User talk:Dscotus44
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-- Joren (talk) 00:13, 9 September 2010 (UTC)
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Contributions to Disciple (Christianity) article
[edit]@Dscotus44: Thank you for your contributions to Disciple (Christianity)! You are a great writer and I hope you find more opportunities to contribute to Wikipedia. However, I noticed a few issues I wanted to mention. First, there's some phrases where your tone isn't quite right for an encyclopedia. For example, the phrase "You cannot be a disciple if..." addresses the reader directly, and goes against our manual of style on second-person pronouns. Articles must stay focused on their topics, in this case disciples, and not on the readers. Whereas other writing styles seek to minimize distance and speak to the reader more directly, encyclopedias use a more academic style that creates distance from the reader using a neutral point of view. The section you wrote feels like a persuasive essay urging someone to be a good disciple, rather than focusing on telling us something about what discipleship has meant historically.
A related issue is your use of sources. Your first draft hardly cited any sources at all. I haven't checked the sources you later added, so I'm assuming on good faith that they largely support your content. However, even a cursory glance revealed that there are statements not supported by your citations. For example, the claim "never once does Mark tell us the definition of a disciple" is not cited, and I suspect is not found in any of your cited sources. While this may be true, we call that original research on Wikipedia, and do not allow it. Wikipedia articles must summarize existing reliable sources, not make new points that no one has made before. Perhaps instead you could expand the article from some of the sources listed in the further reading section.
My focus is elsewhere right now, so I'm not going to edit Disciple (Christianity) right now. Unfortunately, if you don't take these guidelines seriously, your work is likely to be removed from Wikipedia articles. You really are a good writer, and I hope you can find ways to contribute to Wikipedia in such a way that your work will endure. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions now or in the future. To do this, you can type {{ping|Daask}} on this page or edit my own talk page. Daask (talk) 13:34, 5 April 2018 (UTC)