Talk:Edward Kennard Rand

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 23:55, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

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• ... that in order to get into Harvard, the medievalist Edward Rand rang the doorbell of president Charles William Eliot and asked him, "I would like to go to Harvard; do you have any money?"?
  • Reviewed:
  • Comment: I began expanding the article for Rand on 16 September 2022 in incremental edits. Edward Rand was one of the most influential medievalists of his time. He was at the forefront of classical scholarship and had a immensely influential career. I have expanded the article many more times than simply five times, and I sincerely hope that this interesting fact can bring some attention to his interesting story.

5x expanded by GuardianH (talk). Self-nominated at 22:22, 20 September 2022 (UTC).

• Article was expanded from 2,000 to 13,000 bytes. Fact is interesting and sourced (Physical text so AGF). I would prefer it be shortened to just "I would like to go to Harvard". It's more amusing and removes the question mark next to a question mark, which is visually displeasing. Charles William Eliot could be linked as well (Eliot is also misspelled as "Elliot" both here and in the article, which should be corrected). The last sentences in "Academic career" and "Awards" also need a citations. Other than that, should be good to go. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 07:07, 22 September 2022 (UTC)
• Issues have been corrected. Consider leaving a reply next time to ensure the reviewer knows you've answered their queries. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 21:59, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

References

Here is a more accessible source for the above DYK: Rutgers University: Rand, Edward Kennard GuardianH (talk) 04:13, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Encyclopedic prose

Hey Amakuru, I've noticed your recent edits to the sentence regarding Rand's visit to Eliot, and the change to an encyclopedic prose. I'm not sure what exactly is meant by encyclopedic prose, but, respectfully, I think that some style has been lost in changing the sentence and that the original sentence ( "To the bewildered president, Rand asked, "I would like to go to Harvard; do you have any money?" Amused, Elliot, upon hearing his request..." ) was fine — it did not contain any WP:ORIGINAL as it reflected the language used in the source.

I think there may be a way to compromise without having to directly quote Berrigan's report. I think some wiggle-room in style is allowed, especially since I don't think the article is too different in writing like that seen in, for example, Learned Hand or Calvin Coolidge. What do you think about this:

"To the "bemused" president, Rand asked, "I would like to go to Harvard; do you have any money?" Upon hearing his request, Eliot personally saw to Rand's admission into Harvard College, where he...." — GuardianH (talk) 07:32, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

@GuardianH: morning, and thanks for your note. What I'm talking about is WP:TONE, which discusses how articles on Wikipedia should be written in a formal encyclopedic tone. Looking at the sentence "To the bewildered president, Rand asked "I would like to go...", with respect it doesn't seem to be written in that sort of formal tone. The usual word order of subject–verb–object has been flipped, so it sounds more like Yoda talking than an encyclopaedia, and while that would be suitable for a newspaper or a jokey column on a website, I don't feel it belongs here. I'd also be concerned about saying in WP:WIKIVOICE or without attribution that the president was "bewildered" or "bemused". We don't have enough reliable sources attesting to his state of mind to be able to make that assertion, hence why I restructured it as an attributed quote, which gets the same point across while maintaining an encyclopedic tone. What is it you don't like about the new formulation? It makes it clear what happened and the reader can make their own conclusions based on the evidence. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:14, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

What I dislike about the new forumlation is that, by directly mentioning the source, it disrupts the flow of the passage. I can give an example of what exactly I mean by this. Take this sentence from Learned Hand for example:

"Hand possessed a gift for the English language, and his writings are admired as legal literature."

Now, if we 'encyclopedize' it:

"The historian Marvin Schick has written that multiple scholars praised Hand for his gift for the English language, and that his writings are admired as legal literature."

By 'encyclopedizing' it, flow and brevity are lost in the passage. If you would like the reader to make their own conclusions, it would be best for them to merely hover their cursor over the citation where they can see it for themselves, rather than having to sacrifice some smoothness of the article by explicitly quoting it. That's why I think we can compromise with the proposal I made above. GuardianH (talk) 16:16, 6 October 2022 (UTC)