Wikipedia:Peer review/Emma Stone/archive1

Emma Stone

FAC is not my comfort zone and not something I am highly interested in, but from time to time, I want to get out of the former. I believe the article is a sound account of an actress who has not been around much. So mind you she is no Julianne Moore: do not compare her to articles of someone like her. Aside from some reviews for her performances (they were the only good ones I could find), I think this is nicely put together. I will submit it to FAC at some point, unless reviewers think otherwise. Please leave your comments for helping me push it forward.

Thanks, ツ FrB.TG (talk) 17:17, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Review from Moisejp

Hi FrB.TG. This is an interesting article, and I'd be happy to review it. I'll admit I also have an ulterior motive, that I hope you might consider reviewing Wikipedia:Peer review/Title TK/archive1 in return—if you want! Thanks. Moisejp (talk) 04:30, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Lead:

• "Stone is one of the highest-paid actresses" → Consider "Stone is one of the world's highest-paid actresses" for flow, and so readers have no doubt about the scope. The Forbes article does mention "world's".
• "In addition, Stone supports..." I'm not sure that "In addition" by itself is a good transition here; the rest of the paragraph talks about her successes. How about something like, "In addition to her acting career, Stone is involved in various charities and causes..."
• "She was homeschooled for two years; during the period..." → Consider "during this period".
• The last two sentences in the lead start with "She"; Maybe replace the first of these with "Stone"?
  

More comments to follow soon. Moisejp (talk) 04:54, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Looking forward to more of your comments. I will take a look at your article soon. From a quick glance there, it looks like a labor of love. ツ FrB.TG (talk) 06:23, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

• Thank you!
  

Early life:

• "Stone's family lived on the 16th hole of the Camelback Golf Club": I don't know what this means—i.e., live on a hole of a golf course. Was their home next to the hole? If so, I don't think I would say it this way. I might also consider giving extra information to explain the somewhat unusual circumstances (was her father a caretaker of the golf club at the time?).
  

Sorry, I only got in one comment this time (I started another one but realized I needed to think more about the issue). I will continue with some more very soon. Moisejp (talk) 05:42, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

• I see you reverted "aspired" → "aspired to"; I'm not familiar with this usage of "aspire noun" without "to". If you look at this link [[1]] showing examples of "aspired" used in government and professional websites, ignoring "aspired objective" where "aspired" is an adjective (or past particle) and one case of "aspired by", every other instance shown is "aspired to". Or, if you're not sure you like "aspired to", maybe you can reword the sentence with something like "hoped for"?
  

Oops! I did not realize that you added that. I have replaced that with "wanted"; hopefully that's better? Oh and if you want to make changes in the future please do so. I did not mean to discourage you. I really liked the other changes you made. ツ FrB.TG (talk) 07:45, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

2009–11: Breakthrough:

• "Stone read the script before the project was optioned for production, and pursued it along with her manager until preparations were made.": "Preparations" seems a little vague here. I think you mean (something like) while production details were being finalized?
• "She later hosted it again in 2011..." Consider removing "later"? It's a little redundant to use both "later" and "again".
• "Despite criticizing the film, Drew McWeeny of HitFix wrote that Stone "ties the whole film together"." It could be helpful to be more specific about what McWeeny didn't like about the film.
• "She met with Taylor to express a desire to work in the film. Taylor, who thought "Emma was completely awkward and dorky, with her raspy voice", approached her to star in the film." I think this is supposed to mean that initially Stone took the initiative to talk to Taylor to express her interest in the project, and later Taylor offered her the role. But "approached" can also have the meaning of "take the initiative to talk to to someone (make the first move)"; the first time I read it, I was confused about who had initially approached whom. Moisejp (talk) 05:02, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Big comment: So far most of the issues I've mentioned have been quite minor, but I have a more major improvement that I'd like to suggest, which affects the entire article. For me, if you implement this suggestion, it would immensely improve the readability and grammaticality of the prose.

In a nutshell, I suggest that you should make a better distinction between past events requiring the simple past (“she said that”) and the present perfect (“she has said that”). Here is a stylistic and grammatical background for the changes I’m proposing.

