User talk:Fatehazannath/Abel Wolman

Latest comment: 4 years ago by M.hin.ck in topic MH final comment

I finished my peer review of your draft. Hopefully my comments are somewhat helpful. Dlu16 (talk) 00:07, 1 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

MH final comment

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Overall, this article is in pretty good shape. I'd suggest the following modifications before you submit your final version, due May 8:

1. There are some sections where the prose could be tightened up in accordance with Wikipedia's standard style. For example, the phrase 'One year after college in 1914, he started his long career in public health as an assistant engineer working for the United States Public Health Service', repeats facts that can be found elsewhere. There's no need to point out that 1914 is the year after he graduated, since the reader knows from the first section that Wolman graduated in 1913, and we can tell the length of his career from other information in the article. A more concise phrasing, then, would simply note that in 1914, he started working as an assistant engineer for the United States Public Health Service. This point is applicable to academic writing more broadly; it's almost always a good idea to avoid this sort of indirect redundancy, making sure you're always telling the reader something new.

2. Check through to make sure the formatting is consistent - for example, you've sometimes left a space between the period at the end of a sentence and the citation, which should be deleted.

3. Where possible, pair your primary-source citations with a reference to a secondary source discussing the impact of the paper in question. For example, a scholarly source discussing 'The Metabolism of Cities' would help meet Wikipedia's requirements for relying on secondary discussions where possible (you can review the guidance here). You should certainly still keep in the direct citations of Wolman - they're invaluable for people using the page as a springboard for more detailed research - but add works by others to back them up.

Overall, though, this article is looking solid! I'm looking forward to seeing the final version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by M.hin.ck (talkcontribs) 21:07, 28 April 2020 (UTC)Reply


MH comments

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You've made substantive revisions in both organization and content - nicely done! As you were accidentally assigned three peer reviewers instead of two, I'll keep my comments brief. As you revise, I suggest you keep the following in mind:

1. Consider adding more subheadings to the Career section. As it stands, it's a bit long, and could potentially stand to be divided up into more subsections, possibly by institution (Hopkins, Baltimore, professional societies?)

2. Carefully revise the article for tone, ensuring it's neutral and well-cited throughout. The general principle should be 'show, don't tell': rather than telling your reader, for instance, that Baltimore's water supply is 'effectively' planned, provide the grounds the reader could use to reach that conclusion on their own. What was it specifically that make this plan so effective? Do the pipes have room for excess flow? Are they configured for easy additions? Providing the evidence, rather than the conclusion, will help maintain neutrality of tone and provide useful detail.

3. The Legacy section is particularly good. Nice job!

Also, please post a comment to the Talk page of the original article explaining that you're drafting a new version of this article for a WikiEducation class, providing a short summary of the changes you've made (dividing it into sections, adding information, etc.) so that when you begin moving this across in a couple of weeks, it won't come as a surprise.

Read your peer reviews and continue to revise in the sandbox (all your old drafts are saved automatically); let me know if you have any questions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by M.hin.ck (talkcontribs) 22:43, 4 April 2020 (UTC)Reply