Talk:Joshua Lionel Cowen/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Sammi Brie (talk · contribs) 07:36, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

This is a quickfail. However, I'd like to pinpoint some of the myriad issues that have brought this page down. It needs another round of copyediting before coming back to GAN. There are stretches and sentences begging for more citations. With all due respect, I feel like I'm a judge on a cooking competition—and, more often than usual, your offerings are undercooked in ways that are peculiar to you. One more round of looking at this through fresh eyes would have sorely helped you! Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 07:36, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Lead

 * His first patented invention for a photographer's flash igniter for flash photography developed into a detonator for exploding mines for the US Navy. That resulted in a $12,000 (equivalent to $390,864 in 2021) defense contract from the United States Navy which gave him the money to go into the novelty business. Redundancy (why is US Navy mentioned twice in two sentences?) and an awkward start.
 * One thing lead to another and Cowen then developed a niche market for a Christmas gift for boys. This sentence has a spelling error, a commas in sentences problem, and even for a lead section, the phrase "one thing le[d] to another" is too informal. There are other C in S issues I'd flag throughout.

Early life

 * Several choppy-reading passages. e.g. He was the eighth child of nine in the family. His immigrant parents were Rebecca (née Kantrowitz) and Hyman Nathan Cohen. and The tube had at the end a socket similar to an Edison incandescent light bulb socket. A long metal pole screwed into this socket making electrical contact. At the end of this pole was a small horizontal metal trough holding some photographer's flash powder. This is an issue I've seen with your writing in general:
 * "He then took a position at the Acme Electric Lamp Company" From here to the end of the paragraph is hinging on one source. Consider increased citation density.

Mid life

 * allowed Cowen to set up production facility
 * September of 1900 should just be September 1900
 * One toy in a particular store window that got Copwen's attention Typo in the name of the subject.
 * Consider linking Baltimore and Ohio Railroad for B&O
 * the nations largest railroad company apostrophe, please

Image issues
Where did File:Lionel_Flash_Lamp.jpg come from? It's a very poor vectorization/digitization, to the point of looking fake with the Times New Roman text. That typeface did not exist in 1899. Also, File:Lionel Trains - 1929 advertisement.jpg is similarly a shoddy-ish reproduction designed to mimic older work. I would not accept either image at GA. The other images are fine for use, though alt text would be nice.