Talk:Joseph N. McCormack

Suggestion for the layout
This article is looking great. I'd just like to raise one issue for discussion. It's not the biggest deal in the world, and each editor might have his/her own way of dealing with it, but here goes: There is a good bit of discussion of Joseph's son Arthur in the Early Life section. Most people do get married fairly early in their lives, but I think it causes us to quickly move from the 1840s (Joseph's birth) to a period several decades later (Arthur's career). When I was reading through this the first time, I had to really pay attention to determine which McCormack we were discussing in that section.

One alternative is to remove Arthur's info from the Early Life section (Joseph's education could be moved up to Early Life rather than having a separate section), create a Personal section right before the Final Years and Death section, and place all of the info about Joseph's marriage/children in Personal. I think you'll find that a Personal or Personal Life section is common in the layout of WP biographies (usually right before the section about the subject's death) because often the personal details get intertwined with the career info in potentially confusing ways.

Great job so far. EricEnfermero (Talk) 07:21, 5 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Now that I've created an article about Arthur T McCormack, I have deleted from Joseph's 'Early Life and Family' most of the content about Arthur's life. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm open to more suggestions on how to improve the article. Drvalsummers (talk) 00:17, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Additional sources
I just thought I would create a section for additional sources that could be used to support this article. I have found a few references that I don't think are reflected in the entry right now. Apologies if any of these are already there or if they don't reveal new material.


 * Death notice in The Optical Journal and Review - discusses his initial opposition to optometrists in Kentucky and what appears to be a compromise with them late in life


 * Death notice in JAMA - includes a black-and-white image that is probably public domain due to age


 * A New History of Kentucky - sheds light on how bad the KY medical licensure issue was ("worst quick ridden State in the union", etc) when McCormack took over at the state health board

EricEnfermero (Talk) 07:58, 5 May 2016 (UTC)