Stylistically speaking, you've got two timelines/timeframes in the article. One is her life from 1988 to now, and the reader knows implicitly when each event happened because the events progress from one to the next. The other timeframe is Stone talking about her life—her comments that you quote throughout the article. We don't know from the narrative when she has said these. Currently you use the simple past for both timeframes. In sentences like "In January 2004, she moved with her mother to an apartment in Los Angeles. She recollected, 'I went up for every single show on the Disney Channel and auditioned to play the daughter on every single sitcom'" you've got both timeframes compressed into a single verb tense (the simple past) and it's harder for the reader to extract the relationship of the different components. If these sentences were "In January 2004, she moved with her mother to an apartment in Los Angeles. She has recollected, 'I went up for every single show on the Disney Channel and auditioned to play the daughter on every single sitcom'" then the two timeframes are separated and easier to distinguish.

Grammatically speaking, this was the rule I learned when I used to work as an English teacher: To use the simple past, you need an explicit or implicit time marker (last month, yesterday, in 1999...). It needs to answer the question, "When did it happen?" If it doesn't answer the question, then the timeframe is vague, and the present perfect is more appropriate. For the two timeframes mentioned above, there's no problem using the simple past for recounting her life events from 1988 to now. Even if the year is not mentioned every time, we know implicitly that these events happened sequentially one after the next. However, for Stone's later comments, that come from interviews, the narrative usually does not specify when it happened (except in a few instances I mention below). Thus, the time frame is vague, and the present perfect is much better.

I happened to learn that grammar rule because I worked as an English teacher, and I probably would have never thought about that distinction (between simple past and present perfect) if I hadn't been one. But even if you have never heard of that grammar rule, please consider the following: At its worst, the change I'm suggesting does not take away any meaning from what you already have in the article. And at its best, it can be argued that the change adds a depth of meaning and style.

Especially in the Early Life section and Early Career sections, a scan of the dates of the references shows that in many cases she was commenting on the events well after they happened. Thus these comments do not fall in the “as it happened” timeframe, and I would suggest that for these the present perfect is more appropriate.

Early Life:

• “While Stone did not describe herself as a "tomboy", according to her, she was "loud" and "bossy" while growing up.” → “While Stone has not described…”
• “Despite not liking school, she said: "I made sure I got all A's", citing her controlling nature as the reason.” → “Despite not liking school, she has said that she “made sure [she] got all A’s”.
• Don’t change this one (because there is an explicit time marker here): “In a 2013 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Stone said that she suffered panic attacks while growing up…”
• “Stone admitted that she was drawn to acting from the age of four.” → “Stone has admitted…”
• “She recollected, "I went up for every single show on the Disney Channel…” “ → “She has recollected…”

2004-2008: Early career:

• Stone called this experience "rock bottom" → “Stone has called…”
• “On the experience of acting in her first film, Stone described it as "amazing …” “ → “Stone has described it as…”
• “Stone, who describes herself as "a big smiler and laugher", admitted that she found the role difficult as the character's personality traits contrasted with her own.” → “…has admitted…” [You could also make “describes” consistent with the “herself as a tomboy” quote above. Make both either “describes” or “has described”. I think either would work.]

2009–11: Breakthrough

• No instances to change here.

2012–present For this section, a lot of the interviews that you used happened at the same time as the events she commented on. Thus you could use the simple past here. However, if you do so, it would be nice to sometimes use explicit or implicit time markers (such as “at the time”, “that year”, “in an interview promoting the movie”, etc.) to reassure the reader that, yes, this comment is in the “as it happened” timeframe. (Another option would be to continue using the present perfect throughout, and maintain the two separate timeframes.) It looks like there are actually only a couple of instances to consider in this section:

• “Stone felt that she had a responsibility to educate herself on Spider-Man, admitting that she had not read the comic book; she said: "my experience was with the Sam Raimi movies…”
• “She further stated that she was only familiar with…”
• This one I don’t think you need to change because it has an implicit time marker: “In an interview with Total Film, Stone explained that her character…”

Personal Life:

• Great: “Stone has expressed her fondness for her profession” You currently use the present perfect here, and I think you would no doubt agree it is very natural. And “She has also named actress…” is present perfect and very natural as well. So I’m arguing you could extend some of that naturalness and stylistic coherency to other parts of the article by using the present perfect in those places too.
• Basically, I think all the verb tenses in this section work well. And in the In the Media section too.

