Talk:Barbara Christian

The Race for Theory
I am glad that you want to improve the article, but please note analysis of her work cannot be based on material created by her. I have no ownership issues over content; however, as I noted on your talk page, you are not allowed to use Christian as a source for a discussion of her work. Editors must use secondary sources which analyze her contributions or it will be construed as original research, which is outside of WP policy. Your content may well be reverted if you do not use secondary sources. (I will not revert it again, as I am opposed to edit warring). There are numerous reviews of her work out there which can be used, like or. If you need help, I'll be glad to try. SusunW (talk) 23:27, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi Susan, I'm new to Wikipedia and learning how to navigate the talk page, so I hope you see this! I'm trying to understand if I should just move the discussion of "The Race for Theory" to Barbara Christian's career section. I have seen Wikipedia pages that create new sections for important concepts/pieces of writing by the subject in question, but if that is not the structure that Wikipedia intends, I can certainly just move this to another section. I'm aware of secondary material that builds on and analyzes Christian's work, but to highlight the original text, I'd just like to add a discussion of that to her Wikipedia page. Wcinnamon (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2018 (UTC)
 * , learning to navigate WP is a huge deal. LOL It can be in the main body or a separate section, as it is a critical part of her legacy, but any discussion of the work must be from sources other than her. It's kind of the complete reverse of academia, where one analyzes the original work. On WP, one must use someone else's analysis of the work and paraphrase their ideas. All the citations you have given are to "The Race for Theory" itself, thus, since it isn't quoted directly, WP calls it original research. You can quote from her, using "The Race for Theory" as a source, but you cannot make any analysis. So for example "Christian tied this phenomenon directly to a rise in critics being trained solely as academics, without any experience as creative writers," is original research. If a secondary source says she did that, it can remain, or you can quote... Christian noted that in previous eras "the critic was usually also a writer of poetry, plays, or novels. But today, as a new generation of professionals develops, he or she is increasingly an academic." I'm not sure if I am explaining this well, but the gist is that *you* cannot analyze what she said, you must paraphrase what someone else has written about the work. SusunW (talk) 00:17, 24 March 2018 (UTC)