Talk:Ornithological Dictionary

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ornithological Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 00:31, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks for taking this on. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:27, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Summary of good article criteria

• 1a: Clear prose, good spelling and grammar: no issues found.
• 1b: Layout etc: the lead does not adequately summarize the rest of the article, and instead seems to include claims not supported by the rest of the article.
• 2a: Sources are properly formatted: yes, but see note about the link for the primary source.
• 2b: Sources are reliable: yes.
• 2c: No original research: dubious. There is a lot of unsourced material, some of which is purely a description of the primary source but some of which looks more an interpretation in need of sources.
• 2d: No copyvio or plagiarism: I didn't see any; the main book sources are offline, so I couldn't check them, but they are used for such a small portion of the article text that copying seems unlikely. The other sources are mostly used only as sources of direct quotes, so again there is little scope for copying.
• 3a: Addressed the main aspects of the topic: mostly, but see the missing topics and missing sources issues below.
• 3b: Avoids unnecessary detail: no.
• 4: Neutral: Yes.
• 5: Stable: Yes, last major expansion was a year ago.
• 6a: Images are properly licensed: Yes.
• 6b: Images are relevant and well-captioned: Yes, with minor issues in one caption wording

Lead

• "first systematic attempt to compile a complete British list of birds" is unsourced, and does not summarize sourced material later

Removed.

• "remained in use throughout the nineteenth century": again, unsourced, and not a summary of later material

Removed.

• "began to make it the object of serious study": where in the main text of the article is its place in the serious study of ornithology described? It does say that it was an important predecessor to MacGillivray and Yarrell but that's different from being the beginning of serious study. And in fact this seems to be contradicted by the Mullens quote which marks the earlier work of Willughby and Ray as the true beginning of serious study.

Reworded, mentioning Willughby and Ray.

• cirl bunting: this seems like a randomly chosen example of a species described in this book, rather than one of any particular significance. What is the point of mentioning it in the lead?

He discovered it; cited.

Outline

• Most of this section appears to be original research, obtained by looking at Montagu's book and inferring the principles Montagu used to compile it, rather than referring to a reliable source for those principles. The whole section only has one footnote, for a tangential fact regarding the later distribution of the example species. The following passage from WP:RS seems particularly relevant:

"A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source. Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them."

The great majority of the outline is purely descriptive. Few plot outlines on Wikipedia give any page references; I have however added some here. The other sections of the article are based on cited secondary sources. I have addressed the specific points raised below.

• Specific interpretive facts that are claimed here without a source (not even a page number in Montagu where the same statement is made) include the claim that Montague follows Latham, the claim that the listing by English form is made to facilitate searching, and the description of the structure of a typical entry.

Page numbers: provided.

Latham: removed.

Facilitate searching: removed phrase.

Typical entry: removed claim, just describing an example entry, with page refs.

• The cirl bunting is used as a running example, but there is no article text saying so; instead, the second paragraph of the body section starts talking about these specific birds for no clear reason.

Explained why, ref Birds Britannica, and footnote.

• The caption of the bird photo reads as if "male cirl bunting" is a species. Can we reword to avoid this?

Done.

• There is a lot of what looks like extraneous detail. Why should the reader care about the definitions of Aberdevine, Yelper, Cere, or Pes Compedes, or for that matter about what the specific first and last terms in the main text, list of technical terms, and catalog of authors are?

If the reader is interested, and we must assume that they are, then they will care about the variety of terms and the breadth of the text, and its organisation.

Reception

• This is mostly a quote farm; would it be possible to include more summaries of the reception of the book as actual text, rather than leaving it only as a collection of undigested chunks of other people's prose?

Well, to some extent the point of a reception section is to let people speak in their own voice, requiring longer quotations, unlike in any other part of an article. It may also be worth remarking that quite often, 19th century reviews are somewhat wordy but collapse to not very much when summarised in modern English - and the tone of the review is then lost. I have however done a little paraphrasing which I hope is an acceptable compromise.

Missing topics

• There were two editions of the book. How do they differ and what is the history here?

Added section on Editions, bibliographic ref for 2nd edition, and a brief description of the changes made by Rennie after Montagu's death.

Sources

• Google books can't find the ISBN for Means & Mearns, but I think that is their problem not ours. Sadly, both book sources are offline, so I'll have to take on good faith that the article accurately represents what they say and avoids overly close paraphrasing. Nevertheless, they both look reliable.

Noted.

• The separation of sources into primary and secondary is helpful and appropriate. Often (especially for earlier books) one lists the location of the publisher, as e.g. London: J. White; this might be helpful to add here.

Done.

• Why is the link to the actual text of the book in a completely different place to the citation to the book?

Merged.

• There are some scholarly sources on this work that seem highly relevant but are not used as sources here. In particular see
  • "In search of the natural system: problems of zoological classification in Victorian Britain", MA Di Gregorio, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 1982, JSTOR 23328374

I logged on to JSTOR but was unable to view the text of this one.

• • "Some background to the life and publications of Colonel George Montagu (1753–1815)", RJ Cleevely, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, 1978, doi:10.3366/jsbnh.1978.8.4.445

I can only see the first page of this, which seems to show that the paper looks by intention at topics outwith the Ornithological Dictionary. I've added some of the species named for him to George Montagu (naturalist), however, citing this source.

• • "Review of: Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary; New Edition, With a Plan of Study, and many New Articles and Original Observations. By James Rennie", W Swainson, Phil. Mag, 1831, doi:10.1080/14786443108675560

Done, thanks.

• • "John Templeton's Annotated Copy of Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary (1802)", NF McMillan, The Irish Naturalists' Journal, 1975, JSTOR 25537877

—David Eppstein (talk) 01:24, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't say much, but the DNB tells the same story, so I've mentioned it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:11, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Second reading

The lead now summarizes the text much better. Using citations to page numbers in the primary source is a big improvement in the outline section. The reorganization and expansion of the Reception section is also an improvement.

Thankyou.

In Editions, the new paragraph on Rennie has three sentences in close succession beginning "it was"; can we avoid this dreary repetition?

Done.

Other than that, this looks close to ready. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:46, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks for the careful review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:50, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok, passing this article. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:40, 6 December 2015 (UTC)