Talk:María Ruiz de Burton

The plan, for now
Here is our makeshift plan for now. -- Hoekie (talk) 05:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)hoekie
 * 1) Have a general meeting somewhere where our group will comb over the fine details.
 * 2) Obtain journals, articles, and valid sources containing information about Maria.
 * 3) Expand the biography into separate section so it does not look like one big mash-up.
 * 4) Create a section about her political aspirations and influences
 * 5) Make a section for consistent themes in her literary works.
 * 6) Add a section about her education.
 * 7) Find any information pertaining to controversies surrounding her works.
 * 8) Work on bibliography.
 * 9) Finally edit, edit, and more editing.


 * Looks like a good plan. You can now cross things off when you do them.  Go for it!  --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Temporary Bibliography (please do not remove)





 * . Koerner: E184.M5 D34 2002.








 * . Koerner: PS153.M4 O45 2003.











Comments on bibliography This is an OK start, but it's not comprehensive. The MLA bibliography, for instance, has many other results for Ruiz de Burton. (This is the first one, for instance.) You'll also be wanting to annotate these references as you get hold of them and start working with them to improve the article. And I had to supply some missing information for some of these references. Good luck! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:30, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

And below are a couple of sources found here... --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Deines, Timothy. "Interrogating the Moral Contract in Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the Don." REAL: The Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 22 (2006): 269-289.


 * Goldman, Anne E. "'I Think Our Romance Is Spoiled'; Or, Crossing Genres: California History in Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona and María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the Don." In Over the Edge: Remapping the American West, 65-84. Berkeley, CA: U of California P, with UCLA Center for Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies and the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 199

sourcing problems
There were a number of sourcing problems in these edits:

1. The original sense of the source is distorted. It is not that there was a "threat of invasion from the French Army headed by Napolean III to conquer Mexico." In fact, Aranda notes the "presence of an invading French army" (566-567). This army is also not "headed" by Napoleon (careful with the spelling). Aranda merely notes that Maximillian was "sent by Napoleon III" (567).

2. The paraphrase is too close to the original. "Having lived in the United States for two-thirds of her life had an impact on her life. She developed a high sense of self as a latina in opposition to the Anglo-dominant American society." This is very close to "having lived in the United Sates for about 25 years--about two-thirds of her life--she had a highly developed sense of self as a Latina in opposition to Anglo-dominant society." This is plagiarism.

3. The true source is hidden. The above quotation ("having lived...") is not in fact Aranda, but Sánchez and Pita quoted by Aranda. As you have the original (it's the introduction to the book), you should quote that, not Aranda's secondary quotation.

4. Likewise with the following paraphrase: "The new monarchy in Mexico is a cornerstone that she uses to frame an argument and critique against the United States culture which she associates with manifest destiny and colonialism. Her novel Who Would Have Thought It? draws parallels to the colonization happening in the United States and mexico at the time. The marriage between Lola medina and Julian Norval suggest a union between the material wealth in Mexico with the representative democracy of the United States. Thus creating a new form of nationalism." Compare Aranda, and I'm adding italics to highlight the similarities: "Ruiz de Burton's figuring of a new monarchy for Mexico frames the critiques she launches against the United States and the New England culture she associated with American Manifest Destiny" (568). "Ruiz de Burton end her novel with a marriage between Lola Medina and Julian Norval that suggests a union between two colonial enterprises. Here Mexican colonialism and its material wealth are merged with U.S. colonialism and its promises of representative democracy" (569). Note both the plagiarism and the distortion (e.g. the difference between a "promise of representative democracy" in the original and "representative democracy" in the paraphrase).

Because of these problems, for now I'm simply going to revert these edits. Please be careful when using sources: that you both respect what they have to say, and reflect that accurately; that you are clear about the provenance; and that you do not plagiarize their words. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:24, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Recalled Book
Hi group! Your wikipedia article is looking good! We recalled Critical and Pedagogical Perspectives a few weeks ago and we're guessing that the book might be with you. It was due on Oct1 and we are worried that you are getting charged with overdue fees as you cannot renew the book anymore. If you still need the book perhaps we can work an arrangement and we have a book that might benefit you guys as well. Thanks --Nicolecruz (talk) 21:11, 20 October 2008 (UTC) (Who Would Have Thought It Group)

upgraded
I've upgraded this article: it's definitely C-class at least. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Citations and references
Guys, there are lots of details and questions still to be dealt with among the citations. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 02:06, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

double-check paraphrases: important!
Guys, I think we need to double-check some of the paraphrases here. There are certain phrases that sound as though they may well be direct quotations, though they are signalled as such. I'm thinking for instance of a sentence such as the following:
 * "María Ruíz de Burton's unique position as an insider (and consequently an outsider) on both sides of the US/Mexican border afforded her an ideal perspective from which to view the political tempest taking place between the two nations."

