Wikipedia:Peer review/Herman Melville bibliography/archive1

Herman Melville bibliography

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've done a considerable amount of work expanding the article and need some feedback. Would like to eventually see the article rated FL. I think it covers most of the bases as it stands now but am unsure of how much bibliographical detail is needed for each of the titles. E.g. many bibliographies include things like physical descriptions of first editions, their original and current values, etc. Are these appropriate to Wikipedia? The article is at a turning point, I think. Where do we go from here?

Thanks, Alcmaeonid (talk) 14:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

{{doing}} - give me a few days to complete. It looks very interesting. Truthkeeper (talk) 16:59, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

I think this is really wonderful - I've thought about setting up something similar for Hemingway's work, but could never see how to format it. Of course Melville is interesting because of his unique publication history, but I think you've come up with a nice way to set up a writer's bibliography that can be adapted to other writers, so my congratulations. I do have some comments and will be adding more as I read through more carefully. Also I hope you don't mind if I dip in a bit for some copyediting.

Lead

• Consider changing the order of Melville's writing to reflect the structure of the table: novels, short stories, essays, etc, instead of beginning with magazine articles and so on.
• "Of these, seven were published" > of which? Books?
• "Melville was twenty-six when his first, and had been dead for 33 years when his last, books were published." > slightly awkward - try to recast. Also be consistent with numbers, per WP:MOSNUM should be numerals instead of written out.
• "as nearly as possible the author's intentions." > because this is a direct quote, it needs to be cited after the quote
• Last para about the earnings > maybe move that up to be the second para?
• I think somewhere in the lead it should clearly state something to the effect that he was unpublished - either because of the fire or because of his unpopularity - despite his output and his place in the canon of American lit. Also, I don't know how relevant this is, but I thought after Pierre he had a difficult time finding a publisher. If that's correct, maybe try to expand on that thought just a bit?

Table format

• Consider increasing the title cells size to prevent text wrapping and decrease the right columns a bit. A featured list such as this one has cells that are fairly proportionate and nice to look at. I realize the notes sections take up a lot of space, but I suggest playing a little with the formatting within the cells to see if that can me mitigated.

I've tried playing with the cell size but found the current config. works best in giving as much room as possible for the notes. As a compromise I've changed the title cells to display the main title by itself on the first line, w/ the extended title beginning on a second line. WDYT? ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 18:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I apologize - I won't get back to this until the weekend. A quick comment though - can the title cell be made wider? The titles break and are separated to two lines which makes them hard to read - it would be nice to see them on one line. I'm also wondering if some of the publication material in the notes section might be okay to move to a separate cell altogether, but am not so sure about that - need to give it a bit more thought. Will return in a few days. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

• Why are the novels presented in a table format and the rest not? I think as a list it would work better if consistent.

Created a table out of the Short stories. The poetry might have to remain as is due to hierarchy issues. We have both collections and individual, uncollected poems listed. Seems to me there are just too many poems to list them all individually. Am I right? The list would be huge. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 18:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Short stories

• Don't link in a heading (will try to find the MoS rule for that and link here) so The Piazza Tales should be unlinked. Instead add a main article link to the section.

Done Alcmaeonid (talk) 16:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Uncollected

• Should The Apple-Tree Table be italicized? Not sure if it's a book or not.

Done Alcmaeonid (talk) 16:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Poetry

• I'd suggest summarizing in the lead some of the information presented in the para about the poetry
• Needs some prose tweaking, will return with specific suggestions because I haven't read closely, but a few things that jumped out at me were the use of contractions which we avoid and numbers again.
• "Although it's true he wrote more prose than poetry, the same can be said of Walt Whitman and T. S. Eliot both of whom wrote less verse than Melville did." > I'm not sure how encyclopedic this is, but it's interesting, so to keep it, I'd suggest recasting the sentence somehow. I might try to pitch in with this one.

More coming, I haven't read the individual entries yet, so still doing.... Truthkeeper (talk) 21:47, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Any direct editing you get the urge to do would be welcome. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 16:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Novels - notes

• Notes for Typee > italicize titles. It's not clear whether The Sequel is a title or should be the sequel.
• I still think the notes sections are text heavy in the table. Have you considered moving the bulleted list of reprints to a separate cell? Also why is the list of reprints bulleted for the first two novels but then not?

Short stories - text & notes

• Intro needs a bit of prose polishing
• Now that you've put them in a table, I understand why they weren't earlier. Seems to the same issue with the overly large cell sizes on the right. I know very little about tables but might try to tweak a bit.
• "The final two stories in the list were discovered in the trunk turned over to biographer Raymond Weaver by Melville's granddaughter (the same trunk which yielded Billy Budd) and appeared in the final Constable volume titled Billy Budd and Other Prose Pieces." > has this information been mentioned earlier? It's interesting and maybe worth an expansion in the lead?

I think that's about it. Sorry for the long delay. Feel free to ask questions, and I'll keep this watched. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

• One more comment: the material about the editions that's in the table needs to be cited. The bot closed because of inactivity and I think we can let it close; any additional comments I have I can make on the talkpage. Truthkeeper (talk) 22:42, 17 November 2011 (UTC)