User talk:Joseph0618/John Shaw Billings

MH final comments

This is looking pretty good! However, there are a few changes to make before your final submission (due May 8).

1. Consider shortening the lead section, either by removing facts or by compressing the sentence structure - at the moment, it's a bit on the long side. In particular, I'm not sure what the sentence about the 'Big Four' adds. This would subvert your reader's expectations if they knew who the Big Four were, but consider whether this is common knowledge among Wikipedia readers; if not, you might simply say that he contributed substantially to Hopkins' architecture, infrastructure, and so on.

2. Have a proofread for formatting - there are a couple places where the citation falls on the wrong side of the period (it ought to come after, without a space).

3. In the 'Early Career' section, the phrasing is a little unclear, and I'm not sure where you're getting the fact about the urethral strictures, as it doesn't appear in the source you've cited. Please make sure all your citations are correct, as the reader should be able to easily confirm any statement made in the main text by going to the appropriate footnote.

4. Along the same lines, make sure every fact is cited. The last fact in the 'Late Career' section, for instance, is dangling, and it's not clear where it's from.

Otherwise, though, nice work - the fundamentals of the article are very sound, and I'm looking forward to seeing the final, polished version. — Preceding unsigned comment added by M.hin.ck (talk • contribs) 17:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

MH comments

You've taken on a challenge with this relatively well-developed article. The organizational edits are already making a difference, but it could use more work in the referencing and additions to really make this article your own. Keep the following in mind as you edit your next draft:

1. Make sure every fact is traceable to a specific source. For example, how do we know he received his medical degree in 1860? If this is from the encyclopedia article cited earlier, move the citation to make it clear that it covers the entire paragraph. If it is from somewhere else, add this citation.

2. Consider doing some trimming. The purpose of this article is to tell the average Wikipedia reader about John Shaw Billings: does knowing that his mother was descended from the Mayflower settlers help us understand him better? Maybe, maybe not; it could be argued that it tells us something important about his demographic, but it could also be considered tangential to who he was as a public figure. The decision on these topics is yours, but don't be afraid to cut as well as to add, and make sure everything that's included is serving the ultimate purpose of the article.

3. Make sure you're taking full advantage of Wikipedia's crosslinking, especially in the section you've added. Linking to the Welch page, for example, would make it more user-friendly.

4. The section on the curriculum has room to expand. What exactly did 'small-sized classes' mean to Billings? What were the norms that he was pushing against? In general, follow the principle of 'show, don't tell': wherever possible, provide evidence of what he did that speaks for itself. Rather than saying that his curriculum 'wasn't novel', for example, let the reader discover that for themselves by listing or describing similar curricula. You should be able to find these by going back to the sources you reference and pulling out specific examples.

5. Your new organizational structure is good, but make sure you're not going over the same territory twice, particularly in the buildings section. It's acceptable to reference the same material more than once, but make sure you're explaining to your reader what new significance it's taking on in this new context.

Also, please post a comment to the Talk page of the original article explaining that you're drafting some updates to 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 or want to discuss your topic further!