Talk:The Maze of Bones

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What has to be done?

What has to be done to improve this article? Homework2 ^{pass a note}sign! 14:49, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, after a quick scan of featured novel articles for other modernI found Halo: Contact Harvest, so using that more details about the reception of the article jumps out at me (currently there's only the one sentence about the NYT bestseller list). Pattern Recognition (novel) is another one which includes information about the themes present in the article, which we might be able to get similar information from the Scholastic teacher materials for the book and good book reviews (which I haven't looked for yet). I'm sure that looking through Category:FA-Class novel articles we can come up with other things that those articles do better than this one. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:11, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've worked on the Percy Jackson novel articles, so here are my suggestions. Establishing reliable sources for the reviews will most likely be the hardest, so I would suggest you start looking for those. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. are discouraged for reviews because they are not the original source. However, many of the review sites are subscription only, so you cannot cite them either.

This sentence needs clarification: They realize in order to travel to different places they will need adult supervision, so they enlist their au pair, Nellie, to accompany them on their journey. What is an "au pair"?

A section about themes is also good. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 02:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I wikilinked au pair, hopefully to answer the question you just asked. I began the themes section with the one reference, but I'm not entirely sure where to go from there (I've never really liked analyzing books). I've also separated out the NYT bestseller info and added some quotes from reviews to make a reception section. I figure if rickriordan.com is a reliable enough source for reviews of The Lightning Thief, then surely a library's website is a reliable source too. If anyone else is willing to jump in and clean up or expand my work I'd much appreciate it. VernoWhitney (talk) 16:56, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

That was helpful, thanks! Now I'm wondering if someone more familiar with the books could add some detail about the family to the synopsis. Having not read the book, the synopsis, particularly the beginning, is very confusing. Who is Grace? How big is this family? How far back do the Cahills start? What are four branches? Etc. If someone could clarify those points I think it would be helpful. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 13:37, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there a place where we can find how Riordan came up with the storyline (the inspiration) and how he got the other authors to write the rest? Also, we could add a section on publishing history. Any other ideas? --Glimmer721 (talk) 23:46, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Synopsis?

Should we add the synopsis for every book in their respective article? The synopsis is located on the back of every book, which gives a 'preview' of each books plot. --Albertdaniel222 (talk) 03:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

The answer is a definitive no, because it's a copyright violation. VernoWhitney (talk) 11:33, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Major Characters

Under Major Characters...should the names be bolded? I think it would make it easier to read. Homework2 ^{pass a note}sign! 14:06, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Great idea. Done! PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 14:21, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Another thing, what other characters need to be added? My copy of the book is...hmm...somewhere...Homework2 ^{pass a note}sign! 14:27, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit Major Characters

Should we change it to Introduced Characters, because we have new characters introduced in other books but, they're not that major. What do you think? --Albertdaniel222 (talk) 02:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so. Homework2 ^{pass a note}sign! 13:16, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, if you look at the Major charcaters, you would see, the Starling triplets are listed. But they aren't a major character (or characters). Removing them from the list isn't a solution. --Albertdaniel222 (talk) 03:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

If they're not major characters, then why isn't removing them from the list a solution? VernoWhitney (talk) 11:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Because, they are relatively important (minor, yet important). Plus, their one of the seven teams. And how about Theo Cotter, Hilary Vale, and Shepard Trent? --Albertdaniel222 (talk) 13:03, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

If they are important, then they can probably be counted as "major" characters. It's a pretty loose definition. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 13:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Still Start class?

I don't think so...to me it looks much improved. Homework2 ^TalkWhat I do 15:50, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Could possibly be C, but I don't feel comfortable changing it myself. So, assignment for you (my adoptee to all the curious onlookers), I suggest taking it to Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject Children's literature (doesn't matter which) and requesting re-assessment. That should bring in an unbiased opinion. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 17:40, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok...how would I go about doing that? Homework2 ^TalkWhat I do 02:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Click the links, find the section for assessment and follow the examples. Here's the link for the Novels assessment department, which is harder to find. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 03:55, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

 Done. Homework2 ^TalkWhat I do 00:32, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Movie?

