Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Miranda Otto/archive1

Miranda Otto

Self-nomination: After finding this article to be very short and a mess a while ago, I did a massive re-write and put it through a peer review. It is currently recognized as a good article and I feel it is both well written and stable. -- Underneath-it-All 03:37, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment WP:LEAD is a little on the brief side. Jkelly 04:03, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
• Object—2a. Let's look at the top.
  • "is an Australian theatre and Australian Film Institute-nominated film actress. She began her career in the Australian film Emma's War in 1986 and gained critical recognition in 1991's The Girl Who Came Late."—Over-repetition: "Australian" occurs four times in the first two and a half lines (I'm unsure how to fix this, though); "film" occurs three times in the same text. As well, "1991's The girl who came late" is clumsy—the year would be better in parentheses after the title of the film. Many readers, especially women, will prefer "actor" to "actress" as non-sexist, and I note that it's a piped link to "actor" anyway.
  • "She performs predominantly in minor roles in a wide variety of low-budget and major studio films"—remove "a wide variety of".
  • "Otto was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia."—You've told us umpteen times that she's Australian (the word has already been linked, too), so the triple bunger could be reduced to a double.
  • "She was raised in Newcastle and Brisbane, but briefly resided in Hong Kong ..."—The HK thing does not contradict the previous clause, so make it "and", not "but".
  • "Her parents remain married, but they live with other partners."—Is this really important to the topic? Right at the top, it verges on a breach of privacy and raises questions of relevance.
  • "Growing up she excelled academically and in ballet, even considering it as a career option before realizing that she could not become a soloist due to having a slight scoliosis as many ballet soloists had to be physically perfect." The odd comma would make for easier reading (here, after "up"). But why not something more specific, such as "In her teens,.. "? Consider removing "even". It's a rather long, complex sentence; consider a semicolon after "soloist" and a rewording of the most unsatisfactory final clause (problems with "having", "slight", "many" and "had").

Not "compelling, even brilliant" prose. Needs a good copy-edit throughout, not just a fixing of these examples. Tony 04:21, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I have acted on your suggestions and have worked them into the article. Thank you. -- Underneath-it-All 14:16, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

• Response. OK, thanks, but lots more to do. In particular, there's a tendency to assert the inner emotions of the subject, without referential support and inviting POV problems. Like these:
  • "The film was hard to do for Otto as it required multiple sex scenes, which made her uncomfortable." "Otto began to doubt her career choice as she was not getting the parts she auditioned for and underwent a loss in self confidence. The feeling lifted partially when she was offered a part she loved in Love Serenade (1996), but, even then, she was not wholly convinced that acting was what she wanted to do with her life."

• • Clumsy and ungrammatical on a number of counts: "At the audition she was able to get into her characters head and how she thought, landing the part."

• • Early life—three one-sentence paragraphs in a row.

• • "When Otto first read the script she did not want to audition for the part, for fear that she would not get it." Last three words are ambiguous. How do you know that she didn't want to audition? Reference?

• • "which caused a sensation, being labelled as "Australian Gothic"—the cause and effect is unclear: was it a sensation becuase of the label?

You clearly know the subject, but do we need personal details such as: "She and O'Brien are determined to raise their daughter on their own and rotate their working life, with one parent always around to babysit." in an encyclopedia article?

I've tidied the writing, somewhat. Underneath-it-All, would you be capable of correcting some of the other issues while I continue to rewrite portions? —Eternal Equinox | talk 21:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I will start to address the issues as soon as possible. Thanks for your help. -- Underneath-it-All 21:23, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

• Please don't strike out my text—I'll do that, thanks; allow me to judge whether you've addressed those problems. Sometimes, contributors put a brief note underneath a reviewer's points, saying that they've been attended to. Tony 09:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm withdrawing the nomination until all the issues have been addressed. I currently do not have the time to dedicate the attention this articles needs to elevate it to featured article status as of now, but I will work on it in the future and re-nominate it then. Thank you Tony for all your suggestions on how to improve the article. -- Underneath-it-All 15:24, 29 May 2006 (UTC)