Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Carmen/archive1

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[edit] Carmen

Self-nom. This seemed to pass its PR with only minor problems that have now been fixed. I believe that this page has great research, particularly on the history of the opera. --Alexs letterbox 23:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. It's good, except that it fails Criterion 2(a) badly. Here are some examples of faulty prose from the top:
    • 'Her pursuit of change drives her from passion to passion. After she has loved many,..'. 'Her pursuit of change' is an odd way of saying that she's promiscuous; better to remove the sentence. 'After she has loved many what? I suppose 'men' is the assumption, but it needs to be said.
    • 'the woman of the title, Carmen'. It's simple, but somehow clumsy; 'the eponymous Carmen' is the usual expression; if you don't like that word, please consider rewording it another way.
    • 'he is sunk in a pit of grief'. Sorry, but this language is ridiculous; did you get it from a program note? If so, it needs to be paraphrased in modern, plain English.
    • 'Bizet’s original plan was to have written the full score by December 1873, however caused rehersals to be postponed until August 1874, with the premiere in October.' Seriously ungrammatical; consider 'write' instead of 'have written'; there's a misspelling.
    • 'It took him a further two months to complete the orchestrations.' Shouldn't that be singular 'orchestration'? In any case, this would be simpler and better: 'to score the work'.
    • 'the libretto was not liked by the artistic community, who considered it immoral.' Can you go for a more economical expression, such as: 'the artistic community considered the libretto to be immoral.'?
    • 'The premiere did not go well, and was recorded in great detail by Halévy.' Do the two clauses belong in the same sentence? Does one flow logically to the other?

The whole article needs a thorough, critical run through by a word-nerd. I might be wrong, but it does look as though you've 'borrowed' some text from early 20th-century program notes or encyclopedias. Apologies if this is not the case. Tony 01:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Some phrases did come from The Complete Opera Goers Guide, 1921. I'll have another run through it. --Alexs letterbox 02:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I've tried rewriting it, it seems okay to me, but my English is appalling. --Alexs letterbox 04:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
  • No, you need to enlist the support of one or two other people who are good at editing; fresh eyes and several hours are required to bring this up to FA standard. 'Compelling, even brilliant' prose is required. It's nowhere near that. Tony 05:50, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

PS If you're 'borrowing' slabs of text from other publications, some reference citations are needed, at least a few to give us an idea where things are coming from. It's a moral issue as well as a matter of credibility. But the language is still the main problem. Tony 05:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Object. The lead could be improved, some of the article needs wikification, and there are too few References and footnotes. The lists need to be turned into prose and expanded. Needs a good copy-edit, and refer to peer review for more specific comments/suggestions. — Wackymacs 20:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed; however, please don't overwikifiy. See Wikipedia:Make only links relevant to the context, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Internal links and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting. Tony 01:01, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I hereby withdraw my nomination. Thankyou, the comments here were far more useful than those at PR. --Alexs letterbox 06:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)