Talk:C. Doris Hellman/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Starsandwhales (talk · contribs) 00:02, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello, I'll be reviewing this article in the next few days. starsandwhales (talk) 00:02, 31 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Could you elaborate more on her work? The significance of the Great Comet of 1577 paper, for example, was unclear to me until reading Copernican revolution. What is the title of the biography she translated? What specifically was the biography about? Going off of this, make it clearer in the lead about her work researching the comet and translating a biography of Kepler.
 * Ok, I've added a new section on the two books, with some of the more evaluative material that was already in the article moved there. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:22, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Infobox should have the names of her daughters
 * See below. I don't think it should. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:54, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Infobox should be more clear that she's known for being a biographer (or translator), and that she's known for documenting the history of the Great Comet of 1577 (or say that she's known for writing [insert name of paper])
 * Perhaps you misunderstand the purpose of infoboxes and the purpose of article text. Infoboxes are not nuanced. They do not provide detailed explanations, just short lists of nouns. The detailed explanations are for article text. We can't put into the infobox a whole sentence saying she was known for authoring a book on the comet that caused scholars to re-evaluate its significance with respect to the Copernican revolution; we only have room for one noun there, maybe "historian of science", maybe "comet of 1577" as now, maybe the title of her book. Similarly, we can't put into the infobox a whole sentence saying she was also known for translating from German into English the book Kepler, about Kepler, written by Max Kaspar; we only have room for one noun, maybe "translator", maybe Kepler, maybe the title of the book (but the title is also Kepler). I happen to think that, if we can only choose one noun, we should choose the most specific one here: the comet and the person. We do also have "history of science" already in the infobox, under "fields". —David Eppstein (talk) 06:29, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Would something like "translator of Kepler (book)" work if there's an article for the book? starsandwhales (talk) 00:46, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * There is no plagiarism, but try to avoid quotes when possible. It isn't an egregious error though. If you want to keep the quotes, elaborate on the quote about standard treatment of the comet. Also since you're quoting that, it would be helpful if you said in the text who you were quoting.
 * I used quotes in two circumstances: first, twice, when a source described Hellman as "one of the first" at something without clarifying who the other firsts were or how many of them — I wanted to report the source's opinion without doing the forbidden original research necessary to do the clarification myself. And second, in the case of the "standard treatment" quote, to describe someone's opinion of Hellman's contributions, without distorting that opinion by rephrasing it. I don't see any easy way to avoid the quote in either of these two types of case, but I agree that an attribution would be helpful for the "standard treatment" quote, to say whose opinion it is and how authoritative it should be considered, and I have added it to the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:39, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to not remove the quote, thanks for adding in an attribution. starsandwhales (talk) 00:46, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I feel like you could expand on the recognition section, maybe by explaining what those mean or what the significance of those recognitions are. What I mean by that is right now this section just lists what's in the infobox in sentence form.
 * You have that backwards. The infobox copies what is in the article text, as it should, not vice versa. I'm not convinced that this article is the place to go into great detail about what it means in academia to be elected to membership or fellowship in a selective academic society, but I added an introductory sentence at least stating that it is an honor (for readers who can't guess that from context) and providing wikilinks to learned society. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:53, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Feels a bit weird that the family information is split up between early life and later life.
 * See the comment about the infobox below. The family information is not important enough to collect into a separate unit. The article should focus on Hellman and her contributions, not on the men around her. The information about her parents is in the section about her upbringing because it tells us something about where she comes from — in this case an educated and reasonably well-off family, with a mother who had accomplishments in her own right and wasn't merely a housewife. The information about her daughters is mentioned without their names in the section on her graduate education because of the effect raising the daughters had on her graduate education. And the information about what her relatives did later in their lives is mentioned towards the end of the article because it doesn't belong anywhere else. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:53, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The infobox should have a slot for parents, since this information is known. Just checked and the one for scientist doesn't and academic does. This is an insignificant decision, but I personally think she should be under the more general term of academic since she is both a scientist and a historian. Up to you though.
 * Re parents and children in the infobox: I would prefer not to. I think this suggestion is coming from the point of view that, when an infobox has a slot for information and we know that information, we should fill the slot, but I think that point of view is wrong. The infobox is a very prominent part of an article, maybe more so even than the lead. It is the first thing people look at, and often the only thing. Therefore, we should put all the important information about the subject into it, but we should also deliberately avoid putting information into it that is unimportant and will serve only to distract. The names of her husband, parents, and children are unimportant. They tell us nothing significant about Hellman, her life, and her contributions. Without the context of the article text, they are just meaningless names. Therefore, they should be deliberately omitted from the infobox, in order to help readers focus better on the important things. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:53, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, this makes sense. I was seeing it as the infobox is what most readers first see, so all of the information should be there.
 * On a general note, by the way, I wonder where all this focus on the infobox (four out of seven bullet points) is coming from, and how it relates to the Good Article criteria. I can't find the word "infobox" anywhere in those criteria. Is their content even relevant for Good Article status? With what justification? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:32, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm still reading through everything, those were just comments from my first go through reading it. starsandwhales (talk) 00:46, 4 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I still think you should elaborate more on her work, specifically with more explanation of what her dissertation discussed. I also think you could mention what some of the reviews discussed about how the book Kepler is significant because it's one of the most comprehensive biographies on the subject.
 * Sure, I left this one unanswered because I hadn't done it yet. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Link obstetrician.
 * Done, and added Bibliophilia while I'm at it. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Is there a significance to her papers being held in Columbia's library or is that just something to mention?
 * It means the library thought they were interesting enough to collect them? But it's more something to mention than a mark of great honor. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Everything looks good! starsandwhales (talk) 20:44, 9 April 2020 (UTC)