Wikipedia:Peer review/Ephrem the Syrian/archive1

Ephrem the Syrian
I put a lot of work into this article a good few months back. I'm quite happy with it, but a needs a little bit of something else. I'm posting for peer review because I would like to get some ideas of how to polish this one until it is very, very shiny! --Gareth Hughes 11:58, 11 October 2005 (UTC)


 * A few ideas (some of them quite minor):
 * The lead should be expanded to be a summary of the major points from the rest of the article.
 * The discussion of variations of his name should be merged into the lead, or possibly moved to a footnote if it is too long. Technical details of spelling are probably not the best thing to open the article with.
 * The infobox should probably be moved up to the top of the article (unless there's some standard for saints that suggests a different usage).
 * The quotes might be intergrated into the prose.
 * Overall, though, the article looks quite nice. Kirill Lokshin 18:19, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts, Kyrill. I've taken out the name section, and added it and some summary into the lead section. I've added a couple of photographs of Ephrem's church in Nisibis. The WikiProject Saints suggests the seperation of veneration from life in articles on saints (quite understandably!), and suggests that the infobox goes in that later section. I'll keep working away at it. Let me know if you have any other suggestions. --Gareth Hughes 23:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Ryan Norton T 21:43, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Lead seems short for the article, but its not too bad
 * 2) "Life" - last paragraph too short
 * 3) "Writings" - Paragraphs 3,4,5 too short and 6 is even a one-sentence paragraph
 * 4) "Veneration as a saint" - Paragraphs 3,4,5 too short
 * 5) " Quotations" - these should only be here if you REALLY need them - otherwise they should be on wikiquote

Thanks, Ryan. I've attached the last paragraph of Life onto the end of the previous one. However, it seems a bit abrupt to me, so I might rewrite the demise. The short paragraphs in Writings are begging to be expanded really. I've combined two more short paras in Veneration, but I think I can write some more on his place in the Syriac churches and in the wider world, and as seperate paragraphs. The quotations could be worked into the article somewhere. Is there anything in particular that you would like to see in this article? --Gareth Hughes 22:45, 21 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Gareth, I have a couple of problems with the section "Life". The first is that the focus appears to be more on the world of Ephrem than on Ephrem: a sentence tells us "It was a time of great religious and political tension" -- yet there is no explanation what this tension was, nor how it affected Ephrem. For example, did the Diocletian persecution touch Ephrem's life or his community? I know that it was far more savage in the eastern part of the Empire than in the western.


 * The following paragraphs have the smae problem. I had to read them twice to realize that Ephrem was mentioned in them; their emphasis seems to be on the ongoing war. (BTW, the link to Constantius should be to Constantius II.)


 * Also, I don't get a sense for the person after reading this article: there is little if anything to distinguish him from the dozens of other churchmen of the period. If you could find something to give him a bit of personality -- a physical description, an anecdote of his life, or a discussion of his writings -- that would make this a strong candidate for FAC. -- llywrch 19:22, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for this. I can see exactly what you mean: the Life section focuses more on the political history during Ephrem's life than his actual life. The problem I have is that the more vivid accounts of Ephrem's life are late and unreliable. I have mentioned them in the Veneration section instead, where I felt that they shed more light on how people have felt about Ephrem rather than his actual life. The Life section is drawn from the internal evidence of Ephrem's genuine works with a strong current of local contemporary history. I think the solution would be to include more from Ephrem's own works and less history. The Diocletian persecution, Shapur's sieges and the deportation of the Christians to the west are themes in Ephrem's hymnody, and must have had a profound effect on his life. I could make this more vivid in the account. The reliable anecdotes and descriptions are all of others: Ephrem doesn't write much about himself. --Gareth Hughes 14:00, 5 November 2005 (UTC)