Talk:Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 21:32, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this was in my college library... I should complete this by tomorrow ☠ Jaguar ☠ 21:32, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Initial comments

• The lead prose is looking choppy. Instances like "General Samuel Chapman Armstrong and his Hampton Institute, a missionary, normal school in postbellum Virginia" took me a few attempts for me to make sense out of it. What does Hampton university, a missionary and a normal school have in common here? The lead is the first thing a reader looks at and it must summarise clearly. I'm not too sure what to make out of it!
• The second paragraph could be expanded a little to sum up the reception section. "They felt the book lacked community and state historical context" - was this the book's only criticism?
• "Robert Francis Engs's Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited: Samuel Chapman Armstrong and Hampton Institute, 1839–1893" - is this the actual full title of the book?
• "Engs's Armstrong, in "paternal ... arrogance" believed that he and others of higher status" - ???
• " and served as the first principal of the Hampton Institute in Virginia's Virginia Peninsula" - perhaps the Virginia Peninsula would sound more like it?
• Just curious, should the "References" section be renamed to Bibliography?

On hold

An interesting read - I couldn't find many prose issues but with the ones I did I found them confusing and could not make out what it trurly meant. Hopefully this can be clarified before the GAN closes. The lead could be expanded a little to summarise and would also benefit from a minor copyedit. The toolserver is currently down so I had to check the references manually; they all seem good. Sorry for the short review and please let me know if you have any questions ☠ Jaguar ☠ 21:47, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the review! You were absolutely right about that first line—I think "missionary" threw it off. I rephrased, so let me know what you think? There was much more praise for the book than criticism. I think the lead adequately summarizes it. I know the second paragraph looks somewhat slight, but it's better than just combining it into a single paragraph. Yep, that's the full title of the book. Those academics. The paternal arrogance part should be fine. He was often described with that phrase (of claiming to knowing what's best, somewhere between fatherly and domineering). Fixed the peninsula redundancy. References should be okay as such (last sentence of WP:ASL). czar ⨹ 12:52, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast response, czar. Yep it's good to be back on Wikipedia. The lead is definitely looking much more clearer now and regarding the syntax with the paternal arrogance thing, that too should be fine. I suppose that you have to stay true to the sources in cases like this! Also I didn't know that about WP:ASL, thanks for pointing that out. Anyway, promoting ☠ Jaguar ☠ 18:41, 8 April 2015 (UTC)