Talk:Sonnet 81/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Xover (talk · contribs) 19:23, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Overall status
Individual sonnets are difficult to write good encyclopaedic articles about, and this appears most like an example of how and why it can go horribly wrong. The prose is choppy; there is a lot of material swallowed whole from fringe websites, and sources appear to be chosen for easy copy/paste-ability; and the coverage of the subject is spotty and narrow.

Overall the article has a lot of work needed to get up to GA standard.

I'm closing this review as a fail as it seems highly unlikely that it can be fixed within a reasonable timeframe. Please do renominate the article once you feel it is ready, and feel free to ping me if I can be of assistance in the effort or if you have questions. --Xover (talk) 19:23, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Detailed points

 * General issues
 * (2b) The article relies overly much on online sources and on direct quotes from the sources. Given the excellent sources readily available in print (and often also online for students at educational institutions with subscriptions) there is no reason to use such sources: they are generally of poor quality in this field, and excessive quoting tends to lead to unreadable prose.


 * Structure
 * (2b) This entire section is uncited.
 * Terms should generally only be wikilinked on first use, and certainly when in close proximity. Since Shakespearean sonnet and English sonnet both lead to the same article, both should not be wikilinked.
 * (1a) There's also a comma missing after "English sonnet".
 * The prose in this section is fairly clipped and staccato. Some copy editing to flow better would be an advantage.
 * (1a) "The point that the sonnet turns …" Surely this should be "at which [the sonnet turns]" or some such.
 * (1a,2b) "… usually the ninth line …" The eight, or between the eight and ninth, surely; and are we talking about Petrarchan or Shakespearean sonnets in this sentence?
 * (1a) "… in the poem an is known …" and


 * Modern Translation
 * (2b) This entire section is copied verbatim from the cited source and hence a copyright violation. The entirety of it will have to be removed and rewritten from scratch.
 * (2b) Additionally, the cited source is a promotional website favouring the fringe theory known as the Oxfordian theory and hence not a reliable source.


 * Synopsis
 * (1a) "There are many theories to the identity of the young man." "… as to …" perhaps?
 * (1a) "There are many theories to the identity of the young man." More commonly referred to as the Fair Youth?
 * (1a,2b,2c) The rest of this paragraph is adopted wholesale from the cited source, which as above is a fringe publication and not a reliable source. In short, it is patent nonsense.
 * The remaining paragraph appears to be a series of copied quotes from cited sources of varying quality (mostly williamshakespeare-sonnets.com, which, while not poor per se, is an odd choice considering the better sources readily available in forms less convenient for copy and paste). In any case, since the majority of the paragraph consists of thrown-together quotes, I'm unable to follow along and extract any kind of meaning from it.