Wikipedia:Peer review/Chaucer's special manuscript words/archive1

Chaucer's special manuscript words

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I ultimately wish to have it as a Featured list candidate.

Thanks, Doug Coldwell ^talk 20:05, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch comments: What a cool idea for a list! With WP:WIAFL in mind, here are some suggestions for improvement.

• Biggest problem as I see it with this making FL is references - it is not clear to me from reading the article what the sources are for the words listed. It is OK in lists to have general references, but the source of the words has to be provided. If each tale or work has a different ref, this should be noted in each section. See WP:V (since there is a very long list of References at the end, I am guessing this will not be a problem).

• To make clearer I have put in the wording: Below is a complete list of the 1977 Chaucer's special manuscript words that are first found in the existing manuscripts below as listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as being the first cited author.

• Some of the references are incomplete and need more information. For example, the OED needs publisher, date, edition. See WP:CITE

• Not sure which particular references you are speaking of?

The OED inline citation has below and has as second reference instructions for OED Online to get first cited author:

Simpson, J. A., Weiner, E. S. C., The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, Oxford UP, 1989, Reprinted 1991. ISBN 0198611862.

WP:CITE uses example:

Ritter, Ron. The Oxford Style Manual, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 1.

• Internet refs need URL, title, author if known, publisher and date accessed. {{cite web}} and other cite templates may be helpful. For example Current ref 3 is just "Chaucer's words"

• URLs use the recommended {{cite web}} template

• The image should be identified as the manuscript for Balade to Rosemounde. I also wonder if any of the images of Chaucer from his article would work here? I know most of them are much later.

• I prefer to stick with just this one image to keep it simple. It has a Chaucer original manuscript with words - what this article is about.

• The image also needs alt text for the visually impaired - see WP:ALT

• Don't know anything further I can do here. I asked the Help Desk and they had no further suggestions.
• Did give reference on each image for the wording.

• Per WP:HEAD the headers should not also contain wikilinks

• fixed.

• There are many places where the article could provide context to the reader - see WP:PCR. For example, there could be a few sentences on Chaucer, or a sentence or two on each of the work (each of the Tales), or even listing the minor works
• I also wonder how the words were identified / chosen. Is it a complete list or is it a selection of the words? Again this needs to be explained, and is also a matter of refs (which sources were used?)
• I noticed that "Dives" is linked to wikt:dives which is about Diving (aquatics), but I think Lazarus and Dives is meant
• I also wondered if the list of words might be made into a table, perhaps give the original spelling (maybe even quote the line), the modern spelling, maybe etymology, not sure what else.

• Made table of 5 dozen examples of Usages showing Middle English and Modern English usages, with the name of Chaucer's poem and estimated year it came out.

• Language needs some polish / work in places - needs a copyedit / tightened in places - here are a few examples
  • The first sentence seems to be missing some words: English words first attested in Chaucer are a set of about two thousand English words that Geoffrey Chaucer is credited as being the first [to?] use[, which are?] found today in existing manuscripts.[1][2][3]
  • Europe? Were early English words really in everday speech in Europe too? The words were already in everyday speech in fourteenth century England (especially London) and other parts of Europe.[6][7]
  • Awkward? These manuscript words first found written in Chaucer's work, from the The Canterbury Tales and other of his publications were published in the fourteenth century.[10][11]

Hope this helps. If my comments are useful, please consider peer reviewing an article, especially one at Wikipedia:Peer review/backlog (which is how I found this article). I do not watch peer reviews, so if you have questions or comments, please contact me on my talk page. Yours, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)