section created. Thanks for catching the embarrassing oversight on my part. Christine (talk) 15:47, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

   Excellent. Jezhotwells (talk) 17:14, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

   Focussed, yes.

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, where possible and appropriate.

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

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   On hold for seven days for the issues above to be addressed. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:01, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

   Wow, that was painless. ;) Thanks for the input and review; everything has now been addressed. Christine (talk) 15:47, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

   Thanks for fixing things, I am happy to pass this as a Good Article. Congratulations! Jezhotwells (talk) 17:14, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Editorializing

I only read through the intro part, so this is limited to the intro, but I do not think this follows a neutral point of view. I'll admit it doesn't advance controversial opinions. I agree that Angelou is a great writer, but I still think that saying such is my opinion of her, which should not be in an encyclopedic article. I marked the spots in the intro that I felt were editorializing. I think it would work better to just find a source that said the opinions therein. --Wikigold96 (talk) 06:08, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Copy-edit notes

Removed text

Removed from 'Background' section because this passage doesn't concern the book or its background, but heaps praise upon the author per WP:COATRACK:

Writer Julian Mayfield calls I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou's first autobiography, "a work of art that eludes description", and states that Angelou's work sets a precedent not only for other Black women writers, but for the genre of autobiography as a whole.

For example, while Angelou was composing her second autobiography, Gather Together in My Name, she was concerned about how her readers would react to her disclosure that she had been a prostitute. Her husband Paul Du Feu talked her into publishing the book by encouraging her to "tell the truth as a writer" and "be honest about it". Through the writing of her life stories, however, Angelou has become recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for Blacks and women. It made her, as scholar Joanne Braxton has stated, "without a doubt, ... America's most visible black woman autobiographer".

I removed many other sentences and small blocks of text; see 'History' for details. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 07:28, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Wow, you did such an extensive copyedit! Much appreciated. Sorry it't taken me a little while to address you feedback and comments; I've had other fish to fry, as they say, both here and IRL.

References

Removed references

Removed because superfluous once text above is removed - if replacing these, remove the 'nowiki' tags.

<ref name="braxton">{{cite book | last = Braxton | first = Joanne M. | editor = Joanne M. Braxton | title = Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: A Casebook | year = 1999 | publisher = Oxford Press | location = New York | isbn = 0-19-511606-2 | chapter = Symbolic Geography and Psychic Landscapes: A Conversation with Maya Angelou | page = 4}}</ref>

<ref name="lupton-14"/> Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 17:52, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

That's fine, and to be expected when removing stuff like you did. I'm fine with the changes you made, although it did get through a GAC with what you call "biased" content. One of the reasons you ask for an outside copy-edit, though, is so that un-biased editors look at an article with fresh eyes. I admit that I am biased about Maya Angelou; I respect her greatly, which is obvious from all the work I've done on several articles about her over the span of many years. Again, the reason I ask for copy-edits for her articles. Understand, though, that much of the reviews about Angelou take on that biased language, so it's not just me. I look forward to seeing what the reviewers in FAC think about it.

</references>

Final comments

Despite the copy-edit, the article is still full of essay-like comments, such as "According to (author)", "(Author) says that ..." etc. The constant namedropping of academics makes it read like a college essay IMO. I didn't remove these because that goes well beyond my remit as a copy-editor, and would probably result in confusing prose. Cheers, Baffle gab1978 (talk) 05:31, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm learning all the time, and that includes how to handle writing about reviews and critics. I'll go though the article again to see if I can omit some of it. Thanks for the copy-edit! Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:18, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

TFAR

Resolved

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/The Heart of a Woman --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:43, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Tried again --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:34, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Marking this section as resolved since the article has appeared on the Main page. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 03:55, 4 April 2017 (UTC)