Talk:Honora Sneyd

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Honora Sneyd/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: BenLinus1214 (talk · contribs) 03:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Second on my "to review" list, after Samuel Lightfoot Flournoy (West Virginia lawyer). Johanna (aka BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 03:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Michael Goodyear: Comments

Lead

 Done

• If possible, could you just explain your reasoning for the article's extensive explanatory footnotes? I'm not doubting their importance--I have no problem with them per se--but I would just like a few words explaining why you chose this method of communication of information.

Not sure what you mean, exactly - I am going to assume you wanted those comments here, not in the Lead?

1. Footnotes are common in biographies, e.g. sources for this page
2. While many WP editors mix them in with references, that makes a very untidy appearance, so I prefer to separate them
3. Inconsistencies in the literature require an explanation
4. Incorporating them in the text would break up the narrative

• Look again at the second paragraph of the lead for sentence structure, especially that first sentence of the para.

Not sure exactly what you refer to here, but rephrased

• I would also recommend putting a little more of what's in the "work" section in the lead.

OK, done--Michael Goodyear (talk) 07:41, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Life

 Done

• Let's talk about the heading system for the beginning part of this section: I think that 1756-1771 is also her "early life", and I see two possible solutions (in order of preference on my part):

1. You retitle this whole part "Early life and adoption by the Seward family, 1756-1771", removing the two level three section headers and combining them.
2. Put "adoption by the Seward family" as a fourth-level header subset of "early life". I don't really recommend this one though because you get into level five section headers, which I don't love.

OK. How about the way I have rearranged it? --Michael Goodyear (talk) 17:15, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• How was she related to the Sewards? Or was she related at all? If not, it's a weird transition from the two paragraphs/sections.

Family friends - clarified --Michael Goodyear (talk) 17:29, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• "Anna Seward describes how she…" Quote, details from the poem? Also, it looks unsourced in the article, even if it's not.

Added direct link to poem, and quote in footnotes to be consistent --Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:40, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• The dangling "she" at the beginning of the next sentence makes it sound like you're still talking about Anna.

Rephrased --Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:00, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• Naming conventions for the subject: you seem to always refer to her as "Honora Sneyd" or "Honora"--I would prefer that you do not use her full name, as just "Sneyd" is more concise, and because she's the only Sneyd in the article, saying "Honora" is just informal.

I have been trying to find out if there is a convention here, since in a review of a page I wrote on another Lichfield woman writer, that editor insisted I always use the full name. The other problem is that on marriage she assumed the name Edgeworth (see comment further down), so calling her just "Sneyd" probably will not do. Furthermore I did use the word "Sneyd" in some places, and in addition she actually is not the only Sneyd on the page since both her father and her sisters (one of whom was also a Mrs Edgewoth) are referred to as Sneyd. In other words - its complicated.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:18, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:MOSBIO states that either full or given names should be used on a page where there are multiple people with the same name. Here we have people with the same surname and same given name, although context will have some bearing.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 11:32, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I also consulted numerous published biographies on related persons, including the ODNB, but found no consistency in style in relation to this point.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 11:43, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I believe we are now consistent with MOS, but it is extremely tricky, given the number of similar names, that is "use just the surname unless the reference is part of a list of family members or if use of the surname alone will be confusing" (which it frequently is).--Michael Goodyear (talk) 17:52, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• "her parents' affections" not "her parents affections"

Agreed --Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• "Honora's health was fragile" maybe "she was of ill health"

No, speaking as a physician they are quite different. Her health was fragile, not ill. That is also the word used in the source cited.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:32, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• "came under the influence of" is a bit vague--did she know him well? Read one of his books? Hear talk around the house?

Unsure what you mean here. He raised her - that would be sufficient influence.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:35, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Added "who raised her" this was unclear for me. Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 16:13, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• Though Canon Seward's…pursue their own inclinations." This is a bit too explanatory on material not really related to the article. Maybe: "Though Canon Seward's (but not his wife's) attitudes towards the education of girls was progressive relative to the times, he did not give them a full range of educational opportunities. Amongst the subjects he taught them was theology and numeracy, and how to read, appreciate, write, and recite poetry. However, the omissions were also notable, including languages and science, although they were free to pursue their own inclinations in this regard."

