Wikipedia:Peer review/Katie Holmes/archive1

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Katie Holmes[edit]

I completely overhauled this article. It is a thorough account of her life, films, and her relationship with Tom Cruise. I inserted footnotes galore and it has illustrations. This was formerly on peer review at Wikipedia:Peer review/Katie Holmes (old)/archive1. PedanticallySpeaking 18:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think it looks really good, though I don't care for the use of Image:Dawson-katie.jpg in the Dawson's Creek section. You can only see about 1/5 of subject in the picture. How about this? Image:CreekPromoHolmesJackson.JPG AriGold 19:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I always enjoy reading articles that you have worked on and this is no exception. I am extremely impressed by recent edits, especially as the article was very good to begin with. Well done! I think the only problem here is that it is a little too detailed in places, for example "Holmes told The Toledo Blade her favorite film was Pretty in Pink with Molly Ringwald and the three people she most wanted to meet were Pope John Paul II, Senator John H. Glenn, and actress Meryl Streep. She confessed her "secret vices" were Starbucks coffee and jelly beans and the three words best describing herself as "honest, determined, and imaginative."" - I don't think that we need to know things like this (well, maybe the quote from Holmes in this instance could stay). Also, the images need identification of their respective copyright holders and fair use rationale on their description pages. I'd like to reiterate that I think this article is excellent and extremely close to featured article quality, and it's always nice to see comprehensive and well-developed pages on popular culture-related topics. Extraordinary Machine 19:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • What about moving that bit, which I found interesting as background, to a trivia section at the end? PedanticallySpeaking 15:39, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I myself am opposed to trivia sections, but I wouldn't mind all that much if material such as the sentence I quoted above was moved down into a trivia section. It's just that it seemed to "jump out" and upset the flow of the article when I was reading it. However, I do think that the quote from Holmes could still be worked into the main body of the article. Extraordinary Machine 19:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Trivia sections always wind up being junk collectors. What about moving the above to Wikiquote? Jkelly 19:38, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't like the WikiQuote idea because only a tiny bit of that is actually a quote from her. And nothing in there is anything I'd think of as "quotable". I'll look at the sentence again, see if I can't smooth the flow of the narrative. PedanticallySpeaking 21:24, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks good to go, plenty of footnotes and illustrations and has come a long way from my little bit of work. I too think the image change from Image:Dawson-katie.jpg which is somewhat grainy to Image:CreekPromoHolmesJackson.JPG is a good idea. In the Hometown reaction section the quote from her Toledo friend has an improperly spelled word. I know it's a quote but it grabs the eye.--Dakota ~ ε ° 20:05, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for your praise. I've read this thing so many times, I'm amazed how typos go unnoticed. I'm too familiar, I guess, which is why I put it up here. I've corrected the misspelling. PedanticallySpeaking 15:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am commenting here in response to a spam request on my talk page. I have no interest in this article other than the "Personal life" section. That said, I think the section is missing a couple of things. I have read that Katie's parents disapprove of the relationship with Tom Cruise, yet the article describes her family's reaction to their engagment as 100% positive. Also, I read that she lived with, not just was engaged to, Chris Klein; yet she claimed to be a virgin when she got engaged to Tom Cruise, and she said that she would not have sex until she got married. She apparently later changed her mind.
