Talk:Kerry Ellis/GA1

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

Reviewer: Beloved  Freak  20:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry it's taken me a while to get to this. Stupidly, I had a lot of it written in an edit window when my computer crashed & I lost it so I'm starting over, but I'll try to have it up tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.-- Beloved Freak  21:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, as I said, sorry for taking so long about this. I can see that a lot of effort has been put into improving this article, so good job on that. It still needs a bit of work to meet the good article criteria. I'll go through the article and make a note of the issues I see in each section. At the end I'll make a few more suggestions for general improvement that aren't necessarily part of the GA criteria.


 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
 * Issues noted below, could do with a copyedit
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * Issues noted below
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * not assessed yet
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * Fair representation without bias:
 * Some issues with the tone of the article as described within the prose issues.
 * 1) It is stable.
 * No edit wars, etc.:
 * can't see any problems with stability
 * 1) It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.
 * a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
 * One issue, noted below
 * 1) Overall:
 * Pass/Fail:

In general, I think that the whole article could do with a copyedit by an editor uninvolved with the article. Please don't take this personally, but I know from my own experience that it can get difficult when you've been working on an article for a long time and you are so close to the text that it's hard to see how to improve it any more. Although I think you've been working hard to keep it neutral, unfortunately it does come across as a little promotional in places, almost as if it is her CV, or the blurb on a playbill. I will point out the most obvious points, but I really think it should be copyedited by someone else. There are also places where the language is a bit too wordy, or flowery. It's tempting sometimes to use as many long words as you can, or to try to make it more interesting, and certainly we don't want to dumb down for our readers, but it's best to try to keep the language simple and straightforward.
 * GA criterion #1 - prose/manual of style

