Wikipedia:Peer review/Sharing the Secret/archive1

Sharing the Secret

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I want the opinions of more experienced article authors. This article is about a 10 year old made-for-tv movie. There isn't much information about the movie. In fact, I watched it in 9 minute segments on youtube. Any comments or criticisms would be appreciated.

Thanks, Brendanmccabe (talk) 05:16, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This sounds like an interesting and worthwhile documentary. However, if little has been written about it by reliable sources, it will be hard to greatly improve the article. Blogs generally do not meet the WP:RS guidelines. All I can suggest is that you keep looking for reliable sources for more information. It might help to discuss the sourcing problems on the article's talk page and to ask there if anyone has ideas for expansion. Here are a few suggestions related to prose issues and the Manual of Style guidelines.

• Inline citations go after the punctuation, not before; e.g., "in the United States[1]," should be "in the United States,[1]" and so on throughout the article.

Plot

• "Adjusting to her parents' divorce and trying to live up to their opposing compliments... ". - Is "compliments" the right word? It usually means something like "terms of praise". Do you mean "expectations", perhaps?

• Where do the direct quotations in the plot come from? Direct quotations generally require a citation to a source. If the source is the film, it should be cited right after the end of the quoted material or, if punctuation follows the quote, right after that punctuation. Since you are using the "cite" family of templates, the one to use would be {{cite video}}, a filled-in example of which can be found at WP:CIT.

• "When the doctor asks if she has been eating, she says that she hasn't recently... " - They are not always easy to spot, but contractions like "hasn't" are generally spelled out in Wikipedia articles; e.g., "has not". Direct quotations containing contractions are an exception to this style guideline.

• "She then hides her scarred knuckles, called Russell's signs." - Slightly more smooth might be "She then hides her knuckles, scarred by Russell's signs from self-induced vomiting."

• "This sets off a major conflict between the mother and daughter, and Dr. Moss decides Beth must enter counseling." - It's not clear at first who "Dr. Moss" is since this is the first mention of a "Dr. Moss". I think it must mean Beth's mother. Are you sure that she's an M.D.? Even if she is, Wikipedia's style is to use descriptions rather than academic titles. Psychologists are not typically MDs; if you know the psychologist's first name, you could identify her in that way or simply as "Beth's mother".

• "This conflict is paralleled in the film as Beth's grandmother (Diane Ladd) tries to console her daughter without really understanding her situation." - Is she trying to console her daughter or do you mean her "granddaughter"?

• referring to her as a "trophy wife" - Nothing inside a direct quotation should be linked. See WP:MOSQUOTE. I don't think you need the quotation marks here in any case.

Release

• "and by Infinity Media from 2006 to present" - Words like "present", "now", and "currently" are tricky because they change in meaning as time passes; that is, what is "present" in 2011 may not be present in 2012 because circumstances have changed. It's generally better to give a specific year or date range or to rewrite to avoid the ambiguity. You might say, for example, "and by Infinity Media in 2006".

• "The film has not been released on DVD in the US." - Better would be "As of early 2011, the film has not been released on DVD in the US."

• "Rotten Tomatoes lists an audience ranking of 54 percent and the eating-disorder blog Disordered Times ranked the movie at five out of five, calling it "one of the best-made films on eating disorders ever," and saying that it "does not exaggerate for 'shock value,' nor does it portray eating disorders in a glamorous light..." - Too complex. Suggestion: "Rotten Tomatoes lists an audience ranking of 54 percent. The eating-disorder blog Disordered Times ranked the movie at five out of five, calling it "one of the best-made films on eating disorders ever" and saying that it "does not exaggerate for 'shock value,' nor does it portray eating disorders in a glamorous light... ".

• Would it be helpful to explain what the Rotten Tomatoes ranking means? Does it mean that 54 percent of the audience viewed the film favorably? Were respondents answering a simple "yes-or-no" question?

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog at WP:PR; that is where I found this one. I don't usually watch the PR archives or check corrections or changes. If my comments are unclear, please ping me on my talk page. Finetooth (talk) 21:27, 11 January 2011 (UTC)