What's the original here? Please note that if only a few words have been changed from the original, i.e. if the paraphrase is too close, then we run the risk of plagiarism. This would be (as you well know) a bad thing. The great advantage of a wiki is that such things can be fixed. But they need to be checked before they can be fixed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:37, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

that particular sentence was written in my own words, paraphrasing a passage that spans two pages. i've looked at the original again and i don't believe it's too close for comfort, but i'll bring the book to class this week and perhaps my groupmates can judge it and i'll make any changes necessary. will be working on the whole article more this week anyway. thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bellagiovannini (talk • contribs) 21:35, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Howdy - help offered
Hi everyone, I volunteered as a resource for the project, and jbmurray suggested that your group might welcome a bit of advice. I've written and shepherded several articles through the Good Article and Featured Article proceses, and I am often an FA reviewer, so I have a decent idea of what those processes are looking for. I am completely unfamiliar with this author, and I have no access to your source material, so my advice will focus on structure, comprehensiveness, and prose. I'm about to read through the article and offer comments. If you have any questions about my comments or any other part of the wikipedia-editing process, feel free to ask on my talk page, here, or on your talk pages. I've got all of them watchlisted. Good luck - this will be fun! Karanacs (talk) 14:32, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

review
This review is going to be a mix of nitpicky Manual of Style things and broader information. I also made some edits to the article; I tried to be as detailed as possible in the edit summary so you could see what I did and why. I will also begin a copyedit of the biography - this will likely be one of many that we will have to do. Karanacs (talk) 15:03, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The lead is pretty short. It appears to include the most important basics, but it might be wise to make it longer.  Usually 2-3 paragraphs is optimal.
 * The images need to have more information on the image pages. For example, the image page  for  Image:Burton.gif does not say where the picture came from or give an appropriate license.  Is this public domain or is it being used under fair use?  Image policy is confusing, so if you want to just explain here where the picture came from I can help figure out how to document that on the image page (or I can find an image expert who can help).
 * All units need to be posted in both standard and metric. There is a template that you can use-see Template:Convert
 * This is a very vague sentence - "This land became very important for the Ruiz family for Ruiz de Burton's entire life. " - how was it important?
 * "Then many years later, Francisco Ruiz, her great-uncle, was commandate for the Presidio of San Diego, for which service he too was awarded a land grant" - is this really important in her biography?
 * Did the war affect her or her family at all? I am not that familiar with the Mexican-American War, so I don't know if there was fighting in or around La Paz.  Do the sources mention anything in particular (hardships, family members killed, etc) that could have impacted her?
 * "In 1848 she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo." - do the sources mention the reason why she decided to move there?
 * Is there any known information on her courtship by Burton? If not, that is not really important
 * The article needs to be very careful to present opinion as an opinion, not fact. You've done that to a certain extent in the paragraph on the importance of her marriage to an American man, but I think it could probably be taken a bit further.
 * "In 1859, Henry Burton was sent to the East Coast to aid the Union army toward the end of the Civil War" - this can't be right - the American Civil War didn't begin until 1860
 * The citation needed tags need to be cleaned up (i.e., cite that text or remove it). I added a few more tags, too.
 * Is there more information about what exactly were the legal issues over the land? I'm a bit confused as to why there was so much litigation
 * Is there more information on why she decided to become a writer, how long it took her to write the books, or how difficult it was to find a publisher?
 * The Literary career section doesn't quite work as is. Right now, it provides only brief explanations of the plots of the novels.  If this is all that is included, it would belong better in the biography section.  If it is to be a separate section, it should also include some critical response or analysis of the works - how were they received?  When did people find out that they were written by a Mexican-American woman?  Did they sell well?
 * Is there any information about when the play was first performed? Was it performed often?  How was it received?
 * There is a lot of repetition in the article. For example, the reader is told multiple times that she spent much of her life fighting legal battles over land.  It is usually not necessary to duplicate information quite so much, but that may signify an issue with the structure of the article.
 * The major themes section begins with a list of consistent themes - "subordination of race, gender, and class", yet does not go into detail on these. This seems like it should be its own subsection, and that it should relate strongly to her own experiences.  That type of information would be useful for helping us to see a better picture of who she was, not just what she did.....But after I read further I see that the first subsection "Writing Herself into Fiction", actually covers these.  The subsection likely should be renamed
 * Be consistent in how the article refers to her. She is usually mentioned as Ruiz de Burton, but sometimes by her full name, and sometimes as Mrs. Burton.  Ruiz de Burton is the correct method.
 * The Political beliefs section should likely not be its own section. The section mostly contains analysis of her books.  This could be one or more subsections in the Major themes section.
 * "As a romantic racialist/romantic feminist strategy of vindicating groups exploited on the basis of region, race, culture, class, or gender, sentimentalism links gender politics to racial caste politics."- this quote is awfully lonely - the article doesn't say who actually said/wrote that.
 * Can we include the names of her parents and the number and/or names of her siblings? Where did she fall in the birth order?