It says on several sites that there will be a movie out in 2011. Should we mention this in the article? --Glimmer721 (talk) 22:18, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

What little information there is so far is at The 39 Clues#Film Adaptation. If there are more details which are confirmed by reliable sources, it should be added there. VernoWhitney (talk) 22:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Assessment

I'll give some comments here and then return for a reassessment, because I think this is still a start class article, although very close to C. For comaparison purposes, here are two articles that currently are assessed at C: Here Be Dragons and Alex Delaware. Have a look at elements in those articles that are still missing here.

Some suggestions:

• Fix the unformatted links.
• Given that there is task force devoted to the 39 Clues, this must be a popular series. Is there any information out there about the popularity? Does Publishers Weekly give sales figures?
• Check WP:MoS about bolding the characters names - off the top of my head, I think not.
• A few more wikilinks could be added. Remember to link terms that might need more clarification.
• I've left a couple of in-line comments. Try to address those concerns as best you can.

I'll keep this page watched to follow the progress, and may do some digging myself, to see what can be found. As this is the first in the series, I think this article will be the template for the others, so should get extra care. That said, it's almost a C, and with expansion has the potential for a B. Keep up the good work! Ping me if you need help. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

To address a couple of your points that I think I know off the top of my head, I seem to recall that WP:MOS does say to not bold things like this, but an alternative would be something like List of Harry Potter supporting characters where every character has their own section, which makes it (in my opinion) unnecessarily long. Otherwise, they could be unbolded, but they're harder to pick out that way. As far as your inline comment for the "Power" section, the only source for the whole section at the moment is the one for the opening line ( http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collateral.jsp?id=37926#Book1 ), since that's the only one I've found that actually supports any real analysis of the novel. I'm pretty sure it supports the rest of the statements in the section and I could just cite it at the end of every paragraph if that works better; I also imagine I could track down a reference in the book if a primary source is acceptable for that. VernoWhitney (talk) 13:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I've unbolded the first two - actually I eliminated the bolded name because it's immediately repeated again, so probably not even necessary. Since it's formatted in a list, separating the characters isn't too bad. Definitely opposed to the Harry Potter format. I'm busy on some other articles, so haven't had the time to dig regarding the power issue. Is scholastic the publisher? If so, using them as a source isn't a great idea, because they're promoting/selling the books. Work on formatting the refs and the characters and all the other issues and I'll get back about the theme/s. Oh, one more thing: have these books been published outside of the US? If so, that's worth mentioning. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 14:31, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'll go through and unbold the list and see if we get any complaints, and work on formatting and research the international publishing parts later today (I hope). Scholastic is the publisher, but the portion regarding themes is only hosted by them, and "written by Laura Stockwell, Fifth Grade Teacher, Orlando, Florida". VernoWhitney (talk) 14:41, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Here are a few sources I found:

• New York Times Review
• Time Magazine Review
• Information about spin-offs and international publications
• New York Times Story about Riordan

I haven't read them, but from a brief scan of a few of them I think you can get some useful information. Also consider for themes, problem solving, team-work (to find the clues), and the issue of family members who are competitive. Finding the power is the end result, what they experience and learn during the search would be considered the themes. Good luck. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 15:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the bolding, someone else reverted and I still think that bolding makes them much easier to skim, so I went looking in the MoS for guidance. Apparently I was misremembering, because I can't find anything about boldface other than not to use it to emphasize words. I also note, for example, that Wikipedia:MOS#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents uses the same bulleted, bolded list format, so I'm just going to leave it. VernoWhitney (talk) 19:10, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm so worried about the bolding, but to achieve C status the naked urls should be eliminated and an attempt made to incorporate information from the sources listed above. Still watching. Thanks. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 02:28, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

How about now? Homework2 ^TalkWhat I do! 00:37, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, he already upgraded to C, he just didn't change it for WikiProject Children's Lit. I'll change it. They should be consistent all around. PrincessofLlyr ^{royal court} 00:45, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Code

I think we should have a small section about the secret code found in the page numbers.--Glimmer721 (talk) 02:19, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't, unless you can provide significant coverage in reliable sources. Cheers! monosock 02:22, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Um, you do know that only applies to article notability, not article content, right? VernoWhitney (talk) 03:28, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, that way we could explain to readers who don't know what the page number thing is all about. --Glimmer721 (talk) 18:25, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

cvzhdf

SDB@@@@@@T — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.217.246.73 (talk) 09:54, 18 October 2012 (UTC)