Talk:John Bodkin Adams/GA1

GA Review

I am reviewing this article for GA. On my readthrough I discovered numerous uncited statements. I have put in about a dozen citation tags, up to the poem, at which point I gave up - there are no doubt more needed. Also, making 35 different citations to an entire book is unacceptable; these need to be broken down, and page numbers indicated. You need also to remove POV words, such as "amazingly" in the "Obstruction" section. You should not use bold characters within the general text.

In general the prose looks OK, but the above issues must be attended to before the article can be considered for GA. I have put the review on hold for seven days to give you the opportunity to respond. Please contact me on my talkpage if you have any queries. Brianboulton (talk) 17:28, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Detailed review comments

I appreciate that a lot of work has gone into this article, much of it since I posted my first GA review comments. I understand that this is the main editors’ first GA nomination, and it is by no means a bad effort, but I have to say, however, that the article is not yet ready to be promoted GA. The main reasons for this are listed below.

• The article is over-detailed. I thought this when I first read it through, and I see it has since been increased by about 1,000 words, which aggravates the problem. Wikipedia articles should be written in summary style, that is, the main facts presented without too much small detail. Also, reinforcement by repetitious examples should be avoided. The following sections are those which I think are most in need of trimming:-
  • Observation
  • The meeting
  • Search
  • Morrell
  • Hullett
  • Suspicious cases – this section especially so – it’s more than a quarter of the article.

• General prose problems: the prose on the whole isn’t at all bad, but needs a fair amount of polishing, something that can really only be done through a full copyedit. Here are a few examples of awkward prose – please note they are examples of style faults that tend to occur throughout the text:-
  • "These were received by Adams at the rate of 3 or 4" – what does this mean? Also, single numerals should be written "three or four"
  • How can a phone call be described as "anonymous" when followed immediately by the name of the caller?
  • "Professional Secrecy" does not need to be capitalised
  • "...the charge had been reduced to just Morrell, with Gertrude Hullett held back..."
  • "Dr Macrae took the report to the President of the BMA and returned it the next day" – returned it to whom?
  • "Adams’" should be written as "Adams’s" (and "Downs’" as "Downs’s")

• There is a vague POV tone evident throughout the article, almost as though it were subtitled: "We think Adams got away with it". Sometimes, distinct POV statements are evident, despite the citations. The worst cases of this are:-
  • (Suspicious cases) "It is worth quoting some of the evidence..." etc. Who says this evidence is worth quoting?
  • (Concerns of prejudice) "There is considerable evidence..." Who says there is?
  • (Historical views) "Surtees prefers to sit on the fence..." Whose judgement is this?

• Conjecture, even by sources, should not be presented as though it were fact. I am referring here to the "Reasons for interference" section. None of the "reasons" given seem remotely plausible, especially the "Suez Crisis". I would get rid of this section lock, stock and barrel.

• There are numerous MOS violations.
  • The blockquote format should not be used for quotes less than 4 lines (approx 100w) in length
  • There should not be boldface in the general text except in section and subsection headings. Emphasis, where necessary (and I don’t think this applies here) should be by italics.
  • Bullet point formats should generally be avoided except for simple lists. There are four bullet-point sections in the article, three almost in succession. These need to be shortened and converted to prose.
  • Dates should be consistently wikilinked, or consistently unlinked. There are linked and unlinked dates in the article
  • Single sentence paragraphs should be avoided
  • There are numerous minor violations of non-break spaces and of references given before rather than after punctuation, also of single-digit numbers given as numerals.

• References: a great many have been added in the past week or so, almost to the point of overkill, but at least that’s erring on the right side. However:-
  • The very long list of references could be reduced by further combinations in close page ranges
  • There are still references to whole books ([6], [15], [17], [124], [125])
  • The on-line citations are not properly formatted. See {{Cite web}} for how to do this.
  • Why the lengthy footnotes, which are cited anyway? Just the citation will do.
  • Ref [128] reads as pure editorial opinion, and shouldn’t be there.

• Other points
  • I don’t think the "Adams and Eves" section adds anything to the article – I’d call that non-encyclopedic material
  • The "Subsequent cases" have nothing to do with this article, and should be omitted.
  • The information about a 20-year-old TV docudrama doesn’t warrant a section to itself. If you think it should be mentioned, stick it in the "After the acquittal"

My general advice to the editors is not to be disheartened, but to continue to work on the article, using the above comments as guidance rather than a set of rules. When you feel you have done what you can, before bringing it back to GA I would strongly recommend a peer review, where other editors will give their comments in a non-judgemental environment. Brianboulton (talk) 22:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Overall GA result: Fail

GA criteria

• Prose, MoS etc: Fail
• Verifiability: Pass
• Breadth: Pass
• Neutral: Fail
• Stable: Fail
• Images: Not considered at this point