Talk:Harvard Girl/GA1

GA Review[edit]

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In general, I think this article is good, but I would suggest expanding and clarifying a few parts and asking for another copyedit.

I read on the article talk page that you have not actually read this book. Is it possible for you to obtain a copy of the book and read it? Doing so would allow you expand on the "Description" section. I feel that this section is thin and the reader does not really get a good sense of the "meat" of the book from the article. Several details are repeated throughout the article, instead. (The book is almost 400 pages - surely there is more to say!)

I see from your userpage that you read Mandarin Chinese. I was wondering what kinds of Chinese sources might be available for this article. Clearly, the main audience for the book was Chinese, so the bulk of the sources are probably not in English. I'm worried that by relying exclusively on English sources, the article does not adequately fulfill WP:NPOV. (I don't know if such sources would be in Mandarin or not, however.)

~~Have you checked Lexis Nexis and other subscription databases for other news stories about this book? I did a quick search on Lexis Nexis and found a few more sources that look promising.~~

this experience changed her views about America and made her interested in applying to American universities - What was the change exactly?

~~What are the titles of some of the books that this one spawned?~~

The tone of the article is a bit colloquial at times. I tried to replace words such as "top" and "get", which are both colloquial and vague. I suggest another copyediting pass by an uninvolved editor. If you cannot find a good copyeditor quickly, let me know and I'll copyedit the article again in a day or so.

I hope these suggestions are helpful. I am putting the article on hold for ten days. Awadewit (talk) 19:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am a bit busy tonight so I might not be able to work on this much, but I will try to address these issues by the weekend. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In response to your first suggestion...I might be able to get a copy of the book, but it will be many months before I'm able to read it; I might not even have time during the summer (and even if I do, I am a slow reader in Chinese...I can read and understand it, but it takes some time). So if this review will hinge on that, then I would probably just have to withdraw it for now and try again sometime in the future. Some of the other sources in the article might have some more details on what sort of stuff is in the book, I'll have to look.

As long as some of the other sources can beef up the description of the book, I won't hold up the review over this. However, I do think that it is a best practice. Awadewit (talk) 18:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As for looking into LexisNexis and Chinese sources, that is something I can do. I will do some perusing tonight and over the weekend.

Did a quick search through several databases that I have access to through my university library, and added everything I could glean from those. I haven't really gone to Chinese sources yet, just because reading the articles is more effort (with an English article I can tell at a glance if it's gonna be useful or not, but reading most Chinese articles is a bit of a commitment...) and I'm not quite as sure where to look, since most of the Chinese reading I do is just within my little field and I'm not as familiar with what other search resources are out there. I can snoop around more, though. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you searched LexisNexis for non-English sources? There is a box to check for that. You might also ask a reference librarian for advice on how to search for Chinese newspapers and magazines. If you are at a university, there should be subject area librarian dedicated to the library's Chinese collections who can help you. Awadewit (talk) 18:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I keep getting an application error when I try to search LN in Chinese. I have been experimenting with other databases at my university today, but not having any luck finding anything (although interestingly I do get several hundred hits for science journals when I do a search for the book title in Chinese, even when it's in quotes...not sure why that is happening). I'll keep fiddling around. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just waiting on the possibility of Chinese sources (which I think would be a wonderful addition). I realize that this might take a while. Awadewit (talk) 05:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I added a bit of stuff that I found just by googling around a bit. This was a good suggestion; I stumbled across some things that were never mentioned in any of my English sources (most of which are older, other than the 2007 NYT article which is only a passing mention anyway). For example, I didn't realize a follow-up book was published, and right now I'm very tickled by the title Harvard Girl 2, which sounds like it should be an action movie. (Maybe I'm just too inculcated with this street-fighting, car-chasing Hollywood society.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 06:40, 12 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

this experience changed her views about America - in the source I got that from, it's referring to breaking some of the stereotypes about America that were/are common among a lot of non-Americans. I'm not sure if it even really needs to be included; here is the relevant quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education source, to help judge whether or not it is important enough to keep in the article:
"the one-month exchange program in Bethesda, Md., helped her break stereotypes that she held about the United States. Before she went to the States, she thought that it would be like a Hollywood movie. She and several other Chinese exchange students were surprised that they didn't see any street fights or police-car chases."[1]

