Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thoughts on the Education of Daughters

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 02:18, 9 September 2007.

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters

This is another article in my running series on the major works of Mary Wollstonecraft. This article is about her first published work, a conduct book. The page has had several very helpful peer reviews from people unfamiliar with the material ("lay readers", if you will) who addressed accessibility issues as well as prose issues: see here and here. Awadewit | talk 08:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support This looks absolutely fantastic.--165.173.137.96 15:58, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you mysterious 165.173.137.96. Awadewit | talk 18:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the hope of providing a constructive comment about this article... as I read, I added an in-sentence attribution to this text: "However, by envisioning a masculine role for women, one that they could not actually perform in the public sphere, Wollstonecraft leaves women without much of a place in society; the picture Wollstonecraft drew of the role for women was ultimately confining and limiting.[13]"... then reverted myself when I read on the peer review page that the attribution of this view had already been discussed. If the P-reviewer and I independently find this passage a bit surprising, it must mean something. :) I find that the "confining and limiting" description comes across as the article's voice, not just a continuation of Kelly's argument. If, as you said in the PR, this argument is not solely Kelly's, I suggest that the reader be better prepared for it—for example, by adding to the lead. –Outriggr ♠ 02:29, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In attempting to outline a meaningful role for women in society, Wollstonecraft paradoxically confined them to the domestic sphere. - added to the lead Awadewit | talk 03:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Outriggr, would you consider supporting the article? Awadewit | talk 17:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. An interesting article, accessible to someone with only an amateur interest in Wollstonecraft's works. I have a few minor points for consideration.
- Treatment of the book itself could be expanded, and might be improved with a few more direct quotations from the source. More comparisons of Thoughts with contemporary conduct manuals would be interesting.
  - I have added two more quotations. Awadewit | talk 02:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - The comparisons between Wollstonecraft's TED and Chapone's Letters are the most common comparisons made in the scholarship. Any other comparisons would start to be unrepresentative of the published material or original research, I think. Awadewit | talk 02:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Biographical background should perhaps attempt (if sources can be found) to link Wollstonecraft's background with the advice given in Thoughts
  - I added a clause on this. Awadewit | talk 02:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Suggest moving the image of Wollstonecraft to illustrate Biography section
  - I moved the image. Awadewit | talk 02:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - I added an image and moved the rest a bit. See what you think. Awadewit | talk 15:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overview -- 18th century attitude to breastfeeding could do with a reference
  - I have added a reference to Todd. Awadewit | talk 02:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Themes: Education of women -- several points seem to need references
  - Could you please add fact tags? I am not sure what is missing a reference. Awadewit | talk 02:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Done. Several of these are presumably referenced to Thoughts itself, but a page reference would be useful. Espresso Addict 16:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - None of these statements are referenced to Thoughts. They are all referenced to the scholarly works listed in the note at the end of the paragraph. I have copied that note throughout the paragraph, as I have with the "Religion" note. Awadewit | talk 16:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Quite a few red links -- can stubs be started?
  - I don't think three is that many. Anyway, I would only have time to copy material from this article, so the stubs wouldn't be that useful to the reader. Awadewit | talk 02:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - They would perhaps allow others to contribute. Espresso Addict 16:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - I'm not sure how the red-links prohibit others from contributing. I didn't think the number of red-links was relevant to FA, anyway. Awadewit | talk 16:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't know what the policy is here, but the US spelling feels very odd for an English author.
  - Since writing in AE is easiest for me, that is what I do. Also, since I am the primary contributor for this article (I don't even know if anyone else watches the page), it is easier to keep it in AE so that I can revise and add material without hunting for someone to fix the spelling, syntax, and diction every single time. Plenty of Wollstonecraft scholarship is written in AE! :) Awadewit | talk 02:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Espresso Addict 00:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Espresso Addict, have all of your concerns been addressed? Might you consider supporting the article? Awadewit | talk 17:54, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support. The article does an excellent job of introducing a little known work, placing it in the context of Wollstonecraft's thought and the history of the conduct book. In particular, the article successfully explains the contradictions of the piece and the scholarly issues surrounding it. Many congratulations to the editor, whose sequence of articles on Wollstonecraft is, in my opinion, an invaluable asset to Wikipedia.

I have jotted a string of comments and queries on my notepad, but since none of them affect my support for the article, I'll add them to the article talk page rather than clog this page up.qp10qp 02:12, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support, assuming you can fix most of the below minor and relatively easy issues.
- What is the correct capitalization, anyway? TotEoD as in the article title, or Toteod, as in the first sentence? We should probably pick one...
  - The capitalization is not clear from the title page of TED. When the title is shortened, it is usually written as Thoughts on the Education of Daughters and when it is written out, it is usually written Thoughts on the education of daughters: with reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life. Let me know what to do. Awadewit | talk 22:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Article makes a big deal about religion, and that Wollstonecraft herself was associated with Dissenters, but doesn't give a name to the specific religion addressed in the book. In other words, what is the specific religion it advocates so much? Any religion will do? Unitarian universalism? Christianity in general? Protestantism? Clearly not Deism ... Anglicanism?
  - "Dissenters" is an umbrella term for Baptists, Presbyterians, Calvinists, Unitarians, Quakers, Arians, Socinians, and others who did not conform to Anglicanism at this time. However, it excludes Jews, Catholics, and Muslims. To specify any particular denomination would be historically inaccurate - this is the term used at the time and in all of the scholarship. (I know the Dissenters page is not very good - it is on my list of things to do.) Should I say "religious Dissenters who did not conform to the established Anglican church, most of whom were Protestant"? (I worry about adding the last phrase, though.). Awadewit | talk 22:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - I understand all that about Dissenters, my questions is, when the book refers to religion, how does the book refer to it? Does it say "Church of England" or "Christianity" or merely "Religion" or "God"? --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 15:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - The language of the text itself is vague, but, of course, no one would have thought to identify "God" as "the Christian God" - it would have seemed unnecessary at the time. The general tone of the religious language and recommendations like observing the Sabbath would have identified the book as tilting toward Dissenting theology for readers, but again, none of this needed to be stated for readers - it was all understood. Awadewit | talk 17:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I notice the "conduct book" section of this article is longer, more thorough, and generally better than the entire conduct book article. Any chance you could copy and paste it there as well, possibly with minor tweaking? Not required for this article, of course, just for the general health of the Wikipedia.
  - Another article on my list of things to do. I'm a little uncomfortable pasting this section, even tweaked, into the article, because I have tailored it for this article. It would skew the conduct book article too much towards late eighteenth-century Britain, I think. Awadewit | talk 22:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- potboiler could use a wikilink
  - I tend to agree with the wikipolicy not to link words inside quotations, unless absolutely necessary. It is a form of interpretation, in my opinion. Awadewit | talk 22:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The Modern reprints section links to Wollstonecraft 4 times
  - Delinked. Awadewit | talk 22:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- meanwhile the Eighteenth Century Collections Online line has a Retrieved on date, but no link. Preferably add the link, if you can't, second best is to remove the retrieved on date.
  - I have added the link and "by subscription only". Awadewit | talk 22:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Not sure why the BBC external link is needed; it's about Wollstonecraft in general, not this book in particular, right? Is it used as a reference?
  - Removed. Awadewit | talk 22:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support Superlatively clear, well written, and complete. I particularly like the way that context is provided for the material without its interrupting the flow of the article. Well done, Awadewit! :) Willow 12:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.