lead Early life Career beginnings We Will Rock You... Wicked... Public performances... Oliver! Personal life External links
 * "best known for her contributions to musical theatre" - contributions sounds slightly promotional. How about "best known for her work in musical theatre"?
 * "Ellis began singing at an early age – developing a great interest in musicals." - I don't think you need a dash here. How about "Ellis began singing at an early age and developed a great interest in musicals."?
 * "she marked her West End debut" → "she made her West End debut"
 * "playing a variety of main lead roles" - here, variety of is a little vague. I presume we know how many lead roles she has played? I would suggest not naming the roles, you can get into that later, but just list the productions she has been lead in. For example, {{xt|She originated the role of Meat in We Will Rock You and has played lead roles in Les Misérables, Wicked and Oliver!.
 * "Ellis has since become a well-recognised stage actress" - I would lose this. Firstly, it's not clear what exactly it means. She is recognisable on the street? She has been recognised by critics? Her work has been recognised by being given awards? It's a bit vague and you could explain what it means, but it doesn't seem a statement we really need. It doesn't seem to be expanded on or backed up later on in the article. It also sounds a bit promotional. You should mention the awards she's won in the lead though, as that's concrete, encyclopedic information.
 * "Enhancing her repertoire as a solo artist" - too promotional, sounds like something that should be on her CV
 * When discussing her album and EP, why mention the album first? It would be more logical to mention the EP, which came first chronologically. Don't assume the reader already knows these things.
 * It's not 100% clear which peaked on the charts at number fifteen (I could presume it's Anthems, but I don't know for sure if EPs can chart on an albums chart. I'd rather it was clear in the text).
 * fifteen should be 15 (WP:ORDINAL
 * I'm not sure it's necessary to describe Brian May as "friend and mentor" here. If this is notable, the fact they are friends & he acts as a mentor, that can be expanded on, but I think it would be better to describe him as "rock musician Brian May" or something like that. It's more interesting given her background that she's moving over to rock, and again, don't assume that readers will know who Brian May is.
 * "She grew up with her parents and older brother, Andrew Ellis." - there's something slightly odd about this sentence. People usually describe "growing up with" a close friend, or a sibling, at least someone who is also growing up at the same time if you know what I mean. Everyone grows up with their parents. Well, not everyone, but it's not unusual, is it? I'm not sure.... I'm not saying don't mention her parents because it helps set the scene of her life, but maybe reword it so that you're not saying she grew up with them. What about something like (not perfect): "{{xt|Kerry Jane Ellis was born on 6 May 1979 in Haughley, a small village near Stowmarket, Suffolk where she lived with her parents and older brother, Andrew.}} I think you can lose "England" as that's covered in the lead & infobox and many people will get that from reading "Suffolk". You also don't need to give her brother's surname.
 * "Attending dance classes, she described herself as a "hyperactive" young girl ..." - grammatically, this implies that she described herself as hyperactive at the same time as she was attending classes. Presumably the description came much later. You don't need quotes for that one word either, you're just stating that she described herself as hyperactive.
 * "their music she would sing much to the disturbance of her older brother" - this is awkwardly worded. I'm also not sure what you mean by "to the disturbance of" - did he become mentally disturbed? Did she interrupt him while he was doing something else? To be honest, I'm not sure you need this titbit, perhaps just leave it at saying who her influences were.
 * "She stated that she had not discovered her vocal talent "until [she] was at college and [...] started working."" - is this quote necessary? Visually it's a little awkward for something that could easily be reworded to avoid quoting. I'm not sure that "vocal talent" is 100% neutral either. perhaps "vocal ability"?
 * "She attended Stowmarket High School ..." - this sentence is a little awkward and I wonder if it's because you've altered the chronology a bit. It could be simpler, something like: "{{xt|While attending Stowmarket High School she completed work experience with Starmakers, a company of holiday entertainers at Potters Leisure Resort in Hopton-on-Sea, Norfolk. At 16, she left school and joined Starmakers full-time.}}" (Was it a full-time job? This isn't clear.)
 * "Ellis sang in cabaret-styled performances" - "{{xt|cabaret-style performances}}"?
 * "Following numerous amateur productions, Ellis spent a year at Laine Theatre Arts..." - the first part of this sentence is vague (numerous) and a little CV-ish. It would be better to say what year she attended Laine Theatre Arts, or what age she was, to give us a better idea of the timeline.
 * "where she was formally stage trained" - isn't that generally what happens at performing arts school? it sounds like you're listing her quals & experience. (If I'm missing something, and "formal stage training" means something more specific, please say)
 * "Upon graduation in 1998..." - try not to use too-flowery language. I count 5 "upon"s in the article which is probably overkill. "On" is usually fine.
 * "the first cover for Marti Webb" - I'm not sure what "first cover" means. Is there a relevant article you could link to? Or, could this be clarified?
 * "Gaining a different experience aside that she had in the theatre, however..." - this is awkward and a bit unclear.
 * Voyager of the Seas should be in italic, as the name of a ship
 * When she was on the cruise for 9 months - is this a 9 month hiatus in the tour? Did she leave the tour for 9 months?
 * I'm not sure pantomime needs to be linked, but if you do, do so at the first occurrence, not the second
 * "Before her subsequent move into West End theatre, her professional theatrical credits had included..." - I find this use of tense a little unclear. The West End hasn't been mentioned yet at this point. Why not keep it chronological?
 * "BBC" should be "the BBC"
 * "...she produced a jingle for Capital FM." - she actually produced it?
 * I'm not sure what "swing" means - do we have a relevant article to link to there?
 * "most significantly, became second understudy" - who says this was most significant?
 * "McCutcheon's untimely illness" - is "untimely" necessary?
 * "Ellis' first lead role in the West End..." - this sentence is a little awkward
 * "also involved in television opportunities with the cast" - what does "television opportunities" mean? Promoting the show?
 * "...Brian May, with whom she has been heavily involved..." - I think this needs clarifying a bit. As it reads, I could assume they are lovers.
 * I don't think you need to keep saying mid May, mid July etc. I think saying the month rehearsals began (or whatever) is specific enough
 * "in the pursuance of another role" - an example of too-flowery language
 * "2007 saw her debut at various London events – including West End Live in Leicester Square..." - avoid starting sentences with digits (WP:ORDINAL), and you don't need a dash here.
 * "...a two-day limited engagement of Chess in Concert, a musical by Tim Rice..." - the concert isn't a musical by Rice etc, is it? this should be reworded to make it clearer.
 * "Some critics labelled her stronger than Menzel" - some critics? Or one critic? You only have one reference to back this up.
 * "...served as a teaser towards, what was then, Ellis' forthcoming debut studio album." - is this actually from a reliable source (it serving as a teaser)?
 * "also critical acclaim, worldwide praise and global success. " - I think we need details and sources, it sounds like hyperbole
 * "Ellis even represented Wicked at the annual Royal Variety Performance" - why "even"?
 * "Soon after leaving Wicked – towards the end of June 2009, Ellis..." - either use two dashes, or two commas, not one of each
 * "Lending her vocal talent on tours elsewhere..." - a little promotional
 * "As a mentor on one of BBC's talent shows in late March 2010, Ellis appeared in Over The Rainbow, a televised competition..." - this is a strange way of putting it. It make it sound like "one of BBC's talent shows" and "Over the Rainbow" are two separate things.
 * "where ironically,.." - this is editorialising. Don't tell the reader what is ironic, just state the facts.
 * "she lent her vocal talent at a performance dedicated..." - a little promotional
 * "The concert ... gave all funds to the charity Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research." - is that particularly relevant to Ellis?
 * "...her debut studio album Anthems marked Ellis' comeuppance as a solo artist." - comeuppance? Really?
 * fifteen → 15
 * "Referring to Anthems as an album that tries "to tap into all the different areas that [she has] been part of" in her career between the years 2000 and 2010, the album includes ..." - grammatically this isn't right. The way it's written, Anthems is referring to Anthems as an album that tries etc.
 * That whole sentence about the songs included is unwieldy and difficult to understand
 * This section shold be above the lists, but I'm not sure we really need a separate section here for 12 words. Can this be incorporated into one of the other sections? It is, after all, part of her "life and career", is it not?
 * Not a prose issue but I'll put it here - most of these links should not be included. Wikipedia is not a link directory. Fansites are very rarely included. Her social network links can easily be accessed from her official website. The Oliver! cast page just provides a bio - which is what this is, so no need to include that. Trim it back to just the official website.