    I freely acknowledge the possibility that I am misremembering what I read, or that what I read was incorrect. If you want me to find sources for these claims, I will have time a little later tonight. TacoDeposit 20:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, believe me, I've read through enormous amounts of material for this article. I know there are rumors floating around on-line and in the tabloids, but I tried to stick to citing print sources that have a reputation. I've heard the talk of "auditioning" actresses and the speculation that there's a "contract" but I've not seen that with any credible sourcing. So I'm holding back for now on several of these points. PedanticallySpeaking 15:42, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good overall. Need to eliminate the last few orphan paragraphs as per User:Taxman/Featured article advice. The second lead paragraph could stand to be a bit longer too. I also had heard her parents weren't happy, and I don't know how widespread it was, but there was certainly talk of a leaked contract Katie had signed to stay with Tom for 5 yrs and have a child. $5m or something. Now that could be just urban legend stuff, and shouldn't be mentioned if it is of course, but it's worth checking in to. - Taxman Talk 20:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you mean I should eliminate the section heads in the "Personal Life" section such as "Hometown reaction"? As for some of the rumors, see my comment to Taco Deposit above. I've seen in the tabloids some of these things, but these articles often are "a source", "a friend", etc., and no names worries me. So I've tried to avoid citing from anything but the more reputable publications. Yes, yes, I rely on People several times, but that's the gold standard next to some of these ;) I'll look at that lead as well. PedanticallySpeaking 15:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok, if you've searched, and can't find anything valuable in print then you've done the right thing. I just thought that one might have risen to the level of a widespread unsubstantiated rumor enough to be mentioned as such. But again, without evidence supporting that, adding it is not good. And no, I don't mean remove those headings, I mean paragraphs that are 1,2 or even 3 sentences are too short and should either be expanded or merged smoothly with related material. Now that I count them, here's all three, the paragraphs beginning with "In 2005, Holmes played ...", "Holmes purchased a townhouse ...", and "Cruise proposed ...". - Taxman Talk 16:03, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Years are overlinked (they should generally only be linked when part of a full date; see date formatting). Also, I'd remove Dawson's Creek from the See also section, as only things not mentioned in the article should be listed there, and Dawson's has its own subsection. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 00:04, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've removed the "see also" link you cite. That was there from when this article was much shorter. I'm probably too eager with the brackets, I know and I wonder if someone more familiar with our date policy than I would be willing to go over this article? PedanticallySpeaking 15:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looks excellent. I have one minor quibble. THe second sentence - "Only her second role, Dawson's Creek made Holmes a star, praised by critics and adored by fans." - looks a bit odd to me. How about something like "In only her second role, Dawson's Creek, Holmes became a star, praised by critics and adored by fans."? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 00:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks good. Excellent work! Figaro 13:05, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi PS, Great article, very well written, referenced etc. Great quotes, and appropriate level of detail. The only minor change I would make to the text is simply changing the header "Tom Cruise" to "Relationship with Tom Cruise" as it's the relationship being discussed rather than Cruise himself. Otherwise I would completely support the text as FA worthy. There is still some work to be done with the images however. Image:HolmesBat.jpg needs a source and fair use rationale, however if this can't be provided I could make a screenshot from Batman Begins - let me know if you would like me to do this. I don't have anything for Dawson's Creek and the same problem applies to Image:CreekPromoHolmesJackson.JPG. The image Image:PiecesOfApril.jpg is fine but needs a fair use rationale. Source and fair use needed for Image:Katiegap.jpg plus I think the tag is wrong. It's not a promo photo - no way could it be. It is more likely a magazine cover, so needs to be retagged. As it's an advertisement for "Gap" I think the fair use rationale must be very strong to justify why we would be promoting a product within a Wikipedia article. (I'd prefer to just see the image deleted but that's my own opinion). Tom Cruise (what an idiot!) jumping on the couch - Image:Cruiseonoprah.jpg - needs a source, even just saying it was taken from a television broadcast would be fine, but it still needs a fair use rationale. User:AriGold was the uploader for some of these images, so I will drop a message onto Ari's talk page and see if Ari can recall where the images came from etc. The article has developed into something very strong, since it's last nomination. Kudos to you! Rossrs 01:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's (Tom Cruise & Oprah here if you have screen capture) [1]--Dakota ~ ε ° 01:58, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • thanks. have added the link to the image page as a source. Rossrs 10:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • No problem glad to help.