Talk:Dancing the Dream

Dancing the Dream is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 23, 2009	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
March 8, 2010	Good article nominee	Not listed
March 20, 2010	Good article reassessment	Not listed
April 20, 2010	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on November 21, 2009. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that writer Francis Wheen criticized Michael Jackson's book Dancing the Dream and thanked God that "none" of Jackson's fans could read?
Current status: Former featured article candidate

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Re-Release (2009)

http://img200.imageshack.us/i/clipboard03ysm.jpg/ <---- this book was re-released on July 27, 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.230.174.189 (talk) 12:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

RE: "If you come into..." quote citation

Is this a reliable source? I've read the book, and not only is the quote NOT in the book, it was actually from Jackson's Oxford speech in 2001. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MaJic (talk • contribs)

Hmm, I'll have a search for it in my book tonight. I'll remove the quote for now though. Pyrrhus16 13:55, 16 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Publishers Weekly review

Hi, I've done a quick search for you and found this Publishers Weekly review.[1] I hope you can access it. This is information that needs to be incorporated into the article. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 16:44, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll get that added once I've tackled your other comments at the FAC. :) Pyrrhus16 16:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for improvement

Any article about a book requires the following information:

"Contents": I've restructured this section but it still needs to have the following elements added to it:

the number poems
the number of essays
the number of photos
the number of other pieces of art
In this section, if a piece of writing is described, it's important to add the title. It's also better to quote directly from the piece in this section, rather than paraphrasing.
I'd suggest creating groups for all of the above. In other words, explain how many poems and essays are about the environment, how many about children, how many about his family and so on. For the photographs and the art, explain what they show. All the reader knows at the moment is that some of the photos show Jackson at the MTV awards. What is he doing in the others? What do Giorgio's images show. Because you have the book, this can all be sourced to the book itself at the end of the section (which technically isn't even necessary because it's the primary source).

"Background": Consider creating a Background section. Do you know why Jackson decided to publish this volume? Certainly in the Background section you can write about his previously published book and add the information about Jackie Kennedy Onassis back in here. Do you know what he was doing in the time frame before the book was published. That might be relevant. When did he become interested in environmentalism. That would also be fine to add in such a section. Cite everything to secondary sources, so more research is necessary.
"Themes": Create a section called themes. Here you describe the themes more comprehensively and everything has to be cited with secondary sources. Some of the sources you have do discuss the themes of the pieces.
"Publication history": Create a separate section for the publication history because the book was republished. In this section add the print-run and the sales figures if you have them. I believe I saw more than one Publishers Weekly piece about this information. Was there a promotional campaign? If so, explain what was done for promotion. Was the book published in hardback form or as a paperback? Was it published only the US or were foreign rights sold?
"Reception": You already have most of this information. I'll happily rewrite/copyedit for you.
An example of a book article is True at First Light which includes all of the sections I've delineated above. I'll keep this page watched, and don't hesitate to ask about structure, etc. Good luck! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 00:56, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've done a quick search for more references and have found quite a few. I've added some to a section I created called "Working references". These need to be read and checked for accuracy. Also, my formatting should be checked as I'm working fairly quickly. Will add more tomorrow. Found many many references. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 01:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Improvement suggestions for the Lead

Delete "United States recording artist". We don't write "Hamlet is a play by England dramatist William Shakespeare" or "Pride and Prejudice is a novel by England author Jane Austen." IMHO, it is not necesssary to "define" Jackson here anyway. Most readers are familiar with the name and the name is linked so the phrase can be dropped.
Did Taylor write a foreword or an introduction? In the Content section we're told she wrote an introduction. They are not the same. Decide and be consistent.
"Dancing the Dream was released by Doubleday on June 18, 1992." "Released" is being used more and more at Wikipedia.
Write "The book received negative reviews and was not a commercial success". Eliminate "content and prose" and "significant".
I've reformatted the lead and respectfully suggest it replace the present lead:

Dancing the Dream is a collection of 46 poems and prose reflections mostly about children, animals, and the environment by Michael Jackson. Released in June 1992 by Doubleday, the book is Jackson's second literary endeavor, following his 1988 bestselling autobiography Moonwalk.

Dancing the Dream is dedicated to Jackson's mother, Katherine, has a foreword by actress Elizabeth Taylor, and includes an assortment of around 100 photographs of Jackson. Some of the content was previously published. The book received negative reviews and was not a commercial success. It was reissued by British publisher Transworld in July 2009 following Jackson's death the previous month. SoniaSyle (talk) 17:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

PR editing

This article was heavily edited (mostly deleted) by an anon IP to remove criticisms of the book, indeed to make it appear very positive (POV). The deletions went uncontested for the past 7 months or so, I've restored it, but suspect someone has a vested public relations interest in portraying the book positively. Green Cardamom (talk) 19:43, 21 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]