There are quite a few places missing citations at the moment, which make it difficulat for readers to verify the information. The article is quite reliant on primary sources at the moment (eg. official sites of Ellis and others). Independent, secondary sources are the best to use. I'm also not sure of the reliability of some of the sources.
 * GA criterion #2 - Sources/citations/verifiability

Early life Career beginnings We Will Rock You... Wicked... Public performances... Oliver! Notes
 * Birth date, place of birth and brother's name need referencing
 * Source for her part in the Children in Need production and radio jingle?
 * Source for her leaving the company in 2002?
 * There's a {{tl|citation needed}} tag
 * Source for her single being released & failing to chart
 * Source for nomination in 2007 Lastminute.com People's Choice Theatre Awards?
 * Sources for the second half of the first paragraph of this section?
 * "Although a relative unknown and in a small part, Ellis was met with positive reviews for her performance." - is this sentence backed up by the citation at the end of the following sentence? Who says she is a relative unknown?
 * "also the first to transfer from the West End to Broadway[" - is that backed up by the cited source?
 * Source for the release of her EP
 * "longest-running British actress in the role of Elphaba." - source?
 * Sources for all her work on various tours/concerts
 * Source for her work with Only Men Aloud?
 * "Opening in late March 2010 to positive reviews..." - you only cite one source for these "positive reviews", and unless I'm missing something, that source isn't a review, positive or otherwise
 * source for second & final Nancy in Oliver?
 * Source for award nominations?
 * Sources for all her work on various tours/concerts?
 * Source for the release & chart performance of her album and the fact that it was "one of the best-selling albums in the UK from a musical theatre performer"
 * What makes the following sources reliable:
 * Gaydar Nation
 * Bent
 * Places and Faces
 * starmakers.connectfree.co.uk
 * Whatsonstage.com
 * wickeduk.co.uk
 * tttcritic.blogspot.com
 * Images
 * File:Picture22-med.jpg is not free. It has no fair use rationale for use in this article and I don't think it's use is appropriate here, even if it had a rationale. It is only being used decoratively and there are other (free) images of the subject