Again, I'm not completely sure what you are getting at. The education the Seward children received at home seems to me very relevant to her later literary career. I have reread the original source (Barnard) for this section and rephrased it to be closer to the original.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 03:05, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• participate in the literary discussion how?

As the footnote relates the children were expected to meet and converse with the literary coterie as equals. Added conversation to clarify --Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:37, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• This is really interesting, but could you say more about the speculation that occurred about their relationship, either during their lives or after?

It is controversial, but I have placed links to the opposing viewpoints as to whether it was Lesbian or not --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:17, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

In truth one could write a book about the arguments in the literature over this --Michael Goodyear (talk) 01:25, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• "She had a reputation for both intelligence and beauty," even though one can infer from the end of the sentence that the "she" is Sneyd, it's unclear at the beginning.

Already changed as part of revision of names and pronouns--Michael Goodyear (talk) 19:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• Why do you put the dates for all the people?

Well actually only major players. That helps to figure out how their lives overlapped with the main subject, and also what their age was at any particular date or event. Also for many of these people their dates are actually quite difficult to find, and it took a lot of work to get them, so I provided them here. Admittedly some authors might put them in an Appendix if this was a book --Michael Goodyear (talk) 19:54, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

However, see below--Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• This might just be a fault of the quote, but is it stated anywhere whether the arguments in the refusal were by Sneyd or Day?

• For whatever reason, it seems better now. Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 16:13, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• "By now Honora Sneyd had acquired a reputation for both intelligence and beauty." Repetitive of earlier passage

I am a bit confused by this. The words are Edgeworth's, describing Sneyd's refusal and refutation of Day. On rereading it several times I can see that "his" (arguments) is not clearly referenced to a subject, so I inserted [Day's] to remove any ambiguity. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 20:03, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Fixed repetition --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:56, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• I would rename the next subsection "Marriage to Richard Edgeworth and Death, 1773-1780"

Had already been renamed in earlier revision of headings and sections --Michael Goodyear (talk) 20:04, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• "had corresponded regularly with Seward" which one?

Point taken. After extensive searching I could not locate the original source for that statement so I have removed it for now.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 19:12, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

• "Within eight years of her marriage she would be dead at almost the same age as her predecessor." Remove this--it's overly dramatic.

It may appear dramatic, but I don't think it is overly dramatic. It describes not only the precarious state of women's health at the time (it is likely that the two pregnancies accelerated her death from consumption), and also the speed with which Edgeworth went through wives (and the speed with which he replaced them). His remarkable fecundity (22 children) proved to be a burden for his four wives. However I have moved it to after her death, where the effect is less dramatic.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

• Yeah, that helps. Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 16:13, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• The dates particularly clutter up the second paragraph of this section.

Since this keeps coming up, I have adopted a different device, and moved all dates of birth and death to an Appendix, a device not uncommon in published biographies, including the sources for this article --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• "Despite Anna Seward's despair at the loss of her friend, she and Honora maintained regular correspondence and visits, which suddenly ceased, an event that Anna blamed Honora's father for." Wait, what? They can't maintain regular visits and suddenly cease at the same time, which is kind of what it sounds like when you read the sentence in its current format.

I don't actually see that it can be read that way. However for greater clarity, I split the sentence --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:06, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Referring to her as "Honora Edgeworth" makes it sound like you're talking about her daughter.

I believe I had already changed that as part of a general revision of naming conventions above. Sorting through these families' histories can be very difficult due to the large number of people with the same name. This was compounded by the tradition at the time with very large families that when a child died, which was frequent, the next child was given the name of the deceased child. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• Why did she want him to marry her sister?

A very interesting question, about which we could speculate endlessly, but that has no place here. The only evidence we have is Edgeworth's word, and only he and Honora were present at the time, so we must take him at its face value. I changed the wording slightly to emphasise that it was his statement alone that we rely on --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:25, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Subsequently I found one source did speculate, so I added it.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:37, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

• "Although legal [sic] this was considered scandalous…" Sentence fragment. Also grammatical error where the sic is placed.

I am a bit confused here, I don't recall seeing sic there, and it would not make sense if it was. I reworded it.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:43, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

No, sic wasn't there, I just added it in my version of the quotation so that it was clear what needed work.

Work

 Done

• You can incorporate the first sentence of this somewhere else in the section, but at the beginning definitely won't work.