--Dakota ~ ε ° 16:23, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • PS, I've reread the article and there are just a couple of other things I think need to be looked at. The comment in discussing The Gift - "and winds up dead for her trouble" reminds me a of a film-noir voiceover. I think it should be made a little more encyclopedic. Also, in the "Guest appearances" and "Personal life" sections, the name "Holmes" appears 12 times in three short paragraphs. Many of these could be substituted with "she". Also some of these sentences are quite short and some could perhaps be joined together. The article flows really well until that point, then it kind of gets awkward for just that section, and then it flows along well again. Sorry I didn't spot these things earlier - I guess I have to read something a few times to see everything that's there. Rossrs 13:15, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks very much for your help, Rossrs. You're right. Many of these passages were written at different times and stiching them together later was not seamless. I've replaced a number of "Holmes" with "she", "her", "the actress". The sentence about The Gift did sound off. I've changed it. I don't know much about these images. I did not upload any of them. I will say about the Gap ad, I'd say that's most definitely fair use; it's a print ad and I should think the Gap people wouldn't object to some additional circulation of it. I'll take a look at the images, though, and see what I can do. I've also gone through and tried to polish things, correcting punctuation, rephrasing things, and correcting some problems in the notes. PedanticallySpeaking 15:12, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Huge, well-sourced. Very good. The intro contains two sentences that are awkwardly constructed, the first of which is, "The part on the teen soap, only her second professional role, made Holmes a star, the actress receiving tremendous praise from critics and adoration from fans." That same problem with the last subordinate clause is in the following sentence. Also, spell-check it. "Magnificent" is misspelled at least twice, unless the original quotation has it wrong, in which case add "sic". Kaisershatner 19:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for your praise. As to the lead, I don't understand the objection to the sentences' structures. Thanks for correcting the spelling error. PedanticallySpeaking 19:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC).[reply]
  • Too fruity, too many (similar) references. Do you really need a references AND that gargantuan bibliography, which repeats the same links? Too many quotes ("Holmes said ..."). Too much bloat. It kinda sorta reads like a gushing magazine article, rather than an encyclopaedia article. A lot of the speech marks and apostrophes are messed up (are you putting this together in Word, by any chance?). It needs trimming, writing from a neutral point of view. There's way too much info on 'Joey' that should be in the Joey Potter article. Drop the filmography to a sub article. Proto||type 15:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I tried to cite all my sources. The reason for the list after the notes is because on second reference, I've abbreviated sources, e.g. "Dunn". So rather than have to wade through all the notes to find the first reference to that article, one can simply look at the alphabetically list. I was taught in school that if one used footnotes, one still needed an alphabetical list of sources. Could you supply specific instances of the "fruity" and "gushing" prose you object to? Where is it not "neutral" other than cited quotes? As for "Joey", I have one paragraph about the character. Hardly excessive and particularly relevant because I quote Holmes talking about how much she was like the character. PedanticallySpeaking 19:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • "The tall (5'9") brunette enchanted the press, writers of both sexes commenting how Holmes was the sort of girl one wants to bring home to meet the parents and to marry." That entire paragraph is glowing press quotes, not an encyclopaedic section, and could go. I count four paragraphs about Joey and how Katie Holmes plays her (first two and last two of the Dawson's Creek section), which is three too many. The 'Hometown Reaction' section is entirely fluff, contributing nothing whatsoever. There are far, far too many press quotes throughout the whole article, and every single one of them is glowing praise. I don't see any 'cited sources' criticising her purportedly lumpen, wooden performance in Batman Begins, (and they really would not be hard to find - I recall AICN described her as the only bad thing in the movie), or on any of her other work - a little balance in the quotes would be nice. Lose half the quotes, which would enable the gigantic and repetitive refs section to be culled, and try and find some that aren't one-eyed praise. Proto||type 15:07, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        To clarify - yes, there is a small section, with one referenced quote about her poor performance in The Gift, one about her poor performance in First Daughter, and one about Batman Begins. I count at least 10 fawning over her performance in the Creek. Proto||type 15:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        Well, I tried to edit it to assuage my concerns, but the whole thing got mass-reverted by PS with no explanation. That's not really going to endear me to supporting this article in an FA. Proto||type 11:18, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I restored this material because it illustrates how taken the producers were with the actress, who had only a single professional credit to her name, and about Holmes's personal connection to the material. PedanticallySpeaking 16:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • it is a little short, but then again there may not be much more info to add depending on who she is. the references section looks awesome. nice intro photo. overall, it looks great to me. --Lan56 06:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much. PedanticallySpeaking 16:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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