Infobox lead Early life Awards and nominations Notes
 * Some further suggestions for improvement (not required for GA)
 * The infobox image is very long and makes the infobox unnecessarily long. I think it's because it's been cropped too tightly around her face, making it a long & thin image. Visually, it could perhaps be improved by cropping the image at commons to feature just her face & upper part of chest.
 * Do all the genres listed really apply? This is not a huge deal, I think the issue of genre in infoboxes tends to get unnecessarily edit-warred over too often, but I wonder if it's necessary to include a) "musical theatre" (is that a genre?) b) "orchestral" - I'm not sure what that means here. She's not an instrumentalist is she? c) "acoustic" (is that a genre?) I'll leave it up to you. I've never heard her music, these are just some thoughts.
 * Should Brian May be listed as as associated act? Take a look at Template:Infobox_musical_artist and decide whether he should be included or not.
 * Alt text is not a requirement for GA (or FA), but if you're going to use it, it should be useful and descriptive for people who use screen readers or have images switched off. At the moment, it is merely repeating info contained in the image caption. See WP:ALT for more on this.
 * Do we need a pronunciation guide for her name? Both "Kerry" and "Ellis" are common names in English, and are both fairly simple to pronounce. The pronunciation key just adds clutter.
 * When you're quoting, and using ellipses to omit things, you don't have to use square brackets. its up to you, but it does add a little more clutter. If there are ellipses in the original material, then using the brackets can show which ellipses are yours to make it clear there's something omitted. (See the final point of WP:ELLIPSIS)
 * Have you considered combining this table with that of her professional credits? Compare to Elaine Paige. Some of the info could definitely be trimmed, and I'm not sure you need nominations included in the table. Think about it.
 * In the citations, titles printed sources like newspapers, magazines and books should be in italics, titles of non-print sources like websites should not

I'm going to put this on hold for 7 days to allow you to address the issues. It's possible that other things may come up. Please let me know if you have any questions or disagree with points I've made.-- Beloved Freak  20:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much! I'm so appreciative of this review and have tried to follow your advice - and still currently am! :) I agree with the verifiability of this article: much information is either un-sourced or from unreliable sources. I have tried and tried to find "reliable" sources - although she is recognisable in the theatre world and is named in some British tabloids, she is not at the very "high end" of celebrities and therefore she is not written about so much in "reliable" sources - so that weighs heavily on this issue! However, some of the sources are interviews with Ellis herself (like here: 1 2 3) Can't they be classed as reliable? Thank you again! I'm taking each word you've written for granted! I hope to improve this article as much as possible! Stephenjamesx (talk) 19:44, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, and you said there were other images "of the subject". Could you direct me? Thanks again. Stephenjamesx (talk) 19:47, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi, as far as sources are concerned, I'm not saying they're absolutely not reliable, but where I'm not familiar with the sources, I'm questioning them. Even interviews, if you think about it, I could set up a website with a fake interview of her and claim it to be real. Having said that, interviews do tend to be taken a bit more on faith than straight articles, as far as reliability goes, but I'll try to have a closer look at them. I'm not able to be online much this week, so if you try to work on the other stuff, and I'll have another look at sources later. Try and see if you can find any more, better sources that are not eg. Daily Mail (not the highest quality source in the world!) and that are independent. Even if you find some that are behind a paywall and you can't access them, we might be able to get hold of them. And regarding images, I meant there are other images of her ("the subject") that are already being used in the article, meaning that there is no compelling reason to use a non-free image unless it is showing something that can't be conveyed by the text. The non-free image use policy can be tricky, but as it stands, the image of her as Elphaba wouldn't be acceptable. by the way, I don't know if I mentioned, but try to look at similar articles that are already GA or FA to compare - Elaine Paige is a good example.-- Beloved Freak  23:00, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There are still problems with criteria 1, 2 and 4, so I'm going to have to close this review as not listed. I still would recommend getting the article copyedited and perhaps running it through peer review before a further GA nomination. Peer reviews happen much faster than GA reviews usually do, so it wouldn't do any harm to get another opinion on the article, when you're ready. Good job on the work done so far, and good luck with further developing the article.-- Beloved Freak  22:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)