Talk:Dear John (Taylor Swift song)/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Your Power (talk · contribs) 10:30, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Since this popped up in my watchlist and the article is pretty short, I might as well pick up the review :-) if you have the time and effort for a QPQ, feel free to take the review for "Getting Older" (GAN) or the one for "Your Power" (FAC). Though I am aware that these past few weeks have been busy for you, so please don't feel pressured to give back. ‍ ‍ Your Power 🐍 ‍  ‍ 💬 "What did I tell you?" 📝 "Don't get complacent..." 10:30, 14 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Not a requirement, but more of a suggestion - do we have at least one image we can use to make this article pop somewhat?
 * Update: I would remove the John Lennon photo as IMO it gives unnecessary weight to the analysis of like... two people? It's not really an obvious or otherwise widely made comparison. - Elias
 * Earwig returns a pretty good score suggesting minimal copyvio/plagiarism. Given that almost all of these sources are online, I trust this software's judgment.
 * No edit wars or any major conflicts within recent days
 * References section looks fine. Most of these are reputable music publications or local newspapers which are generally reliable.
 * No unnecessary tangents (think WP:COATRACK). However a credits/personnel section is definitely missing


 * "combining soft rock, blues, and country pop with electric guitar licks" this sentence does not show parallelism. First three items refer to genres whereas the last item refers to the music structure. It also feels weird to say you combine genres with instruments.
 * Nothing in the prose mentions anything about electric guitar licks by the way. The song definitely has e guitars (as well as some acoustics) so it feels weird that we get nothing about the song's instruments in the article body
 * "the things she had wanted to but could not" wanted to what, exactly
 * One citation gets Mansfield's surname misspelled.
 * "was her recollection of things she wanted to say to that man but could not in real life" - this is just restating what the first paragraph says about Swift intending SN to be about things she wanted - but couldn't - say in front of certain people's faces. Saying something like Dear John' acted as her final goodbye to that person, in which she could vent every thought she had about them" adds something new to the article.
 * This part of the prose has been changed somewhat, but it still feels a bit redundant to the first paragraph ("the things she had wanted to but could not say" vs. "all the things she wanted to say"). I would continue recommending it be changed to something along the lines of my suggestion. - Elias
 * Yet to receive explicit addressing - Elias
 * "According to Rolling Stone journalist Brittany Spanos, the romance in the song lasts from May to December." first this feels like trivia that fits awkwardly within the paragraph, which mainly focuses on the ex-boyfriend's wrongdoings. Second, we both know Spanos is obviously referencing Mayer's May-December relationship with Swift, although the average reader will of course not catch it. I think it's a bit disingenuous to (rightly, IMO) exclude discussions around the widespread rumour "Dear John" is about Mayer, while at the same time including a subtle allusion to that rumour in question.
 * I see that you have decided to discuss the subject speculation in the article which... fair enough because it's so widely covered + even he seemed to think it was about him. Removing this line still seemed like the right call since by doing so we give credence to those speculations in Wikivoice. Glad this was done. - Elias
 * "Rather than holding the man accountable for his actions ... holding the man accountable for his wrongdoings." contradiction.
 * "Rather than holding the man accountable for his actions ... holding the man accountable for his wrongdoings." contradiction.

