Talk:Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Moswento (talk · contribs) 13:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Hello! I'll be reviewing this one. The article looks good after an initial read-through, with no major problems, and I'll post a detailed review below within the next 24 hours (hopefully!) Moswento ^talky 13:09, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Looking forward to your thoughts. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:17, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, I think I'm still within the promised 24 hours - if not, I hope you still accept my review as being legitimate. Overall, this is a great article, which was thoroughly enjoyable as both a reader and a reviewer. The article, in my opinion, is neutral and it covers all the known aspects of her life with no major omissions that I could see from a bit of digging of my own. The text on the whole is very well written, with just a few minor (and I mean minor) comments or queries below. The referencing looks solid, no real questions about that, everything seems cited and what I could check, checks out. Pictures look OK to me. So, once I have responses to the queries below, I think this is ripe for promotion! Moswento ^talky 14:04, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift review! I agree with almost all your suggestions, and there's only one or two that I didn't incorporate; you can see below for details. Let me know if these address your concerns. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:40, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick responses! I agree with all of your changes, and even your non-changes (comments below if you're really bored and have nothing better to do). My concerns are addressed, and I am positively delighted to promote this to GA. Congratulations, and keep up the good work! Moswento ^talky 10:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Tittle

• Shouldn't this article be located at "Lucy Mercer Rutherford"? This would be the common name for most readers.
  •  Done I realized too late that this may mess up GA bot to move the article mid-review, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

Lead

• "is an American woman" - "was an American woman"? (unless you have good evidence that she is one of the living dead)
  •  Done
• "which continued until its discovery" - didn't it also continue after its discovery?
  •  Done Fixed.
• " older, wealthy" - (this may be because I'm British, but) this construction seems awkward to me. I would put something like "wealth socialite Winthrop Rutherford, a widower in his fifties"
  •  Done

Back-ground

• "through both the Panic of 1893 and their lavish spending." - "both" sounds a bit odd here. I think you need a phrase that shows it was a combination of the two, or one augmented by the other, but my mind is a bit blank on what might work...
  • I simply removed "both"--does this work okay?
    • It does, actually. "Sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best", as my mother used to say. Moswento ^talky 10:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Affairy

• "the older woman's social secretary." - why not just "her social secretary"?
  •  Done
• "quit or was fired from" - do Rowley and Persico take different positions on this? If so, might be worth mentioning, even if just with positioning of footnotes.
  • As I recall (I don't have the books right now), both authors described the evidence on this as ambiguous and unclear.
    • Then that's fine to leave as is. Looking again at Rowley through GBooks preview, ambiguity seems to be the order of the day. Moswento ^talky 10:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
• "Franklin was then the Assistant Secretary of the Navy" - the potential ambiguity of "then" (meaning "at that time" or "subsequently") makes this sentence difficult to read. I would suggest switching the clauses to something like "She was assigned to the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a position held at that time by Roosevelt".
  •  Done
• "sick with double pneumonia" - I had to look this up, and there's no convenient wikilink. Might be worth putting something like "infected with pneumonia in both lungs" instead?
  •  Done
• " as she had for the previous decade." - this phrase seems redundant, given that you've already introduced the contrast by describing the incident as a "turning point"
  •  Done

Marriage-y

• "force her into marriage instead with Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough" - I would move the "instead" for readability, either to "instead force her into marriage" or "Duke of Marlborough, instead"
  •  Done
• " through the 1920s" - I would suggest "throughout" or "during" instead (but maybe that's just my British English talking...)
  •  Done
• "secretly dedicated his first published lecture" - I'm a bit confused as to how you secretly dedicate a published lecture? Normally, a published dedication is found in a book's preliminary pages... (maybe he wrote in invisible ink?)
  •  Done
• "at Walter Reed Army Medical Center." Not 100% sure, but "at the Walter Reed Medical Center"?
  • I'm not 100% sure either, but I think the former version is correct, in the same way you'd say "St. John's Hospital" instead of "the St. John's Hospital."
    • Well, "if you're happy, I'm happy", as my mother used to say. Moswento ^talky 10:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
• "knowledge. Knowing" - to avoid repetition, you could say something like "knowledge. Aware of..."
  •  Done

Public revel-ation

• "present for his death" - would "at his death" sound better? To me, for suggests it was a planned event, at suggests she just happened to be there (sorry for even commenting on something so minor, but there we go)
  • Changed to "during" for now. The problem is that I don't want to imply Rutherfurd was actually with him, which she wasn't; just in the house. Maybe that's splitting hairs, though. Let me know what you think.
    • "During" works better than what I suggested. I think it's the right word for the job. Collaboration in practice! Moswento ^talky 10:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
• "Roosevelt secretary" - "Roosevelt's secretary"?
  •  Done
• "news of the content of the memoir broke" - "news broke of the memoir's content(s)" might be better
  •  Done
• "Historain" - I'll let you spot the mistake to avoid embarrassment...
  •  Done

Bibliography

• Why is only Goodwin linked to GBooks? I can get a preview for Rowley too.
  •  Done
• I would also change the Goodwin link, if you keep it, to http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wQcMDdFC1QEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (to remove the search term)
  •  Done