Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/W. H. R. Rivers

W. H. R. Rivers

We are wanting to improve this article to be a good article. Idea's for structural improvement or how to expand the article would be most beneficial. John Vandenberg 22:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

*Exeunt* Ganymead

Having briefly glanced at the article, there are some structural things that pop out to me:

• • Not all quotes should use the Cquote format. Only long quotes (a paragraph or more) should utilize this format. The remainder of the quotes can be incorporated in the text with "regular" quotation marks. Additionally, the sources for all quotes should be footnoted.
  • In the first paragraph under the first heading, you shouldn't have an external link in the text, especially when the work is on Wikicommons with a link provided. Fixed John Vandenberg 09:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The references should link to the title of the source, etc. AND include the page numbers for where the specific information being cited is found. This will vastly expand the number of references you have.
  • The text of the entire poem, Anthropological Thoughts, is unncessary. Select a few quotes from it, but the entire poem is not encyclopedic. Fixed John Vandenberg 21:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Try summing up some of the quotes, there really are too many quotes about him. They are interested, but they break up the text.

Overall, this is a good start to the article and there is a good deal of good information. Really, I think the quotes are the biggest problem and it is easy to remedy. Cheers! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 16:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for the review. I have tackle one of them now; the hold up was that I wanted to put all of the book on wikisource before removing the link. I have struck that review point so everyone can see what is left to do; I hope that isn't inappropriate. Next, I'm going to tackle Anthropological Thoughts. John Vandenberg 09:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Yannismarou

• The lead is short. Per WP:LEAD it needs expansion.
• Per WP:MoS inline citations go straight after the pm; not before.
• The article is full of stubby pars like this one:"Rivers suffered from a stammer that never truly left him, he also had no visual memory. He dedicated Chapter II of his book Instinct and the Unconscious to describe his lack of visual memory." Read here, and think about reworking some parts of your article.
• "He later concluded that something must have happened to him on the top floor of his house so terrible- at least to a child- that he had blocked not just the memory of the place and event but the ability to remember visually in general; in the words of Barker's character Billy Prior, Rivers "put his mind's eye out"." Uncited.
• "Pat Barker, in the third novel in her Regeneration Trilogy, The Ghost Road suggests a reason for these problems but Rivers himself, although he may have had some idea of the causes, does not appear to cite them fully in his writings." Too vague. What reason? What idea? I'm lost!
• "However, these things did not seem to affect his academic performance." Not the most encyclopedic expression.
• I see a series of uncited quotes.
• "He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908 and won the Society's gold medal in 1914 (information obtained from Rivers fonds)" Why in parenthesis and not a proper inline citation, also using Template:cite web or Template:cite news?
• "(Head 1923)" Mixed citing systems.
• Are you sure about all these quotes and the way you put them? IMO they interrupt to often the prose. Maybe you could incorporate them more in the prose, in order to make the article flow better.
• "Rivers' methods are often, somewhat unfairly, said to have stemmed from Sigmund Freud". WP:POV.
• "however, this is not truly the case as you can read both in Pat Barker's novels and in the words of friends such as Myers." POV and uncyclopedic prose ("as you can see").
• "Although he was aware of Freud's theories and methods, he did not necessarily prescribe to them (See Pat Barker's Regeneration pg 28- 32- Penguin Books- for his interpretation on dreams. For this, see also Rivers' Conflict and Dream for his methods of dream analysis and his thoughts on Freud)." Again mixed citing system.
• "As such, he really is a pioneer in his field- both for his new methods and for the fact that he went against the grain of the beliefs of the time'. Uncited and possibly POV.
• "Sassoon came to him in 1917". Per MoS we don wikilink single years or partial dates; only full dates.
• "In Pat Barker's novels and in Rivers' works (particularly Conflict and Dream) we get a sense of the turmoil the doctor went through." "We"? Again, have in mind that you are writing an encyclopedic article; not an essaie.
• What a loooooong citation by Jean Moorcroft Wilson!
• No reason to have books and papers in bold as you do at the end of World War One. Per MoS, it is just italics.
• "Rivers signed the papers as he lay dying in the Evelyn Nursing Home [2] following an unsuccessful emergency operation. He had an extravagant funeral at St. John's[2] in accordance with his wishes as he was an expert on funeral rites and was put to rest in the chuchyard of St Giles Church, Cambridge[2]." You cite the same source three times in just one sentence. Why?!
• I don't see a reason for a "Quotes" section. It looks like trivia. If these quotes are useful for your story incorporate them in the main biography. And the second one of these quotes s again tooooo long. Turn it into your own prose and incorporate it in your text.

A good start definitely, but it needs much more work, in order to get a proper encyclopedic article. Right now with the quotes, the short paragraphs, the POV assessments etc. it looks like a very nice report of Rivers' life, but it is not a proper encyclopedic article. Have a look at some of the recently promoted FA biographies. It could be helpful in terms of structure and prose.--Yannismarou 13:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)