To develop your article for this assignment, please set up a dedicated user subpage for it and save the link on your main userpage. You would do this by creating a name consisting of a backslash followed by the proposed article title (or "Draft" or any text). It should be coded like this: [[/Article title]]. Click on that link to create the new subpage, which will be created at User:Student username/Article title. You can then add some text, save it, and then continue.

Childress' Theories about the Olmec

I think you're onto an interesting topic. Is the page that you want to improve the one on Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact or is it Olmec alternative origin speculations? Something else? You need to let me know. In the first, you might consider adding a section similar to the one on "fringe theories," that might be dedicated to "fringe theorists" (among them David Hatcher Childress)? That might also be a good approach. While it would be okay to emphasize Childress--especially given that his book is fairly new--I think you should also considering trying tto contextualize his work relative to that of previous authors, such as Ivan van Sertima. Does Childress add anything new to the debate? Do his writings on the Olmecs represent a pattern also found in his other publications? Is he a credible source? Have there been specific criticisms of his work? Reviews of his book on the Olmecs? These may provide additional useful information. Hoopes (talk) 20:36, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mwescoe (talk) 00:12, 29 October 2010 (UTC)i wasnt planning on the Pre-c0lumbian page, but i like the sound of adding DH Childress as a "fringe theorist", i think that would fit nicely. he does mention ivan van sertima in the book so i can maybe compare and contrast his agreements with him? i will look into answering your posed questions above, but i think this guy is a quack, and im gonna have to use all my effort not to disparage him. apparently on "his" page David Hatcher Childress he even acknowledges that "Childress claims no academic credentials as a professional archaeologist nor in any other scientific field of study.[1]" i find this odd. but like i said, i will try to answer your posed questions on this Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact page/site. i think im just starting to get the hang of this wikipedia thing...[reply]

i was also thinking i could add some info to the David Hatcher Childress page regarding this book, since it is quite bare. would that be ok, too?Mwescoe (talk) 00:12, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's fine. However, I'd prefer that you go beyond just this book. This assignment is not a book review! Some comments on other publications by Childress would be useful. Hoopes (talk) 01:16, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can't compare and contrast unless you have sources comparing/contrasting. See WP:Original research. An article here is very different from an essay or a journal article. You can't put together arguments from various sources, your sources must make the arguments. We just report what reliable sources - see WP:RS and WP:Verify say about a subject. Some articles don't follow these basic polices, I know, but they should. And I'd say Childress is too much of a lightweight to be added to our other articles. Have you read WP:NPOV? Dougweller (talk) 20:56, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

D.H. Childress

Hi. You just created the page "D.H. Childress/draft" - and although you put the "/draft" on the end, that page was still a live article.

As I'm sure you intended to make a user-space draft, I have moved the page into User:Mwescoe/D.H. Childress.

Because that has "User:Mwescoe/" at the beginning, that is not a live page, and you can work on it as much as you like.

Cheers, Chzz ► 23:56, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We already have an article on Childress, David Childress, I'm not clear what you are doing.Dougweller (talk) 20:02, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's important to read the comments above. Can you find sources that evaluate Childress' work? What, specifically, do you think will be useful to add? I'll try to give some feedback before tomorrow. Hoopes (talk) 23:12, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]