Wikipedia:Peer review/Melville Fuller/archive1

Melville Fuller


I'm hoping to take this article to FAC in the near future, so I'd very much appreciate any comments. Thoughts on the quality and readability of the prose, the comprehensiveness of the article, or anything else relevant to the criteria would be particularly valuable. Thanks in advance. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 18:58, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley
You were kind enough to invite my comments, and here they are. Merely a few suggested prose tweaks – nothing major – and no queries or quibbles about the actual content. I may have misunderstood some AmE conventions, and if so pray ignore my comment.
 * Lead
 * He authored major opinions – "authored" seems rather a clumsy word. Wouldn't a plain "wrote" do?
 * Done.
 * significant decisions regarding – plain words might be easier for the reader here: "important decisions about", for instance.
 * Done.
 * disassociate the county from racial segregation – "disassociate" is a new word to me, but perhaps that is an Engvar thing for BrE "dissociate".
 * Merriam-Webster seems to consider both valid, although others take a somewhat more negative view. Out of courtesy to my friends across the pond (and the MoS), I've changed it.
 * Early life
 * Melville Weston Fuller was born on February 11, 1833, in Augusta, Maine, the second son of Catherine Martin (née Weston) and Frederick Augustus Fuller – this could be clearer. We learn later that Catherine divorced Frederick but here they look as though they are not married and that her surname was Martin. The familiar form John Smith and his wife Mary, née Jones would be clearer and preferable, I think (unless "ladies first" is thought essential).
 * Done.
 * Career
 * In addition, a broken engagement likely encouraged him to head west – one can see why a broken engagement might lead someone to leave a place, but why it should particularly encourage him to head in a westerly direction is not obvious.
 * Indeed.
 * While Fuller opposed slavery, he considered it an issue for the states – I'd be careful with "while" as a synonym for "although". Its temporal connotation has a powerful pull: reading the opening of the sentence I was expecting the follow-up statement that once he starting supporting slavery he considered it as some other sort of issue.
 * Done. Good catch.
 * However, he opposed the Lincoln Administration – is it usual to capitalise "Administration"? Looks odd to an English eye. And this is the first of eight "howevers" in the article. Most of them are unnecessary and impede the flow of the prose without adding anything of value for the reader. This one is borderline, I think, but do look at the other seven and eradicate them where you can.
 * Done re caps: not sure where I came up with that. With regard to "however", I've axed two of the worst offenders; I'll keep looking for ways to replace the remaining ones.
 * Nomination to Supreme Court
 * Cleveland sought to appoint a young candidate, preferably one under the age of sixty – as one whose sixtieth birthday is many years behind him, I regard someone of sixty as young, but I doubt very much if most of your readers will do so.
 * Reworded. (Of course, youth carries a very different meaning when one's colleagues serve until age ninety.)
 * endeavored to scuttle Fuller's nomination. – "scuttle" strikes a slightly slangy note in my ear, but others may disagree.
 * Replaced with "sink", which I think is a bit better.
 * Chief Justice
 * According to professor Walter F. Pratt – I don't think we normally give academics their "Doctor" or "Professor", capitalised or not.
 * I've replaced the bare "professor" (both here and elsewhere) with various other phrases, such as "legal scholar", "legal historian", etc. I've kept "law professor", on the theory that it's intended to describe an occupation and not a title. (Oh, and can I get away with false titles in AmEng? They've become so ingrained that it just feels wrong to preface them all with "the".)
 * False titles: it isn't for an Englishman to pontificate about AmE usage. As far as I can see, The New York Times is a lone American voice against the practice. Its style guide says:
 * Do not make titles out of mere descriptions, as in harpsichordist Dale S. Yagyonak. If in doubt, try the "good morning" test. If it is not possible to imagine saying, "Good morning, Harpsichordist Yagyonak," the title is false.
 * I don't see much evidence that anyone else in America takes any notice of the advice, and I don't think you should if you don't want to.  Tim riley  talk   09:16, 5 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Jurisprudence
 * Summarizing Fuller's views of the law, scholar Irving Schiffman wrote, "…. a spokesman for what now seems a far-off and bygone judicial age" – it might be well to give a date inline for this statement. Some might think the age does not in 2021 seem so far-off and bygone, judicially (as, indeed, you touch on later in the article).
 * Done.
 * Fuller's most noteworthy decision was perhaps – you won't get away with that at FAC. "Perhaps" needs citing – who says this was perhaps his most noteworthy decision?
 * I've added an "according to" and removed the "perhaps", which should resolve this.
 * held that the Framers intended the term – the Framers, I deduce, were the men who wrote the original American constitution, but it isn't clear. A blue link might be helpful.
 * Done.
 * it marked only the third time in American history that a Supreme Court decision was reversed via constitutional amendment – a footnote here briefly saying what the first two were would be a kindness to readers whose curiosity is piqued by your statement that it was the third.
 * There's already a link to this, which should satiate any curiosity, no?
 * Yes indeed. I overlooked that.  Tim riley  talk   09:16, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * which green-lighted antitrust enforcement – a vivid image, but a touch informal?
 * Both instances have been replaced.
 * Fuller's opinion argued that Congress's power to regulate commerce did not extend to banning it. – not clear what "it" is here: the shipping of lottery tickets or commerce in general.
 * The source here didn't really say what I thought it said, so I've rewritten this sentence altogether.
 * greenlighted the use of the federal taxing power – as before (and you hyphenated it the first time)
 * See above.
 * Judicial authority
 * scholars have cited it as a key moment – a bit vague. Some scholars? A few? A lot? Most?
 * I've rewritten this in a way that doesn't refer to scholars at all: it's really just a factual statement.
 * Although some modern scholars have criticized the ruling in Young, it remains in force today. – WP:DATED. "Today" almost always calls for an explanatory year – as of 2021 or suchlike.
 * Done.
 * Race
 * damaged his historical reputation significantly – "significantly" seems an odd word to choose. What did the damage signify? A word like "greatly" or "considerably" would seem more appropriate here.
 * Done.
 * Citizenship, immigration, and the territories
 * The Court threaded the needle similarly – a curious image, and its meaning is not obvious.
 * Rewritten.
 * Personal life
 * They had two children together – as opposed to separately? Ditto a line or two below.
 * I think (?) I was indelicately trying to clarify that the "eight children together" excluded the two from Fuller's previous marriage. Anyways, I've fixed both.
 * Statue
 * the statue will remain in front of the courthouse for up to a year – WP:DATED. You can get round this by giving another "as of" date or by saying that it was announced that the statue would remain etc.
 * I think I've fixed this.
 * References
 * I noticed a couple of date ranges (refs 2 and 3) where you need an en-dash instead of a hyphen. I haven't checked systematically and there may be more: worth attention, I think, before facing the rigours of FAC.
 * I think this is mostly the fault of the dreaded Citoid, which I should probably stop using. (It generally copies the title directly from Google Books, the Internet Archive, etc., none of which are very good about using the right kind of dash.) I've fixed hyphen-endash-emdash issues in the following refs: 2, 3, 7, 17, 49, 52, 65, 69, 80, 87, 91, and 92. (Yikes.) Do let me know if you see any more.
 * Further reading
 * Eleven books are listed – rather a lot. My Wikipedia mentor years ago used to ask me if any of my suggested Further reading books had anything that my cited sources hadn't, and if so, why I hadn't mentioned it in the article. He was only making a point, of course, and didn't mean me to take him literally. All the same, it's as well to assure oneself that books in Further reading have a good claim to be there. My own rule of thumb is to ask myself what the reader would get from them that he or she would not get from the cited sources.
 * MOS:FURTHER says that the further reading section "should normally not duplicate the content of the References section, unless the References section is too long for a reader to use as part of a general reading list" (emphasis added). I think that caveat applies here: with 101 references, a reader who uses them as a general reading list will quickly get bogged down in irrelevant works like "Injunctions in Labor Disputes: The History of the Norris–LaGuardia Act", "An Unapportioned Wealth Tax Has Constitutional Problems", and a 1000-page-long treatise on federal jurisdiction, none of which are substantially related to Fuller. I thus "selectively duplicate" some of the most relevant references to aid the reader. Is this right? It seems many of the most recent FAs lack a further reading list altogether: should I just eliminate it?
 * Fair enough, and it is not, I feel, a matter of great moment. I doubt if anyone will query the matter at FAC.  Tim riley  talk   09:16, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