Note that I think you can keep the (critics’) reviews throughout the article in the simple past, because the context implies the review was made at the time the respective movie came out. Thus, these reviews become part of the main narrative/timeframe in the simple past. (This is not the choice I made in the Title TK article, as you noted—I put my reviews in the present, as I always do—but I think the simple past works here in the context of the narrative of the choices you made.

This is a quite long comment, but I hope it is clear. Let me know if there are any points that I did not explain well. Moisejp (talk) 17:04, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Moisejp: Many thanks for your exhaustive review. Let me know if you want me to implement further changes. Cheers. FrB.TG (talk) 18:40, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

• Hi FrB.TG. Thanks for making all the changes I suggested. I really think they make a world of difference. I'm going to have one more read-through of the article soon, possibly later today if I have time. Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 21:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Second read-through comments:
Early career:

• "The film tells the story of two high school students dealing with separation anxiety after they plan to buy alcohol for a party." It's been a while since I've seen this movie, but this doesn't strike me as a great summary of the plot. It's true their attempts to buy alcohol is an important part of the plot, and they may deal with "separation anxiety" (is it clear to the reader that this means, I think, separation from each other?). However, linking these two components together with "after" doesn't really seem like a satisfying summary. I don't know exactly what to suggest. Possibly something about "various misadventures the night of a party"?

I have cut the separation bit, which does not really play a major part in the film's story.

• "She played the love interest of Hill's character and to look the part; for this role she dyed her hair red." I think you or somebody left some extra words in while editing this sentence. Moisejp (talk) 03:11, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Looks like this edit to me, which instead of improving the article introduced many errors. FrB.TG (talk) 06:50, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

• Aye aye aye, you're right. That editor moved tons of punctuation inside the quotation marks that Wikipedia policy says should be outside. Just now I was correcting some of them and thinking, "Didn't we already fix all of these?" But there's probably more that I didn't catch this time because I thought they were all already fixed. I think you'll need to go through the article line by line to see if there are more instances. Moisejp (talk) 06:27, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Overall comment:

• Throughout the sections describing her movie career, you have various comments by critics. And I imagine that, probably, you had fewer reviews (and hence, good quotations) to choose from for some movies than others. But I just wanted to make sure that you have a clear idea about what you want to accomplish with these quotations. For some of them it's very obvious to me. For example: "She's positively incandescent, lighting up a movie that would be pretty dim without her." Or "the hugely promising Stone ... [is] a tough cookie who projects the aura of being wiser than her years." These describe Stone's performances and contribute the reader's understanding of how critics perceive her. But what about, for example, "Paper Man, a comedy-drama, which Mick LaSalle of The San Francisco Chronicle deemed "listless, tepid, lifeless and fake"." That's not about her, it's appraisal about a movie she was in. She didn't write the movie, or make the directorial decisions in it; she is only responsible for each of her performances. I'm not saying that's definitely invalid, but it's less clear to me. I mean, maybe it's valid, as it shows the calibre of films and roles that she gets, which is perhaps an important component of her career (or critical perception of her career). Likewise, "Writing for Empire, Anna Smith thought that Stone was "well-meaning and hugely likable" despite finding "flaws" in her character.": As I was reading it, I was questioning whether its inclusion was valid. Stone's performance being "hugely likable" definitely is, but based on the review, it sounds like the character flaws are script flaws, not performance flaws. But again, if in your mind this is all definitely valid, and this is part of what you want to accomplish with this section, then good. But if you haven't thought about that, then it'd be a good idea to do so, and make sure that all quotations do fit in with what you want to achieve. Moisejp (talk) 06:27, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it is true that she did not take part in direction or writing of any of those films, but she was the part of those films. And I think the latter pretty much justifies its inclusion. You see we generally include the film, its story, the actor's character, the film's commercial and critical impact (which I think the "tepid" one says of how the film was received by one particular critic), and finally how her character was received. Coming to the flawed character, yes, it does say of how her character was written, and it is important because usually an actor's performance depends on how his/her character is written. If a script is bad and a character is poorly written, not even a very good actor of his/her generation can act well. FrB.TG (talk) 13:35, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

