Talk:Howard Henry Peckham

A fact from Howard Henry Peckham appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 April 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that historian Howard Henry Peckham discovered that American Revolutionary War deaths were much higher than previously assumed, totaling about 25,000?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/April. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Howard Henry Peckham.

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Sources and suggestions welcomed. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:46, 7 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

The lead should summarize the points in the article. This lead includes information not in the article (e.g. the part about academic standards) and does not clearly summarize his career. The part about him directing the Clements Library, as well as his stint in Indiana, should be more prominent. I added an infobox. Yoninah (talk) 22:22, 14 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Yoninah: Thank you for your thorough analysis. Yes, more coverage in these areas was needed. I added what I could in that regard, per sources. Once again, thank you for your review and all of your help. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 21:47, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sources There isn't much to demonstrate the impact of his work or notoriety. Anecdotal evidence of his discovery of the number of casualties in the Revolution should not be included here. Suggest deletion of article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.61.71.210 (talk) 14:15, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your opinion. Estimates of American deaths vary considerably, but no one can refute the fact that Peckham discovered sources that revealed war deaths previously not counted. Manuscripts, journals, letters and other and primary sources are what is used to determine facts about history, and I've not come across one historian/source that takes exception to or refutes Peckham's findings regarding American war casualties. His figure of 25,000 deaths is consistent with many other sources. See United States military casualties of war, MilitaryFactory.com, Military History - American Revolution Battles, Campaign 1776. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 18:28, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Embedded external links in "Works"

I stumbled onto this article after seeing WP:MCQ#Fair use and started reading through the article. One of the things I noticed is the embedded external links to Google Books in Howard Henry Peckham#Works. This section seems to a a bibliography (an embedded list) and external links are typically not allowed to be embedded like this per WP:EL#Links in lists. I think it's probably better to tweak the formatting of the list, possibly by using {{cite book}}, along the lines of the examples given Wikipedia:WikiProject Bibliographies#Book links instead of simply Book. FWIW, using the "cite book" template will make it easier to add more information about the work itself and keep the formatting consistent for each entry. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:28, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly: Well, listing the titles under the 'Work' section, and then again in the Bibliography using 'Cite book' seems redundant. Rather than having a list of external links, I could instead place a citation at the end of each Work/title, tying it in with a given external link in a reference section. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:37, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply Gwillhickers. I don't see a "Bibliography" section in the article so I'm not sure what you're referring to. Perhaps my original post was a bit confusing. I was not suggesting that a new section titled "Bibliography" be added to the article; I was only pointing out that "Work" section is functioning as a bibliography, so perhaps it should be formatted a such. I see that you have converted the embedded links to citations, but I'm not sure what they are citing. If you want to simply show that the book exists, then I think there's an alternative (and possibly better) way to do so. Here is what I mean using Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 1775–1783 as an example.

The template markup would look like this

{{cite book|last=Dearborn|first=Henry|author-link=Henry Dearborn|editor1-last=Brown|editor1-first=Lloyd A.|editor2-last=Peckham|editor2-first=Howard H.|title=Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 1775-1783|year=2007|publisher=Heritage Books|orig-year=1st pub. [[Caxton Club]]:1939|others=Biographical essay by Hermon Dunlap Smith|isbn=978-0-7884-0124-4}}

and the entry the reader sees would look like as follows

Dearborn, Henry (2007) [1st pub. Caxton Club:1939]. Brown, Lloyd A.; Peckham, Howard H. (eds.). Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 1775-1783. Biographical essay by Hermon Dunlap Smith. Heritage Books. ISBN 978-0-7884-0124-4.

The url for the book could be easily added by using the url parameter (|url=) and the "via" parameter (|via=) as follows

{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dUBt7zJodLEC&source=gbs_navlinks_s|last=Dearborn|first=Henry|author-link=Henry Dearborn|editor1-last=Brown|editor1-first=Lloyd A.|editor2-last=Peckham|editor2-first=Howard H.|title=Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 1775-1783|year=2007|publisher=Heritage Books|orig-year=1st pub. [[Caxton Club]]:1939|others=Biographical essay by Hermon Dunlap Smith|isbn=978-0-7884-0124-4|via=[[Google Books]]}}

and that entry would look like this

Dearborn, Henry (2007) [1st pub. Caxton Club:1939]. Brown, Lloyd A.; Peckham, Howard H. (eds.). Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 1775-1783. Biographical essay by Hermon Dunlap Smith. Heritage Books. ISBN 978-0-7884-0124-4 – via Google Books.

The Google Books link, however, is not really needed because the reader can click on the ISBN number and it will take them to Special:BookSources/978-0-7884-0124-4. If they click on "Find this book on Google Books" in Special:BookSources/978-0-7884-0124-4#Online text, it will take them to the preview. -- Marchjuly (talk) 01:19, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I've done much bibliography work and over the years have used cite book templates often, but in this case, since these books aren't being used as actual references for the 'biography' itself, all that is needed is a url link to them. I didn't use isbn numbers in this case because I want to direct the readers directly to google books, (rather than Wikipedia's ISBN page) where they can get all the information, including isbn numbers, instantly, and can often make use of the preview function for a given book. -- Gwillhickers (talk) 19:01, 21 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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