User talk:Tiax22x
| This user is a student editor in University_of_Massachusetts_Boston/Composition_II_(Summer_2019) . |
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[edit]Hello, Tiax22x, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.
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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:57, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
Further explanation of why I reverted your addition to the Monroe article
[edit]Hi,
I just wanted to further explain why I reverted your addition to the Death of Marilyn Monroe article, given that we Wikipedians may often seem all too happy to revert for the sake of reverting! Certainly, further additions would be welcome to the section exploring the many conspiracy theories on Monroe's death. However, as we're dealing with such a controversial topic, one has to be very careful in what to add. If you look at the footnotes in that section, you'll note that a great deal of them don't actually refer back to the book being discussed, but on another source that analyses that book. One of the books I used most heavily while writing this section (it's mostly written by me) is Sarah Churchwell's The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe, which analyses the different narratives on Monroe presented by different biographies. In other words, the biggest problem with your addition is that you rely entirely on what Jay Margolis says on the book, when with such a controversial topic you'd definitely need reliable outside analysis of some sort (even book reviews by notable publications such as NYT or LRB).
- First off, please note that in most cases, you should always refer to the people you're writing on by their last names. So Monroe, not Marilyn.
- Note that Margolis' book is self-published (iUniverse is not a publishing house but rather a self-publishing company). Anyone can self-publish anything, given they have the appropriate funds. This already makes the book very, very suspect.
- "Margolis salvaged eighteen interviews previously used in Donald Spoto’s Marilyn Monroe: The Biography due to most of the interviewees now being deceased. This is a rather confusing sentence. Given that Spoto's bio is one of the main Monroe biographies, why did these interviews need to be salvaged? Or did Margolis simply use many of the same interviews, but perhaps interpreted them differently? What is meant with this sentence?
- Also, Margolis conducted over twenty interviews with Monroe’s friends and other individuals that were in contact with her during her last year of life. First off, it's better to use more formal or even academic language, so 'in addition' etc. rather than 'also'. Please give some examples on the people that Margolis interviewed. Presumably these are people who have already been interviewed before.
- I looked at the list of interviewees, and many of them have been proven several times to be people who in reality had no connection or a very tenuous one (e.g. they've met with her or even worked for her but did not actually have a relationship of any kind with her) to Monroe. Many of the conspiracy theories rely on the 'information' provided by these people.
- Although he reused Spoto's interviews, Margolis claimed that he had vital information regarding Monroe’s last moments that had not been previously used by any author. The interviews gave further information regarding her death, though none of which could be used as evidence. Unlike Spoto, Margolis was adamant that Monroe didn’t have an accidental overdose, but in fact was murdered. What is this vital information? What is this information on her death that can't be used as evidence (and why can it not?)? Why does Margolis think Monroe was murdered? I understand that you probably did not read this book (and I don't suggest spending your money on it), but you would need to be more precise here. These are all probably claims that Margolis states on the back cover blurb, but to be featured in an encyclopedia we'd need to know what they are. Without precision and outside analysis, it sounds like we are advertising Margolis' book, which is definitely not the point.
- For the last sentence, you cite Spoto, but you should definitely also cite Margolis, given that you're discussing both Spoto and Margolis' interpretations.
- In general, never ever rely on just one source when doing any type of research (even for Wikipedia). Gather all the available material, see what's most reliable (e.g. published by a university or a noted publishing house), and then read and compare the material. Be critical and learn who the author is, rather than just focusing on what they've written.
Hope this makes things clearer!
Best,
TrueHeartSusie3 (talk) 11:45, 16 August 2019 (UTC)TrueHeartSusie3