📝 "Don't get complacent..." 07:34, 26 November 2022 (UTC) 📝 "Don't get complacent..." 10:54, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * "vocals ... expands" subject-verb agreement
 * "The girl on the dress cried all the way home", "Maybe it's you and your sick need to give love then take it away", and "All the girls that you've run dry have tired, lifeless eyes" are IMO lines from the song that best represent the gutting and uncomfortable accusations discussed a lot in the critical reception section. Do we have secondary sources that reference these details of the song?
 * Too many sentences with the "[verb]ing that" phrase that are in close proximity of each other
 * Yet to be addressed.
 * Be careful with using "noting" throughout the article especially when it relates to opinions or speculations (MOS:SAID)
 * Yet to be addressed
 * You give the year for the Glamour interview but not the USA Today or RS one. Be consistent here
 * "in that although the track includes many revealing, accusatory details about a specific subject, Swift never publicly acknowledged the alleged inspiration behind" this is clunky
 * Yet to be addressed
 * For the Critical reception section, I have lotsa things to say:
 * I have not seen lots of reviews criticizing the songwriting in "Dear John", and given my personal opinions of the song I'm inclined to think that there are really not a lot of less-than-positive stuff said about it.
 * See WP:RECEPTION. There are some lengthy quotations you can paraphrase here, and you should consolidate similar comments from varying reviews instead of paraphrasing every review you used. Doing the latter results in repetitive statements like "the track is the album's pinnacle... the most immediately impactful track on the album... highlighted 'Dear John' as the album's best..." In other words, summarize the reviews as a whole and not the reviews individually.
 * A rough structure for the first paragraph would be something like "critics hailed the song as a highlight of Speak Now -> praise songwriting -> praised for vivid depictions of heartbreak (Spin sources, Billboard listicle) -> also praised for emotional impact of its lyrics (Vulture, THR, NYT) -> specifically its accusatory and uncomfortable nature (Paris Review, THR)". Insert specific quotations with attributed journalists only when they expand on or highlight specific points of commentary, not when they simply restate it. For example, the Billboard quotation complements the "emotional impact" and "vivid depictions of heartbreak" points really well, and I'd move it to the first paragraph instead of the second. I'd also introduce it by mentioning how it focuses on the song's relatability.
 * The cited Paris Review piece has a great analysis of "Dear John" and I think this is underutilized in this section. You can use it to flesh out the commentary about the song's accusatory lyrics!
 * "Dear John" is one of the longest songs in Swift's discography, so I was honestly expecting some more commentary on how reviewers felt about its runtime in particular. Did it successfully reinforce the brutal, tragic nature of the lyrics? Or did it instead water it down?
 * The same can be said for commentary on the song's production, unless most critics really only focused on the songwriting.
 * Why is the "brazenly entitled" quotation repeated here? Same with the "delicately Mayer-y blues-rock touches" bit, which was already mentioned (albeit in a paraphrased manner) in the Lyrical interpretation section
 * Jane Song and Paste were already mentioned before, so that WL and her first name can go
 * The sentences about Sheffield and Song's listicles can be merged into one sentence: "Sheffield and Paste Jane Song ranked 'Dear John' within Swift's top 10 best songs." Relegate the rankings' publication years and the amount of songs ranked into a footnote as to avoid cluttering the main prose.
 * For the spotchecks, I picked 8 random citations. Ref numbers refer to this version.
 * [2] - okay
 * [7] - eeeeh it's alright, but it would be better if we got a source that explicitly lists every song on the set list.
 * [11] - First instance: Sheffield doesn't call it a ballad; cite a new source or remove that descriptor. Other instances are ok
 * [15] - First instance: teeeechnically it was Mikael Wood who called it a country pop track, right? Hogan was the one who called it "Mayer-y blues-rock" so it's not all that bad. Would suggest rewording this to "Two Spin reviewers deemed it..." Second instance is find though
 * [17] - ok
 * [21] - both instances are ok
 * [24] - ok
 * [30] - good
 * There are some verifiability concerns, but none of them are pressing enough as to do a wider-scale spotcheck. Good work!
 * Placed . ‍ ‍ Your Power 🐍 ‍  ‍ 💬 "What did I tell you?"
 * Phew! That was a very constructive review. I have expanded and edited the article accordingly. Hopefully it could get a final review before we wrap things up. Ippantekina (talk) 08:51, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
 * nudge. Also a quick update on the Credits; the album liner notes only list musicians for the whole album, so no credits are available for individual tracks. Hope this is understandable, Ippantekina (talk) 02:21, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
 * That last part is understandable @Ippantekina - I have struck the comment. However waaay concerns remain to be addressed (alongside new ones that arose as a result of your content additions during this GAN, which I have outlined below) especially with regards to the critical reception paragraphs. Can they all be resolved within a couple days, or should the addressing be done outside of the GAN process to give you more breathing room? Since this review has stalled for quite a while and we still have some unaddressed concerns, I really don't want to pressure you with a time limit. You can always renominate, by which time you can ping me and I'll pick up where we left off. ‍ ‍ Elias 🐍 ‍  ‍ 💬 "What did I tell you?"