• OK, that's good, then. I'm pretty much finished my review. Good luck with the article, and let me know when you take it to FAC. Cheers, Moisejp (talk) 15:27, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Again, thanks for all of the comments, they really helped further improve the article. Not closing the PR at the moment, but going to take a break from this article for a short period of time, though I am game for further comments from anyone. I will give it a reread when I am back to this. FrB.TG (talk) 17:56, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments from SchroCat

I'll be making a start on this in the next day or so, but a first flick through shows that the three sections "Filmography", "Theater" and "Awards and nominations" have no sources at all, which will be a problem at FAC. More to come. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 07:54, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks! I have used IMDb to source the section, which I know is not considered reliable, but in this case it simply lists (or should I say relists) the films she has appeared in. I think it is much more convenient to link one page than to repeat a bundle of sources in a section. I see that the same has been done to the Moore article. FrB.TG (talk) 14:55, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm never a fan of IMDB. See if it can be covered by AFI and BFI references instead, which would be prefereable. - SchroCat (talk) 12:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

ps. Sorry to be so slow getting here - I'm on a bit of a roll with Walt Disney, but I hope to be with you very soon. - SchroCat (talk) 12:07, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Take your time. I am in no hurry. FrB.TG (talk) 12:30, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Lead

• "most attractive celebrities". That won't last 30 seconds at FAC – and with good reason too. Apart from "attractiveness" being a matter of taste, it's not an achievement to trumpet in the second sentence and just looks sexist (I've never seen such a descriptor in good quality bios of men, for example)
• "minuscule" is a bit unencyclopaedic: go with "small" instead

2009–11

• "who had directed her in Easy A." Strike this – we only learned is a few lines before.
• "The film featured her as a law school…" This should be "features", as the film still exists (and make sure you're consistent with other references)

Done to the end of this section – will do more a little later. – SchroCat (talk) 12:04, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Continuing...

2012–present

• "and had her portray" is a little clunky. Perhaps "eponymous film series;[60] She portrayed Gwen Stacy..."
• You can probably ditch "the classmate" – the love interest bit is the important one
• hair color – hair color. Tweak to avoid the repetition
• "began 2013 with a voice role in the DreamWorks animation The Croods that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature": needs a tweak, as it looks like her role was nominated
• "anthology film Movie 43, consisting of sixteen short films" film – film: perhaps segments or stories could avoid the repetition?
• "Stone will co-star" and "she will co-star": these are a little too definite for my liking, considering the vagaries of Hollywood and the number of films that never come to fruition. Perhaps she "is due to" or "has signed up to", just to add a little wiggle room

Personal life

• "Stone moved from Los Angeles": Stone" appears three times in this short para, which is twice too often. You may want to look through the rest of the article, as there are several places where "she" will do just as well
• "and cured in 2008": "and was cured", unless this is an AmEng form that I don’t understand...
• "She celebrated": an occasion where a "Stone" is needed (I presume it was she, rather than her mother that was inked?)

In the media

• I'm not a fan of the section title here, although its not an easy one to cover. Perhaps "Reputation and image" or similar?

It reads well and seems to cover the main points (not that I'm an expert on her career). It can reach FA standard and isn’t too far away from FAC at the moment, but after the PR, take a break from it for a week or so and then give it a really critical read through with a fresh pair of eyes. Reading it out loud sometimes highlights things that sound odd. Hope this all helps, and if you are going to FAC, please drop me a line. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 11:08, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks SchroCat - your comments were definitely helpful. And yes I will wait for a while before I file for FAC. FrB.TG (talk) 15:44, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments from Krimuk90

Her work on Broadway in Cabaret is quite notable. It would be great if you could add some background information and critical reviews of her performance in the body. Cheers! --Krimuk|90 (talk) 07:04, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Hi Krimuk90. I will add some info shortly. Thank you. FrB.TG (talk) 07:31, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I have added some info on the musical. FrB.TG (talk) 17:56, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Many thanks to everyone who participated. I will soon file for FAC. FrB.TG (talk) 16:16, 27 April 2016 (UTC)