Talk:Jilly Cooper

This review is transcluded from Talk:Jilly Cooper/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Lajmmoore (talk · contribs) 09:54, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 12:25, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look at this. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:25, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Images are appropriately licensed.

Turning to the main body:

• The lead seems extremely sparse given the length of the body: per MOS:LEAD, it's meant to be able to stand alone as a condensed but adequate distillation of the whole article. I'm not sure that's really the case here. A common rule of thumb is that each paragraph of the body ought to end up as about a sentence in the lead.

• I've expanded the lead to three paragraphs and I think it covers all the major points, do let me know if there's anything else that could or should be forgrounded there.

• As with her non-fiction works, Cooper drew heavily on her own point of view and experiences has a CN tag, and reading the source I'm inclined to agree: that article does discuss how her house is the model for Campbell-Black's, but doesn't make a general statement of the kind we have here.

• I've trimmed this and removed the CN tag, i think the prose is a bit smoother too

• We have another CN tag on or classical music. These aspects are contrasted with details of the characters' domestic lives, which are often far from glamorous. Reading the source cited for the next bit, there's a CLOP problem: the Independent has The books are famous for relying heavily on stories of sexual infidelity, betrayal, melodramatic clashes, and economic anxiety set against a backdrop of elite society, including the showjumping and polo crowd., versus Wikipedia's The stories heavily feature sexual infidelity and general betrayal, melodramatic misunderstandings and emotions, money worries and domestic upheavals [and earlier] set in a glamorous and wealthy milieu, such as show jumping. Earwig flags quite a few sources for potential copyvio, but so far everything else I'm seeing is simply (justifiable and correct) re-use of the same tributes after Cooper's death.

• I just chopped all the CLOP out and added a shorter sentence with three main themes.

I've addressed these larger points now Lajmmoore (talk) 22:46, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Other smaller points:

• the Godolphin School: I only know this from reviewing Dorothy L. Sayers, but the school in Salisbury calls itself simply "Godolphin School", unlike its sister school in London. It looks as though Moorfield similarly doesn't use the "the".

• thank you for spotting this, i would have never realised

• When using "née", use {{nee}} so that unfamiliar readers get an explanation (there's a MoS rule in there somewhere).

• I've added the template, but it lost the accent?

• in Ilkley, Yorkshire and in Surrey: these are two places, so comma after Yorkshire (MOS:GEOCOMMA)

• thank you

• After unsuccessfully trying to begin a career in the British national press, aged 20, Cooper became: this could be clearer: was she 20 when she unsuccessfully tried to begin her career, or when she took the local news job?

• clarified, based on source

• Her break came with a chance meeting at a dinner party when the then editor of The Sunday Times Magazine, Godfrey Smith,: I don't think we need the then here -- nobody's going to assume he's been in post for 65-odd years.

• clarified

• Per our article, I think "Rutshire Chronicles" should have a "The" in front of it.

• done

• I notice that we have lots of reviews for How To Survive Work and Wedlock, but they're all from local papers -- did it get any traction in the national press?

• so, i started an article for the book, but then realised its not really notable alone, so just copy/pasted those sentences in here. I should have trimmed them at the time. done now.

• The work was compared to Nancy Mitford and Barbara Cartland.: we need that of or similar (unless reviewers suggested that the book had similarities to the women -- a long affair with a French statesman?)

• done - i think I've addressed these smaller points now Lajmmoore (talk) 21:54, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• writer Juno Dawson described how her obsession with the "ultra-glam" covers of these romances as a child gave her a sense that she was not "very good at being a boy: I know we don't want to draw unnecessary attention to someone's transgender status, but here I think it needs to be clarified that Dawson is a transgender woman and was therefore expected to be rather better than she was at being a boy.

• added transgender (only addressed this point in this review section Lajmmoore (talk) 22:21, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Scanning the biblio before I started, I noticed a few things that you might want to look at. Most are not strictly required for GA, but taken together I think they represent a fairly straightforward chance to push the "polish" of the article upwards:

• Note 3 has the author name in all caps.

• fixed

• Note 7 uses |pp= for a non-numbered page: you can use |at= instead to format it more neatly.

• I'm probably being dense but I can't work out what to change

• I've made the change: like this. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:26, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you

• Notes 17, 18, 52, 77, 100 and 103 have a hyphen where an endash is needed (more an FAC thing than a GA one, but old habits die hard, and I imagine it'll be easy enough to fix).

• done

• Note 39 has neither a link nor a page number: did you consult it in print or online? One of the two would be useful.

• done

• Notes 45 and 46 seem to be the same newspaper, but have different names.

• merged

• Note 75: "Book Review" should not be in all caps.

• fixed

• Note 78: title should be in title case.

• I'm sorry I'm not sure what that means

• There are two ways to write the title of a work:

• Sentence case: This is the title of the work. The first word is capitalised, then we only capitalise as we would in prose.
• Title case: This is the Title of the Work. Important Words, Generally Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs, Are Capitalised.'

The article uses title case throughout, except for this one. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:26, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you!

• Noes 81 and 82 are the same: you could use a ref name to collapse them together. Ditto 74, 85, 88, 96.

• done

• Note 105 clearly has the wrong author name (if you want to credit the staff, use |author= rather than |last= and |first=).

• fixed

• Note 114 is a bare url: there are good reasons to avoid these. Other links to Cooper's website are formatted more fully.

• done

• Generally, there are a lot of citations to local news, and of course to Cooper's own works and website. These aren't necessarily a problem, but it will be worth thinking about whether they can bear the weight placed upon them (thinking of WP:DUEWEIGHT as well as WP:V).

• yes this is a good point, I'll come back to this when I've been through the article using the notes above Lajmmoore (talk) 21:30, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks very much for the review UndercoverClassicist, just to acknowldge that I've seen this. I should have time on Sunday/Monday to look at implementing the changes. When I nominated it, I forgot I was away this weekend. Lajmmoore (talk) 08:19, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't know where time went the last fortnight, but I'm looking at this now and hope to have everything addressed by the end of the weekend Lajmmoore (talk)

I've looked at the first 7 in the references section, will pick this up tomorrow Lajmmoore (talk) 22:19, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for taking the time to review this UndercoverClassicist, I've learnt a lot from your comments. Just to go back and address the source from Cooper and local news, I think they are more balanced now, and most of the Cooper references are just to her books. I think the local news is mostly an issue for the romance novels section - but all of those novels have stand alone articles, so I think WP:V can be addressed there? there are five references to her official website, which mostly refer again to her books. Happy to reconsider this, but I think DUEWEIGHT is OK. Very best wishes Lajmmoore (talk) 22:57, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just a note to say I reorganised the journalism section @UndercoverClassicist and it is now a bit more detailed Lajmmoore (talk) 17:55, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

though i now can't work out how to merge ref 32 and 223 :( Lajmmoore (talk) 08:32, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Like this: give the reference a name on first use and then use <ref name=[name] /> as the entirety of the reference on future uses. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:11, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much - I'd not see that trick before! Lajmmoore (talk) 15:31, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

& just to add, I've addressed all the points in the GA review Lajmmoore (talk) 15:34, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]