Not in Front of the Children

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Not in Front of the Children is a book about freedom of speech and censorship carried out under the "think of the children" argument. I took it to Good Article and it's been stable since then. Looking for feedback to help further along the Quality improvement process. Thanks for your time, — Cirt (talk) 04:06, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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— Cirt (talk) 05:42, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From delldot ∇.

Looking good! I have no major complaints. Good organization, referencing, comprehensiveness. Most of this is minor wording stuff:

• She points out that although the view of sexually-explicit material's negative impact on children is unproven, the fear of its impact is used to support morality-based arguments; appeals to morality should not be a basis for censorship. Does 'points out' seem biased because it suggests that she's merely highlighting an objective fact? Maybe She argues that viewing sexually explicit material has no proven negative impact on children, but the fear of its impact is used to support morality-based arguments, and appeals to morality should not be a basis for censorship.

• Maybe a transition here, so we're not skipping from the 70s to the 00s and back from one sentence to the next: She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, receiving a juris doctor degree in 1978.[1] At the time of the book's publication, Heins was director of the Free Expression Policy Project at the National Coalition Against Censorship. Even something like, Years later, she would become...

• In the next para, all the books have publication dates in parentheses except Priests of Our Democracy.

• I'm not sure you need to hyphenate "First-Amendment rights". I'm not confident about that though. I know you don't hyphenate compound adjectives with a -ly adverb though so I changed those myself. Also I think you don't hyphenate 'point-of-view' when it's used as a noun. In general, compound adjectives are hyphenated (e.g. "a high-level course") but not when used as nouns (so "a high level of studious effort). Same with "a 16-year-old boy" but "my son is 16 years old".

• I see several instances of passive voice and wonder if the writing could be tightened up by changing to active voice. e.g. The author believes that determinations of what should be censored from whom should not be made by the government ...that government should not...

• Confusing sentence: She concluded that Heins concisely argued censorship of works from the reach of children can have negative impacts on their level of innovation, healthy mental growth, and adaptive abilities. I don't know if this wou'd be too many 'thats': She concluded that Heins concisely argued that censorship... or She concluded that Heins concisely argued against censorship of works from the reach of children as harmful to their level of innovation...

• Unclear: ...if the motivation behind children's education was to produce independent critical thinkers, it was necessary to extend the limits of censorship. Does 'extend the limits' mean more or less censorship?

• I wonder if we could tighten up this wording: academia had been waiting for such a valuable resource for a significant period of time -> academia had long been waiting for such a valuable resource or academia had been waiting for such a valuable resource for a long time

• Was the one paragraph at the end all the info available about criticism? I guess with a work that challenges the status quo you don't see much criticism since the status quo feels no need to challenge back. But I'd definitely include whatever you can find so it doesn't look unbalanced. Similarly it would be great if you could find any info on concrete impacts the book has had (e.g. legislation changes)

Hope this is helpful, ping me if you want more discussion or a second read-through. delldot ∇. 21:00, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments of Snow Rise

I think the article is broadly very well written and well-sourced, but I can't help but think that it could be paired down a little in places. The lead in particular is far too heavy and probably the bulk or the entirety of the last paragraph could be removed and integrated into the reception section. Usually reception is kept to a bare minimum and reflect only a general sense of the regard the work has or particularly awards or reactions, so this is probably the least essential content if one were to trim the lead--and again, I do think it could benefit from a little more brevity. Likewise, I feel the division between the "content summary" and "themes" sections is really very artificial given that there is really no way to discuss the content of the book, as general-audience empirical work, which does not involve the "themes" (that is, the subject matter broadly and the specific issues raised). This division seems so awkward that I have to wonder if it was to some degree a concious choice arising out of the fact that a single section would have revealed that the discussion in this area is a little bloated and goes a bit beyond what is necessary to provide a general encyclopedic summary of the subject. I appreciate the difficulty of trying to pick and choose between material which reviews a well-written work and distill our own discussion down to essential elements--certainly I've been there before--but I think there's some room here to make this article more concise and, as a consequence, more effective, though I haven't many specific suggestions on which sources provide the superior prose or outlook where discussion is redundant. Anyway, just some food for thought. Really it is a well-written article, by and large. Snow ^{let's rap} 10:39, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]