I would include the bit about the Hollywood movie, street fights and police-car chases. I think it is important to convey the idea that much of the world's ideas about America are shaped by the movies. This is actually a revelation to many. :) Awadewit (talk) 18:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tried to work it in here, let me know what you think. I guess you're right that it's good to throw in.... in college I helped out with orientation and stuff for a lot of international students, so I got pretty used to "hey, this isn't like NYC!" and "what, you don't have a gun?" and stuff like that, but I forget that not everyone in America realizes this is how the world perceives us :). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:43, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Book titles... I have the titles for a bunch of them, mentioned in various sources, and will add some to the article.

Added a whole bunch; now, if anything, we have more than necessary. I was thinking of putting them in a bulleted list in a subsection, but I worried that 1) that could become a target for junk editing/spam; 2) it might look ugly and useless, since I don't have author/date/publisher information for both of them. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is fine as is. I agree with your assessment about the problems of a list. Awadewit (talk) 18:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As for copyediting, once I've addressed these content concerns I will try to find someone to do a quick copyedit. I'm pretty terrible at copyediting my own articles (since I already know what I'm trying to say, and therefore don't notice parts that are awkward or anything) so it's best if I find someone on the outside to do it. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:35, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have gotten User:A to do a quick copyedit. Let me know if more is needed; I might also do another once-over myself. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:48, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see you are still copyediting. I'll come back to look at this. Awadewit (talk) 18:27, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'm pretty much done with my round of copyediting, for now. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:37, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question How is source search coming? Awadewit (talk) 04:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest, I haven't really done anything since this small addition (also linked above, it's nothing new). I snooped around some of the databases I have access to here and none of them are much use (we have some wonderful databases of Classical Chinese texts, but very little in the way of contemporary stuff), and LexisNexis seems to just not like when I put Chinese characters into it, no matter what browser I use. The stuff in that edit above I just found by googling around, random Xinhua and Sina articles; I might be able to find some more stuff like that but I'm not sure how valuable it will be. Granted, those ones I found earlier did have some nice surprises in them, so it certainly wouldn't hurt to peek into more, I just might not have the energy for it for a few more days. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:54, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's fine. Just drop me a note when your are done. Awadewit (talk) 18:51, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I made a couple more small additions, and I think I'm ready to sit tight for a little while now. In general, there seem to be several times when there were "bursts" of articles about this—specifically, around 2001-2003 in the US, when journalists and educators apparently started realizing how big a deal this book was in China, and then in late 2004 in China, when the anti-HarvardGirl book came out and stirred up attention...I assume there was also a big media buzz in China in 1999-2000 (when Liu was admitted, and then when the book actually came out), but I'm having a hard time finding articles from then (presumably because they're overshadowed by the more recent hubbub). In any of these "bursts", there are a bunch of articles that all say similar things (or, in the case of the Chinese ones, that all say the exact same things, thanks to the rampant copyvio that goes on at blogs and news websites over there). Anyway, I'm sure there is more out there that can be said, but right now I feel more or less satisfied with what I've dug up so far (although you can let me know if you think there are still any major holes or deficiencies).

I also have a minor MoS question pending at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (use of Chinese language)#Traditional and simplified characters—basically, all the Chinese text in the article and the sources I added before is simplified characters, but the Epoch Times source I just threw in is traditional, and I don't know whether it would be better to put its title in simplified (for consistency within the article) or to keep it traditional (for faithfulness to the source). Hopefully I'll get a response there pretty soon (I spammed a couple editors who I know do a lot of editing in this area, with links to my question). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:17, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the additions to the article are good. I'm going to pass this now. Awadewit (talk) 03:11, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]