Wikipedia:Featured article review/Thoughts on the Education of Daughters/archive1

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

The article was delisted by Nikkimaria via FACBot (talk) 4:23, 5 March 2022 (UTC) [1].

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Thoughts on the Education of Daughters

Awadewit, WP Books, WP Women writers, WP Women's history, talk page notification 2021-11-29

Review section

This is a 2007 promotion that has not been maintained. I added cn and or tags almost a year ago that have gone unaddressed, and Buidhe mentions on talk new sources that should be incorporated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:54, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

SG review

Buidhe listed three sources on talk; one appears not to be high quality, and best I can tell, the other two have nothing new to offer. They have been added to Further reading, but I question their usefulness at all.

There are several sources in the Bibliography that aren't used at all; they should be moved to Further reading or removed. (Converting to sfns will make it easer to locate errors like this one.)

Czar has been working on this article, such that the tags have been removed, but that does not make it out of the woods. The nominator's early FAs had original research, uncited text and synthesis; without having access to the sources, it is hard to determine if that is still present here, although the instances I tagged have been resolved. There is a lack of attribution of opinions and quotes in several instances. A spotcheck of Sapiro would be the most helpful, if anyone has access to it, particularly pp. 13 and 239, and Jones, Literature of advice. For examples, these passages:

• "Much of the book criticizes what Wollstonecraft considers the damaging education usually offered to women: "artificial manners", card-playing, theatre-going, and an emphasis on fashion. She complains, for example, that women "squander" their money on clothing, "which if saved for charitable purposes, might alleviate the distress of many poor families, and soften the heart of the girl who entered into such scenes of woe".[4]

  This is all cited to one page of the book (primary).

• In her later works, such as A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Wollstonecraft repeatedly returns to the topics addressed in Thoughts, particularly the virtue of hard work and the imperative for women to learn useful skills. Wollstonecraft suggests that the social and political life of the nation would greatly improve if women were to acquire valuable skills instead of being mere social ornaments.[5]

  This is cited to multiple sources; are they saying she returned to this book in her later works, or is Wikipedia saying that?

• The section "Genre: the conduct book" is generalized; are the sources sufficiently connected to this book in particular or is there synth? This sentence goes off topic: "Typical examples include Bluestocking Hester Chapone's Letters on the Improvement of the Mind (1773), which went through at least sixteen editions in the last quarter of the 18th century, ... "
• This sentence says "a few scholars", but cites to one only. Is that source citing other scholars? Who are they? "More recently, a few scholars have argued that conduct books should be differentiated more carefully and that some of them—such as Wollstonecraft's Thoughts—transformed traditional female advice manuals into "proto-feminist tracts".[17] These scholars view Thoughts as part of a tradition that adapted older genres to a new message of female empowerment, genres such as advice manuals for women's education, moral satires, and moral and spiritual works by religious Dissenters (those not associated with the Church of England).[18]"
• Is this according to the sources, or to Wikipedia? "Yet at the same time, the text challenges this portrait of the "proper lady" by introducing strains of religious Dissent that promote equality of the soul. Thus, Thoughts appears to be torn between several sets of binaries, such as compliance and rebellion; spiritual meekness and rational independence; and domestic duty and political participation."
• Is this according to sources, or to Wikipedia? "By the end of her life, Wollstonecraft had been involved in almost every arena of education: she had been a governess, a teacher, a children's writer, and a pedagogical theorist. Most of her works deal with education in some way."
• This very short article contains some very long quotes from the book.
• Is this according to the sources, or to Wikipedia? "Wollstonecraft assumes that the "daughters" in her book will one day become mothers and teachers."
• ... she writes, perhaps describing her own experiences ... looks like Original research; what source supports it?
• Sources or Wikipedia? "While she does not break with the tradition of encouraging resignation in response to unideal circumstances, Wollstonecraft draws on religious tones in the Dissent tradition, that resignation can be pleasureful or sublime."
• "Wollstonecraft even agrees with Rousseau ... "
• Unattributed, mentions multiple scholars, but sources to one: "Although some scholars have argued that there are glimmers of Wollstonecraft's radicalism in this text, they admit that the "potential for critique remains largely latent"."

