Wikipedia:Peer review/Elizabeth Cady Stanton/archive1

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

New Peer Review Request (October 2007)

Much work has been done on this article since it was promoted to A-Class article status. I'd like to know what other editors think should be done to meet requirements for Featured Article (FA) status. Thanks! Jancarhart 19:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Material and comments from former peer review request

There are quotes in this article that are not appropriately cited, and I am hoping those editors who contributed these quotes, which are good ones, will add the citations. While factual and providing a solid array of "hard," academically qualified citations, the section on Stanton's break with the abolition movement clearly ruffles some feathers. I'd like to know what others think of this article and would welcome suggestions on this and any other aspect of the article. Jancarhart 23:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Review by Awadewit

I thought that this article was quite good. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "ruffling feathers;" historical personages from another era do not always do what we want them to do. I am assuming you are presenting the story as scholars have presented the story, so no feathers are flying over here.

• If you want to go for FA, I would recommend a copyedit. There are some awkwardly worded sentences, spelling mistakes, etc.
• Any direct quotations should immediately be followed by a citation. Also, again, if you want to go for FA, you will probably need some more citations, particularly for claims about what Stanton felt and larger claims about her impact on society.
• You might look to wikilink a bit more. I thought Charles Grandison Finney should be linked, for example.
• I wonder if you could create some sort of "Legacy" section that more clearly outlines which of her ideas were adopted and which of her ideas influenced later feminists.
• I wonder also if you could discuss her writings in more detail, either within the narrative of the biography itself or in a separate section.
• Have you tried searching for the quotations on google? I have had a lot of luck using google for that sort of thing. Awadewit 23:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Many thanks for comments. Would be graeful for any copyedit & wikilink you think appropriate. (I will add one on Finney.) Not sure what additional citations to add -- are there particular "claims" you think need citations? (It seemed to me they were either already cited or have been noted within the text as requiring citations. I'm still hoping the folks who oput these in will provide the necessary citations, as I've been unable to find sources for them, and several of them seem worth keeping, if they can be cited.) As for ruffling feathers -- that's based on comments that have been made on the discussion page. ECS was clearly a remarkable woman who had her limitations nevertheless. Seems some people are uncomfortable with including these aspects despite their being remarkably well documented and despite the fact that, understandable or not, they resulted in schisms within the women's rights movement. 71.192.46.152 03:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I have done a quick copyedit and added some fact tags. I have a feeling that some editors might say the article is too "essay style," that is it comments too much on its subject. Personally, I think it is fine, but I have been criticized for this and wanted to warn you about it. Somewhere in the archives of my talk page User talk:Awadewit, someone explained this concept to me. Feel free to browse those comments and take it for what you will.

• "Oh, my daughter, I wish you were a boy!" - is from Stanton's autobiography; it is from the first paragraph of the second chapter (School Days); I found it on Project Gutenberg, so I don't have a page number, but you seem to have the text itself
• I was searching for the rest of the quotes myself, without any success I might add, and I noticed something odd. The article is all over the web. Do you know how many sites wikipedia has licenses with? I wonder if they have plagiarized from wikipedia. It was strange. Especially after I had edited the article and all of the "citation needed" tags popped up on those articles.
• I wonder if you might send those quotes to a reference librarian. They are good at tracking those kinds of things down and you are right that many of the uncited quotations are good and deserve to be kept.

Well, I don't think you should worry about ruffled feathers. You should tell her biography "warts and all" as Cromwell once said about his own portrait.

I would also add to my review that I think the lead should be expanded to include more about the schism and her role in the women's rights movement in general. Leads are usually three paragraphs for articles of this length, so I think you have room to expand. WP:LEAD —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Awadewit (talk • contribs) 16:28, April 2, 2007 (UTC)

Once again, many thanks!! I've been out of commission for awhile -- recovering from a broken wrist -- and haven't had a chance until now to work on the article. I really appreciate you adding "citation needed" to places where they were lacking. Seems I'm footnoting every fact, but I suppose that only makes sense, particularly given there is some discomfort with the section on ratification of the 14th & 15th amendments and the schism in the women's rights movement. A friend of mine's a reference librarian -- hopefully a good source for referencing the uncited quotations. (I was, of course, hoping the editor who put them in to the article might add her own citations, but, alas, seems that's perhaps not meant to be.) You mention that you've seen this article "all over the web." Is it actually quoted on other websites, or is it just that, as usual, a Wikipedia article comes up first with partial quotations in a Google search? If it's actually quoted or plagarized elsewhere, is there anything you know of that I should do about that, or is that a general "wikipedia" problem? (If Wikipedia copyrights the material, I assume they've got someone who monitors plagarism and copyright infringement issues, don't they?) In any case, thanks again. If you come up with any other ideas, I'd love to know what they might be. By the way, I just looked at the comments you directed me to about "essayist" writing on your pages. Noticed that you're doing your dissertation on 18th century British lit. I know he's a century earlier, but my first British lit scholarly interest was Jonathan Swift. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on his poetry. My real love, however, is Blake.Jancarhart 22:34, 25 April 2007 (UTC)