Talk:William Boyd (writer)

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William Boyd (writer) was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake. Reviewed version: May 30, 2007

I have fleshed out William Boyd's biography, cleaned up the novels/screenplay section, added a literary analysis section for his novels, as well as a bibliography for all his written work and provided some plot summaries with relevant sources and external links. Ivankinsman 11:04, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone upload a photograph of the author? I don't know how to do this Ivankinsman 12:29, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

O.K. I have now completed the makeover of the William Boyd article which has taken a lot of time and effort but I believe this now presents a comprehensive profile of the author and his work. Ivankinsman 07:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article.-- Jreferee 23:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fail on Good Article Review

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   a (fair representation): b (all significant views):

5. It is stable.

   

6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

   a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):

7. Overall:

   a Pass/Fail:

I am afraid this article does not meet the required standard. The lead is too short and needs to be expanded to give a good overview of the article - see WP:LEAD for more information on writing a lead.

I am unhappy that this is sufficiently broad in its coverage of the topic given its length. However, of more significant concern is the lack of appropriate citations. The Biography section, for instance has only two references, despite the fact there is challengable material such as "Boyd spent eight years inching his way up the greasy pole of academia, doing the jobs that none of the Fellows wanted to do", which is, incidentally, not written in formal encyclopaedic tone. All quotations should be referenced, all facts should be referenced.

Other NPOV (see WP:NPOV) problems exist in this article "Boyd,... has been, some people believe, "overlooked" as a novelist..." - says who? There are no references, so this looks like an editor's personal opinion.

I think the literary criticism section would be better placed in articles about those books, and its inclusion here seems unjustified, unless you are going to make broad sweeping (but justifiable) comments about his work. Criticques should also be referenced and a balance of views presented.

Most importantly, the tone of this article is often informal, and this needs to be amended with urgency.

I would recommend attempting to first get this up to B-Class in the project scale before attempting to return for a GA review. If you have any questions, please place them on my talk page. Regards --Fritzpoll 18:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)