Rephrased. Positioned here it refers back to the problems encountered in raising the older children in the previous section, and is the starting point for their atempts to devise new educational methods.

• After reading this, "a staunch supporter of women's rights" doesn't really seem to come through in this. But definitely put more of the educational innovations in the lead.

Difficult to pin down due to lack of primar source material. Rephrased to better reflect what we actually know --Michael Goodyear (talk) 00:46, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

So I added a separate discussion of the issue, under Legacy --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:03, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

• Do you really need five cites and a note in that one spot?

Revised, redistributed --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:01, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• Expand on the theoretical mechanic stuff a bit?

Only can a bit, given the paucity of primary sources --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:45, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Legacy

• "Because" not "since" in the first sentence here.

Actually "since" is more grammatically correct, because it focusses on the result not reason - English Grammar Today --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:51, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• There's some good stuff in the Anna Seward article about some of Seward's words regarding Sneyd--maybe you could incorporate them here.

That's because I wrote much of that page too. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:20, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

• Source for her appearance in the play?

I had linked to the page on the play - I will add the play itself --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

References

Used Checklinks and everything's fine.

@Michael Goodyear: Okay, I'm finished. Thoroughly well-researched and extensive. Placing on hold for now, but you should be able to get these comments taken care of rather quickly. Just wondering--what made you get into this topic? Johanna (aka BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 02:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

It might take a little while, since by a strange coincidence two articles came up for GA review simultaneously. Interesting question - I was working in botany, and came across the eighteenth century literature on feminism and botany. That led me to make considerable expansion of the material here on the Lichfield group, and I corresponded with a lot of the research community in this field. When I came across Honora Sneyd I was intrigued by her life, but was not surprised to find she was ignored on WP like so many women writers, and with the encouragement of the eighteenth century society, set about correcting this. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 02:19, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

@BenLinus1214: I don't wish to intrude on your review, but I did notice several citation errors using Ucucha's HarvErrors tool, just thought I'd letcha know. User:Jacedc (talk) 15:29, 11 September 2015 (UTC) @Michael Goodyear: Care to take a look at the Harvard stuff? :) Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 19:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I would not consider them errors (there are four tags in all). For a start they are only visible to those who use that tool, and nearly every page on Wikipedia shows those. All they mean is that the cite template includes ref=harv, without a direct link to the work. Bibliographies are just that, one does not necessarily have to link to every single one, they merely indicate that they were consulted in the writing of the page and considered useful enough to recommend to the reader. All the sources in my library from which I draw contain ref=harv, so that they can be linked if necessary.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:18, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

You should probably split those up into a further reading section, then, per WP:FR. If they're useful to casual readers, as you claim, it'd be best to separate those so that they're no lost in the mass amounts of other bibliography which, to the casual reader, is only there for navigation purposes and not for browsing. Not to mention Wikipedia good articles should uphold a certain standard of validity. Errors are by the very definition invalid. Just my two cents, though. User:Jacedc (talk) 03:33, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

The word "error" is perhaps an error itself in the tool, which is an editing device. Furthermore most pages are works in progress, and other editors are free to add material from these sources in which case the linkage has been deliberately made as simple as possible. I think one could debate whether bibliographies are purely for navigation, as opposed to also listing all sources consulted. Over citing can be messy too, see also - Relation to reference sections. Of course if those who use this tool find it bothersome, the simplest solution is to remove all the ref=harv parameters. I think yet another section would be clumsy. I'm not sure what you mean by validity in this context - I can vouch for the actual sources. Now of course we should not just cater to the causal reader, indeed I would say that anyone consulting the bibliography is by definition more than a casual reader. Keep in mind - this is the only biography of Honora Sneyd in existence, and also that it is currently in a revision process. Thanks for the two cents! --Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:26, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

@Michael Goodyear: I have responded to your comments--there's only a few things left to go. Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 16:13, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I believe I have to agree with Michael Goodyear on this one. At this point, I can Pass. Because this has passed an A-Class review, I do keep the "class" parameters at A-Class, not GA, right? Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 18:54, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, if possible, could you review one of my GAN's on an episode of Veronica Mars? If it's not too much out of your zone, that is. Johanna (formerly BenLinus1214)^{talk to me!}_{see my work} 19:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

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