Talk:John Benjamin Murphy/GA1

GA Review
This review is transcluded from Talk:John Benjamin Murphy/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Pretty good, informative article. Well-referenced. Interesting. The prose is alright, but I wouldn't say, "brilliant". It can be somewhat dry in places -- the life & death and education/training sections seem to just recite what he did through his life (he did this, he did that, he went to school here, he served there, blah blah blah). It seems like it can be rewritten a bit so that it sounds a bit more interesting and less like a timeline.
 * Another editor has gotten involved since you made some edits. Did this address your concerns?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The 'notable experiences' section doesn't seem to flow very well together. At least, with the first part, talking about the Haymarket Affair very briefly, and then going into his flamboyance. More should be said in the article about his role in the Haymarket Affair. Is this connected to his flamboyance? Probably not, but I still think that the different paragraphs here could be tied together a bit better.
 * I'll beef up that paragraph.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:51, 30 May 2008 (UTC)  It seems you may have thought both paragraphs were referring to the same event.  I attempted to add enough so that the reader knows what the Haymarket affair is.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 07:13, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The image is a little large in the infobox. If it could be reduced just 25%, it would be much better, IMHO,...
 * The image was made wide so that the infobox would widen for some of the long information lines. Lines like "Northwestern University Medical School" and "President, American Medical Association" would look less clean wrapping around and the general flow of the infobox would be less smooth with a narrower image.  I will reduce it if you still think it would improve the article, but think about the text of the infobox.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 06:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Other than these little issues, I think the article meets the Good article criteria. And these are not huge, but mostly prose issues to tighten things up a bit and make for easier reading. Once this is fixed, I think the article can be promoted to GA. Cheers! Dr. Cash (talk) 02:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Good improvement. One more little thing I noticed. In this sentence: "Although his excellence was not questioned, his techniques were considered pretentious. His work was more highly regarded by his contemporaries in Europe than in Chicago.[2]" While I think it might be covered by the citation at the end of the sentence, I think it would be good to elaborate a little further and be more specific on who considered his techniques to be "pretentious". It could be construed as violating WP:NPOV if it's not clear enough and not cited well enough. Dr. Cash (talk) 14:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


 * i noticed that too. i think it's just a poor choice of one word.i don't see how techniques can be 'pretentious'. after i look at the reference, and get a better sense of what was meant,i think i can come up with a better word.Toyokuni3 (talk) 16:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


 * as it turns out, 'pretentious' is exactly the word used in the source referenced, but they relate it to 'his approach to medicine', rather than techniques.Toyokuni3 (talk) 16:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The article now meets the GA criteria and can be listed. Good work! Dr. Cash (talk) 16:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)