User talk:Keithpaulmedelis/sandbox

Preliminary Bibliography

Hi Keith -- I just looked at your bibliography, and I see you've used the reference tool (which is okay, as I discussed in class). If you'd like any help with MLA style, let me know. The sources you've selected look very promising. Be sure to consult the footnotes and bibliographies in these, which might give you more leads. I think it would be better if you could avoid Brockett and instead rely on the other scholarship you've found, if possible. Looking forward to seeing your writing plan! Amy E Hughes (talk) 13:49, 2 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional feedback

Nice expansion on that very short stub. When you move it into mainspace, please consider submitting it as a candidate for the "Did you know...?" feature. DYKs (as they are commonly called) are short snippets taken from Wikipedia's newest articles and, if approved, appear on the Main Page. You can learn more about this by clicking on the image to the right to access a nice pdf outlining the process.

Some general feedback on the draft

I noticed that you cite the same source (Barish 1981) over 40 times in the article. Normally, you can combine repeated references to a single use by naming the reference (i.e., when you first use a reference, structure it as <ref name = "somename">Then your normal reference text</ref>. Then, the next time you use that same reference, just time <ref name = "somename" />. That way you save the trouble of writing the whole reference over and over, and you also produce a more compact set of reference). Unfortunately, you are referencing different page numbers each time.
There's a way around that, and it involves using the {{rp}} template. Each time you use a named reference (let's say you named that reference "Barish1981") you would type <ref name = "Barish1981" />{{rp|3-11}} (if you were referencing pages 3-11). The result would be your normal numbered reference followed by page numbers, something like this: ^[1]^: 3–11
You use a lot of quotes. While quotes are useful, they should support the text rather than the other way round. You might want to look at reducing the ratio of quotes to text.

Hope this is helpful. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:46, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]