Wikipedia:Peer review/Mockingjay/archive1

Mockingjay
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because I was wondering what needs to be done to polish it for GAN.

Thanks, Glimmer721  talk  17:08, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Comments by Brambleclawx:
 * I've started by doing a quick copyedit. My first thought is that the lead needs to be expanded.  Bramble  claw  x   15:16, 23 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I have a question: what does this sentence mean? "the jabberjays were abandoned while Katniss breaks the law by hunting, but the laid-back security in District 12 protects her"  Bramble  claw  x   15:37, 24 June 2011 (UTC)


 * It's a poorly worded comparison, I think. I'll go back and fix it if I can make sense of it; if not I'll delete it. Glimmer721  talk  01:26, 26 June 2011 (UTC)


 * In the plot section, it says that as part of the deal, victors of the Hunger Games are granted immunity: immunity from what? You also need to do a little bit of explanation in the plot: readers may not understand what the Hunger Games are, who President Snow is, why there's fighting, etc. We can't assume that readers know what the book is about already, or that they've already read the the plot summaries of the previous books.  Bramble  claw  x   19:47, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

As I'd previously stated, and echoed below: you need to expand the lead. Basically, it should provide a nice summary of all sections of the article. I think, you can look at Moonrise (Warriors)'s lead as an example.  Bramble  claw  x   22:33, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Finally, the DC library page here contains some reviews that you can use that normally require subscription. They generally seem to be the full text of the reviews. Also see the comments made by the other editor below. Good luck with this article,  Bramble  claw  x   17:18, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Olegkagan comments: I'm still a fairly inexperienced Wikipedian, but I noticed you've been waiting a long time to get feedback on Mockingjay and so I figured I'd give it a shot based on what I see as missing/could be improved in this article. Naturally, take from it what you will, discard the rest:


 * Expand the lead: Include something about each section in the article including the inspiration (i.e. something general like "...inspired by the Greek mythology and Roman Gladiator games") a line or two about the plot, reception etc.
 * The article needs to be Wikified to a greater extent. There are a bunch of words that should link to other articles. A few examples that I see right away are Greek, Theseus, and ornithological.
 * The Inspiration and Development section should just be called "Inspiration" or "Sources" since the section does not talk about the book's development.
 * In the same section, it says "Collins has said" twice but the same source for both. Other places in that paragraph have what seems like the wrong tense, "describes" instead of described, "explains" instead of explained. I'm not sure this would be a problem if the transitions between the two inspirations were handled more effectively. That is, short of finding another source which may be a good idea too, if possible.
 * I haven't read any of the books in the Hunger Games trilogy so I had a hard time following the plot description. Since I suspect there's a lot of backstory that's only tangentially related to this article you've got to be careful about including too much. Two suggestions: 1) Short inline descriptions for characters may be a good way to start, for example, "After her rescue by the rebels, Katniss, [a blank-year-old blank...], willingly agrees to become..." 2) Expand it and break it up into a few paragraphs. The plot description on the Hunger Games trilogy article is currently longer then the one in Mockingjay -- this shouldn't be the case, methinks. Breaking it up into paragraphs helps with organization and makes it easier to read . In improving the plot description, my sense is that you should aim to give those of us who haven't read the series some understanding of what's going on in Mockingjay without us having to read three or four other articles.
 * In the Publication History section, you can get rid of the heading Sales and just let it all run together. There's no point in separating the one sentence of release dates (which is already covered in the lead) and the sales. Unless you're going to expand the section to include any other publication history (i.e. further sales figures, different editions), just keep it all one section.
 * You may have done this already and found the resources wanting, but I would consider looking further than newspaper reviews for references relating to, in particular, the themes section. You might consider rustling up some young-adult librarians online (many have blogs) or in rl and see if they can suggest some journals or articles for you.
 * Late addition: The other thing I neglected to mention yesterday but which might be helpful when expanding the article is to, granted you can find the sources, describe how Mockingjay compares to other books within its genre.

In general, the article's B-class rating is accurate. It's mostly well-written and covers the topic in a suitable way. To go further it needs to be expanded per the above suggestions. I may (read: have already) peek in and help out a little. Thanks for working hard on the article. Happy editing! Olegkagan (talk)