Talk:Richard Cobb

Richard Cobb was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (July 15, 2017). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

A fact from Richard Cobb appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 16 March 2014 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that a fellow academic described the historian Richard Cobb as "a Parisian street urchin"?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2014/March. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Richard Cobb.

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Richard Cobb/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: HaEr48 (talk · contribs) 14:26, 22 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Starting review. HaEr48 (talk) 14:26, 22 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's an interesting read about an interesting scholar. I feel it needs some work to bring it in line with policy, and to make it more understandable for people unfamiliar with the topic. More specific feedback below.

Several unsupported passages in lead:

“ His works offer exceptionally fine detail culled from a variety of lesser-known sources and analysed within a broad interdisciplinary scope”: the body does not say anything about “lesser-known sources” and “broad interdisciplinary scope”.
“he fashioned numerous highly regarded collections from his large trove of research on French history.”: Not sure how you concluded “highly regarded collections” - the body only mention an award for ‘’A Second Identity’’ and several personal awards such as CBE and Legion d’Honneur
“ the weaving of new collections from extant material has been carried on by other scholars long after his death”: the body did not mention other scholars picking up and publishing his works

Run afoul of WP:WTW in several places:

WP:PEACOCK terms such as “exceptionally fine detail”, “numerous highly regarded collections”, “poignantly intertwines”, “massive and intricate”, “meticulously researched” Please reword these and others to make the article sound less like a promotion material than an encyclopedic description.
WP:WEASEL words, e.g. “ widely regarded as a ‘masterly account’”, “derided by some scholars”, "He was known as", "has been described", all of these hide who said them
“survived by his four children” is discouraged per WP:SURVIVEDBY.
Reduce words like “numerous”, “various”, “massive” when not necessary

In general, try to make the article more accessible to general readers and non-experts. Use simpler words, present terms with contexts to make it understandable (e.g. Marxist historiography, sans-culottes). Many of these things may be obvious to you, but we should aim for the article to be accessible to those with little knowledge in the domain.
“Cobb returned to France and stayed for another nine years.”: did he have an employer during this time?
“Marxist school” or historiography is referenced so much in the article, a brief explanation of what it is would be useful
“Cobb always avoided the doctrinaire presumptions common to his French colleagues”: what “doctrinaire presumptions” does Cobb have that his colleague doesn’t? Without explaining that, this passage isn’t that informative.
"His approach is that of the novelist…”: name the author of this quote
“Cobb's approach has been described ...”: active voice/name the source of this description
“Because his sympathetic insight..”: source of this quote
“Cobb's works have been derided by some scholars as misanthropic..”: name the scholars? See WP:WEASEL
"For academic and literary achievement": maybe “For his academic and literary achievements”?
“his works offer a similar appeal to students of other disciplines “: can you clarify the “similar appeal”?

HaEr48 (talk) 06:30, 24 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Failing the review because there is no response after about 3 weeks. HaEr48 (talk) 09:34, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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