A spotcheck for original research and synth is needed; hopefully someone has access to the sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Czar are you planning to work further on this? I got access to three books via archive.org, and original research and source-to-text concerns are borne out based on that spot check; I am concerned we will need access to all sources to check this article. I can type up the issues I found later (iPad typing now). Do you have a means of accessing other sources? I added the archive.org links to the sources on those I found. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:32, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay. I dug into a few of the references thinking that, at worst, we would just return the article to its 2007 baseline, but it appears that even those references only loosely connect to the text, at least in the case of the more complex multi-source references. I have some of these books and could do some reference cleanup but I left off thinking that this task is potentially more than a weekend project and whole sections might need rewriting or re-referencing. Alas, I'd rather not see Awadewit's Wollstonecraft featured topic go out this way, so I might try to poke around a bit more. In the meantime, advancing to FARC makes sense. czar 02:46, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Finally returning to this, I was able to access three books (Kelly, Poovey and Sapiro) by borrowing the books on archive.org . Based on those sources, I am able to strike one (above, the sources I could access do generally describe the book as a "conduct" book). But I found the following (sample) problems (from this version):

• I am able to ascertain that I have the correct version of Kelly because this quote:

  The ideal woman in Thoughts is, as Wollstonecraft scholar Gary Kelly writes, "rational, provident, realistic, self-disciplined, self-conscious and critical", an image that resembles that of the professional man. Wollstonecraft argues that women should have all of the intellectual and moral training given to men, though she does not provide women with a place to use these new skills beyond the home.[28]

  is found on page 30 as indicated. The first sentence is fully verified. I did not locate support for the clause "though she does not provide women with a place to use these new skills beyond the home". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:19, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

• These two sentences are sourced to page 31 of Kelly:

  By developing a specifically bourgeois ethos through genres such as the conduct book, the emerging middle class challenged the primacy of the aristocratic code of manners.[15]

  Perhaps someone can borrow the book via archive.org (free registration) and show me where that is verified on page 31; the language is erudite and perhaps I'm just missing it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:19, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

  Wollstonecraft's feminist critics charged that the masculine role for women that she envisioned—one designed for the public sphere but which women could not perform in the public sphere—left women without a specific social position. They saw it as ultimately confining and limiting—as offering women more in the way of education without a real way to use it.[15]

  Ditto for above; I'm not finding this on page 31. Perhaps that is because I don't speak this language, and it's somehow there but I'm missing it.

• This text is cited to Kelly page 34, along with Richardson, page 26.

  One critic said that the text reads as if it were simply trying to please the public.[38]

  I don't find anything like that on page 34. Perhaps it's in Richardson.

I found similar with the other two sources I examined. Poovey is listed as a source, but not used. One difficulty here is that text is often cited to bundled sources; that is, one statement may be cited to five sources. But when I'm able to check one, I find none of the text supported by the source. Every instance of Sapiro is bundled with other citations, so having Sapiro alone isn't helpful. To be able to get this old work to standard requires access to all the sources listed, because of how statements are cited to three four and five sources in one. In summary, I find some source-to-text issues (which I wish someone else would look at), and I don't think it possible to determine if the problems I found with Kelly are pervasive without getting hold of all the sources, and in particular, Jones, "Literature of advice", which seems to be the backbone of the article's sourcing. Sadly, unless someone with access to sources is willing to look in here, I fear it will be moving on to FARC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:19, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Also, perhaps the sources Buidhe listed can be sued to fill in the blanks; one of them does offer a critique of this work that could be incorporated, given the difficulty accessing other sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:24, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

And, as was pointed out at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Anna Laetitia Barbauld/archive1, the review of these 2007 promotions (Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thoughts on the Education of Daughters) was not strenuous. Ealdgyth was to being source reviews some time after these promotions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, it doesn't appear that anyone is willing to take on improving this article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:28, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and verifiability. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:19, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

• Delist, apparently no one is willing to do the work here; hopefully someone will take this up, address original research and sourcing concerns, and the article will be brought to FAC again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:52, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
• Delist - no improvements since Sandy's edits in late January, much work is needed here to correct the OR/sourcing issues. Hog Farm _Talk 14:53, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• Delist or and sourcing issues are unaddressed, no edits in February or March (t · c) buidhe 04:43, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
• Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:23, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.