This seems to me an excellent article, clear, evidently comprehensive though concise, well illustrated. Some of the most used sources are not in the first flush of youth – something likely to be raised at FAC – but there are plenty of recent citations as well. Crucially, for an article on such a controversial figure, it seems to me scrupulously neutral: I ended up not knowing how much or little the main author liked or approved of Fuller, which is just as it should be. I think the article will prosper at FAC. Please ping me when you get there. –  Tim riley  talk   08:40, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you so very much, Tim, for such a thorough and insightful review. I've addressed the grand majority of your suggestions, leaving just a few questions above. One more question: I wrote myriad sentences along the lines of "He maintained that bakers could protect their own health, arguing that the law was in fact a labor regulation in disguise." The GOCE copy-editor came along and removed all of the "thats" in favor of sentences like "He maintained bakers could protect their own health, arguing the law was in fact a labor regulation in disguise.". Which is correct? The former seems more natural to me, but perhaps there's something I'm missing? I'm sure there's a grammatical explanation, but I haven't been able to find one. Anyways, thanks again for taking the time to look over this: I'm very appreciative. Cheers, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:33, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * As to "He maintained that bakers could protect their health ..." -v- "He maintained bakers could protect their health ...", Fowler's Modern English Usage is helpful on this point: see the second column of page 623 here. In short, either is grammatically correct, but some words and phrases call out for a "that" and some don't, and in other cases it's a matter of personal preference: in the example you give I rather dislike your copy editor's deletions: though one couldn't call them utterly wrong they are not stylish (to an English eye, at any rate). My advice is to put a "that" wherever the prose looks odd to you without one. (My link is to the second (1966) edition of Fowler, but the current (2015) edition, which is not accessible online, follows similar precepts).
 * It has been a pleasure to review this article, and I look forward to seeing it at FAC. –  Tim riley  talk   09:16, 5 September 2021 (UTC)