 * "intricate lyrical detail" should we be saying this in wikivoice?
 * "lauded her songwriting abilities for vividly depicting heartbreak and failed relationships" I'm not sure we need this part given that it conveys the same meaning as "intricate lyrical detail". Find a way to remove one of these
 * Yet to be addressed
 * "On charts" seems a bit redundant
 * "fireworks exploded onstage to accompany the lyrical narrative" is a bit unclear and it took me a while to realize this was referencing the "fireworks over your sad empty town" line. We can be more explicit: "fireworks exploded onstage in reference to one line from the song that reads 'blablabla.
 * Yet to be addressed
 * More redundant lines: "She describes the reasons to why she became heartbroken ... The narrator presents the reasons to why the relationship fell apart"
 * Since Sheffield's summary is... well... a summary, does that not belong more in the first paragraph, which is often the paragraph that gives us an overview of a given topic?
 * "too young" is a quotation short enough it can easily be paraphrased imo
 * It's a little jarring that we open one of these sentences with "Analyzing the song from an academic perspective" - which implies that we're about to get a real big brain thought-provoking take - and then the analysis turns out to be something like "hm this is sexual abuse". Like it just feels like an observation anyone can make.
 * The part about the subject having a mental illness feels a bit iffy... not sure if including it here is a net positive, cause aside from sounding like trivia it has somewhat ableist undertones...
 * Yet to be addressed - would appreciate a reply about it. - Elias
 * Not sure we need passive-aggressive wikilinked here.
 * "Would've Could've Should've" is extremely irrelevant to the topic and does not warrant a comparison here at all. That belongs only in the article about that song.
 * My concerns about the critical reception section not being well-written enough (repetitive sentence structures, the "A said B" problem, the misuse of "noting", sentiments/opinions repeated across paragraphs), still remain here. Here are some more:
 * "because they represent Swift's self-righteousness" do not present this as a fact
 * "weighs down the album a little" is somewhat unencyclopedic in tone and I would reword it.
 * Can we relegate all the publishing years into a footnote? You are giving lots of details all in one sentence (publishing year, ranking, amount of songs in the listicle, authors, publications), and it makes the whole thing hard to read.
 * "most successful examples of engaging the reader fully" -> "most successful examples of getting a reader to engage with a work" ? Also I would add what exactly about that sentence was engaging - did Woods cite the vivid imagery? The use of a metaphor here?
 * I don't want this to be archived so I'm on it. In the meantime, I've made some edits to the article. Hopefully you could keep track of the progress with me! Ippantekina (talk) 06:50, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * just a nudge-- Ippantekina (talk) 07:01, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * @Ippantekina: thanks. I appreciate your decision to continue this review with me. The article definitely gleams and glistens now in comparison to its first days at the GAN backlog :) We are down to very few issues remaining; see above for any outstanding ones! Plus, some final comments: 1) I'm not sure whether we should include the last two sentences in the "Reception and commentary section" because the cited sources are not actually rankings of Swift's entire discography, plus they repeat information already outlined in the first paragraph. 2) I think we should simply rename the section back to "Critical reception" -> commentary is redundant to reception, no?

That concludes my set of comments for this GA review. Have a nice rest of your week! ‍ ‍ Elias 🐍 ‍ </b> ‍ <span style="display:inline-block;margin-bottom:-0.3em;vertical-align:-0.4em;line-height:1.2em;font-size:80%;text-align:left"><sup style="font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">💬 "What did I tell you?" <sub style="font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">📝 "Don't get complacent..." 08:52, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

<sub style="font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">📝 "Don't get complacent..." 12:51, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks again, . I hope the article suffices for GA status now! It's hard to eliminate Mayer's name from the conversation but almost every review mentions his name, so, alas... Either way, have a great rest of the week! Ippantekina (talk) 06:53, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hello, @Ippantekina! Once again extremely sorry for the delays. Having just gotten back from more arduous school work, I have taken one final look at the prose with a more refreshed mind. I made some uncontentious changes to the prose here - feel free to look at my individual edits for the respective edit summaries - and with that I think the article is now ready for GA! Thank you for your patience. Passing. <b style="border-radius:3em;padding:4px;background:#926f52;color:white;">‍ ‍ Elias 🐍 ‍ </b> ‍ <span style="display:inline-block;margin-bottom:-0.3em;vertical-align:-0.4em;line-height:1.2em;font-size:80%;text-align:left"><sup style="font-size:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">💬 "What did I tell you?"