Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tree: A Life Story/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 01:15, 11 September 2008 [1].

Tree: A Life Story[edit]

Nominator(s): maclean


A small article on a small book. It did the DYK and GA processes in July and now I'm nominating this article because it meets all of Wikipedia's guidelines and its Feature Article criteria. maclean 08:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - the prose is poor and way below FA standard. Here are some of the many problems I found on my first reading: *Suzuki started to write a draft but a busy schedule interfered so he sought a collaborator to help write. - The last three words are redundant.

  • The tree written about in the book is not the one he encountered at his home, but rather a generic Douglas-fir. - encountered at his home?
  • Prior to these chapters there are sections titled Acknowledgments and Introduction, and afterwards sections titled Selected References and Index - I would prefer before but do you need this much boring detail?
  • The bark of a mature Douglas-fir withstands fire but the heat dries its cones enough that their scales spread and winged seeds are released. After it rains, one seed washes to area open to sunlight, with well-drained soils. How about the heat dries its cones and the scales spread... and why is soil plural?
  • and leave feces with nitrogen-fixing bacterium. - containing nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
  • Through osmosis, water and nutrients enter the root and are transported up to the seed. - Water and nutrients enter the root by osmosis and are transported to the seedling.
  • A symbiotic relationship develops between the roots and the fungus from the truffles: access to a large area of water and nutrients for the tree in exchange for energy, in the form of sugars for the fungus - Truffles are fungi, so what other fungus is symbiotic? The second half of the sentence makes no sense.
  • Hormone is linked twice
  • A branch falls off under the weight of too much snow accumulating on its canopy mat, combined with a number of other stresses like a very long and cold winter with a dry summer, the tree’s immune system is weakened and the resulting wound becomes infected with insects and fungus. - This is a snake and needs chopping up.
  • Needles turn orange as the tree abandons the branch and diverts nutrients elsewhere. I think the tree has no choice since the branch has already fallen off.
  • Parallels to the tree's age are made with historical events, like the tree taking root during the life of 13th century philosopher Roger Bacon Where's the parallel?
  • On best seller lists in the Canadian market, the hardcover peaked at number three in the MacLean's and the National Post's non-fiction lists. There are lots of passive sentences like this one.
  • The biography premise of a tree was well-received. Was the biography or the premise well-received?
  • did find - found.

Graham Colm Talk 09:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for reviewing this. I've made the corrections and continued copyediting. [2] I hope it is getting better. maclean 05:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article is much improved, but each time I return to it I find problems. I don't think it's ready for promotion this time. Graham Colm Talk 19:58, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for sticking around and for the notes you left. From what I'm seeing it appears to be a sentence-by-sentence set of problems, rather than a structural problem, or improper tone, or overall mess. So, I am continuing the search to improve the writing sentence-by-sentence. --maclean 00:59, 11 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

  • Dark-eyed Junco birds, and other seed-eating animals do you mean Dark-eyed Junco and other seed-eating animals or Dark-eyed Junco and other seed-eating birds and mammals - I'm confused.
  • premièring - seems odd usage applied to a book (in refs)
  • Suzuki references are odd - surely a synopsis by definition applies to the book, and a 70 page range is useless as a reference? I wouldn't ref this section (see To Kill a Mockingbird). If you feel that a ref is necessary, either just one for the book as a whole or reference every sentence of the synopsis - present version is worst choice. jimfbleak (talk) 10:59, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • After it rains, one seed washes to area open to sunlight, with well-drained soils. I know what you mean, but...
  • Where hormones accumulate, buds form which will either become a new shoot of needles or a cone. Buds form where hormones accumulate; these become either new needles or cones.
  • Just too many errors jimfbleak (talk) 15:38, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for your help identifying how the writing can be improved. I've done another pass at copyediting. I trust it is improving. --maclean 05:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've reread the lead to see if improved. Not prepared to change yet I'm afraid jimfbleak (talk) 05:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Inspiration for a biography of a tree came to Suzuki ... - clunky - Suzuki was inspired...
  • With a research assistant, Suzuki studied the topic and solicited Grady to help write. - Is the research assistant the most important part of this sentence? Also write appears to have no object.
  • Several reviewers found that the language succeeded in using layman terms, but others still found it too technical. Can a language succeed?

Comments

Otherwise sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:18, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Removed the cite interview. They should all be citation now. --maclean 05:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Concern- If the book consists of only five chapters, why is so much devoted to a plot synopsis? I think this could be far too much. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is 192-pages distilled down to 3 paragraphs. My strategy was to follow the narrative action (the tree's growth/development), avoiding side stories and overly specific descriptions. I don't mind removing specific portions/phrases from the Synopsis which you find detract from the article. --maclean 20:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find counting paragraphs a tad off, because people rely on different sizes. I found that the section has 771 words. That is about 3.5 words per page. It can probably be reduced to around 600 words. Things like "written by Suzuki in June 2004" seem to take away from it as a summary. Also, I have a hard time following what the book actually says, as there isn't a structure that follows the book's structure (that I can see). It would be more appropriate to have 6 paragraphs. One for telling us the make up of the book (i.e. "it has five chapters") and a little on the introduction. Then one paragraph for each chapter. You could merge the first chapter into the introduction possibly. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is a good suggestion. I ordered the paragraphs to so that each covers one chapter [3] and shorten it by a couple lines [4]. --maclean 21:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, much better. Now I can get into reading it and trying to understand it. It will take a while, but I don't have any concerns at this time. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:01, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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