User talk:Hfmorse

Welcome!

Hello, Hfmorse, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Unfortunately, one or more of your recent edits to the page Susan Gillingham has not conformed to Wikipedia's verifiability policy, and has been or will be removed. Wikipedia articles should refer only to facts and interpretations that have been stated in print or on reputable websites or in other media. Always remember to provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is likely to be challenged, or it may be removed. Wikipedia also has a related policy against including original research in articles. Additionally, all new biographies of living people must contain at least one reliable source.

If you are stuck and looking for help, please see the guide for citing sources or come to the new contributors' help page, where experienced Wikipedians can answer any queries you have! Here are a few other good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask a question on your talk page. Again, welcome. Gaia Octavia Agrippa^Talk 18:07, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Susan Gillingham

Hi Gaia Octavia Agrippa, Thanks for your message. I am S. Gillingham's research assistant, so wanted to some add/alter some info as recommended by Prof. Gillingham. I will try to find external sources to verify some of the changes I am offering, but her research interests, for example, are not factually 'verifiable'. I wonder if you could give some advice for me on how I can best contribute to the page you've started. Many thanks. Hfmorse (talk) 14:49, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello again. I have copied this message over to your talk page as you've mentioned your connection to Prof Gillingham and (for the sake of WP:Conflict of interest) it would be good for other editors to know this if they came checking.

If you want a detailed explanation of the ruled concerning a biography please read this. In summary, you need good sources for information added to an article about a living person on Wikipedia. You also have to be very careful not to use overly positive or negative language, so keep things factual and neutrally worded.

The main reason I reverted your edit was the addition of her school and details to her academic career. The current information has been gleaned from various sources (which you can find at the bottom of the article). If there are any errors, then different sources which state the correct information need to be found. The main source for her education was her profile on Verbum et Ecclesia. If she has control over this, would she be able to add her school to there? That would be very helpful. I noticed that neither her college or faculty profile include a brief history of her academic career. If she was willing to add this, then you could use that to support the additions concerning her career. The best way for someone to add details to their own Wikipedia article is not to edit is themselves (this is greatly frowned upon) but to provide the information in a reliable source such as an online profile, newspaper interview, book introduction etc, so that someone else can add it to their article. They could, if they want, add a link to this source with an explanation on the talk page of the article in question so that other editors know it exists.

You are right to say that research interests are difficult to find sources for. The current wording is based on the titles of the books she has written and the brief synopsis available on her college profile. Feel free to re-add the changes you made before; they follow the general gist of what the source material suggests. It just so happened that they were caught up in the revert of the unsourced biographical additions. Sorry about that.

This has got a bit long, but I hope it has been helpful. If you have more questions or I haven't been clear about something, do ask. A few years back I involved in the adoption program here on Wikipedia (basically giving a guiding hand to new editors), so I am more than happy to help. If you have every you need, thank you for future edits! Gaia Octavia Agrippa^Talk 15:41, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]