Talk:American Cookery

Suggestions
Sorry, I had to rewrite what I wrote before. As I started out before, you should try to have a 1-3 small paragraph opening summary for the article. Then break the article up into sections, such as history, topics the book covers, information on the author and other sub-titles and some pictures if you have any to upload, but make sure they follow wikipedias copyright codes. Take a look at Food, although a different topic, it gives a basic outline of how an article should look. I will try to think of more specifics, and maybe try to arrange your article to give you an idea. Also the heading you have on there is unnecessary, our tag on the talk page takes care of that.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 14:11, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I might also suggest giving some actual context of the book, with some detailed description of its contents. Also give some explanation to the statement "in the style of the time" which is in the first paragraph now.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 14:54, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Edits
Here are some observations I made in reading this article:
 * 1) The article too many commas, basically many of the sentences run together;
 * 2) The prose is disjointed and lacks a common structure;
 * 3) Markup tags need to be brought into line with current Wikipedia tags;
 * 4) Information could be better organized

The are not criticisms of the content, but editorial issues about the structure of the article. I will try to correct the issue without losing any of the content.

Jerem43 06:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Food and Drink Assessment
I think the article qualifies clearly as "start" class. The definition of "stub" class is an article that provides little more than a glorified dictionary entry. This article has more "meat" to it than that. It needs some sources and references to clean it up and I see that some editing has helped already since the last comments. It is on its way and should be bumped up to "start" class. Because of its notability, importance might be at "mid" level. VirginiaProp 18:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there is little information on the book itself in the article, there is information on the author and comments from the introduction but little information about the book itself, so it does not tell the reader much about "why" the book is so important.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 19:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I added more "meat" (meat and potatoes?) to the article, including more about the book and the author, and reorganized it. I'm still not happy with the article, but I think it's somewhat better now.  It need more content and copy editing, but I ran out of energy.  Later, I'll include some from stuff the author's text, but I think the article now has more about why the book is important to American cooking than it did before. It takes a while to get used to writing in a WP style.  Thanks for the assessment, and any other comments/suggestions will be gratefully received.  Becksguy 22:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You should try putting the large quotes into your own words somehow, otherwise it is sort of plagerizing their content even though you are giving them credit seeing as the quotes are a bulk of the article written.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 03:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You are absolutely right, I looked at it and thought it was too full of quotes also. I was being too timid and overly careful. Oh well.... more work to do.  BTW, is anyone gonna change it to a start class?  And is there a Culinary/Food History category?  I haven't quite figured out how to navigate the sea of categories yet. Thanks.  Becksguy 08:48, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry about the delay, I just missed seeing the edits on my watchlist. Wikipedia suggests being bold in your writing, which I am, if there is ever a problem generally someone will point it out sometimes readily and with an abrupt tone, so don't let other people's opinions bug you in doing this stuff.--Christopher Tanner, CCC 19:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

As to the B-rating: It seems a very well developed and nicely put together article. The information is strong, with plenty of external references, but I am not confident enough in my own judging skills to give it an A-class rating. Also, some of the later section might be split up into smaller sections so as to make it more readable. [Merged from Talk:American Cookery/Comments — posted by Utopienne 12:26, 10 August 2007] — Becksguy 09:49, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

At least I was at a B class for almost three hours..... :-) No, it's not an ego thing, actually I was stunned with a B rating.  I really want to produce a good article, so getting kudos is the icing on the cake (food reference here..., and damn delicious).  More importantly, is there a culinary/food history category, and if not, how do I create one?  I still can't easily navigate the categories in WP. (I'd like to actually do it for the experience).  Also, I'm re-reading the sources (all the available versions of Amelia's books, plus the reliable commentary on them).  There is more that I can add to this article (including some interesting information that suggests that Amelia Simmons may be a Nom de plume, or as one writer suggests, a "printer's wife"), but I need time to process it properly.  Regards, and thanks for all feedback.  I think I'm well on my way to becoming a Wikoholic (I'm even doing user boxes now). -- Becksguy 23:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)