additional review
(I saw JB's post on Karanacs talk page so I thought I would come over uninvited and try to help too - I hope nobody minds!) I think "denomination" was the word you were striving for here.
 * Typo in second sentence of Early Life
 * Early Life could be expanded to let Reader know a little bit about what was happening in Mexico during that time. The link to Mexican American war is good but a sentence about the animosity that existed between Mexicans and Americans could help give Reader some context. For example, a recent autobiographical movie about Pope John Paul II makes the effort to show the viewer the atrocities he witnessed against Jews in Poland in the WWII era. This profoundly impacted his life, it was one of the reasons he first became a priest and ultimately resulted in his tremendous efforts to help heal divisions between Jews and Christians when he became pope. Similarly, Maria Ruiz' later life efforts and acheivements have some basis in what events affected her early life. Page 58 of this book discusses some of this.
 * Marriage - Just a niggling issue - Catholic and Protestant are not different religions, they are the same religion! :)
 * The second para of Marriage discusses society views of Maria's marriage to Burton but only gives her side of the story. Were there any down sides for Burton marrying a Mexican woman? Did he face ostracism too?
 * Later Life - there are two instances where we are told that lawsuits occupied her until her death, one at the beginning of the section and again at the end.
 * Literary Career redundantly states the same thing mentioned in Later Life - that she published two novels. Maybe just eliminate the first sentence in Literary Career.
 * Writing herself into fiction - we are again told for a third time that Maria spent the last 20 years of her life in lawsuit struggles. There must be some way to not have to repeat this, maybe just say in subsequent sections "due to her legal struggles over ranch title...."
 * off topic comment - Did you know that Old World vineyards were completely destroyed by a nematode that came from the America's? The vines in Europe today are not the same type that existed before the discovery of America. The only place you can find the actual Old World vines uncorrupted is Chile. (That was from my World of Wines class - one of those you take in college to help bring up your GPA)
 * To give Reader context on the section discussing Maria's sympathies with Confederacy it might help to show when slavery had been abolished in Mexico - not critical but might help. Also be careful of WP:Original research - you can't put your own observations about Maria's sympathies or possible feelings into the article - you can only put such observations in there if some scholar made the observation and then you have to attribute the observation to the scholar.
 * Finally, make sure you tell JB, that he needs to use bullet points in his review of your work. :-)  Nancy Heise   ''' talk 17:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

To do
Guys, you've had two reviews of this article (above). Please take note and attend to Karanacs's and Nancy's suggestions! This article is going to GAN, and you need to get it shipshape! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:16, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

thank you
I want to thank the editors of this article. While some organization/format questions are raised (above), I found this article informative, direct, comprehensive AND concise. You gave me all the info I needed, from all the sources I needed. Excellent example of how well Wikipedia can work for a relatively unknown (to me, at least) topic. --kipito (talk) 07:40, 11 March 2010 (UTC)