Talk:Maria Mitchell

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 January 2021 and 30 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): KellyAnnDrew, Mczjx08, GabrielleLyynn.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:33, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 August 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Belajane41, Tswptd. Peer reviewers: Makaylacg, Cwynd.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:22, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Another book source
Merriam, Eve, ed. "Maria Mitchell." In GROWING UP FEMALE IN AMERICA:TEN LIVES, ed. by Eve Merriam, pp.75-92. Extracts from Mitchell's diary, selected for the general reader. New York: Doubleday, 1971. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 15:30, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation
"pron: ma-RY-ah" is not very helpful. Y can have the long I sound or the long E sound. And it is not clear in this case which is intended. RYE or REE would be more helpful. Alternatively the IPA could be used. 50.59.88.46 (talk) 13:12, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Personal Life
This article needs a section on the subject's personal life.50.26.99.246 (talk) 13:50, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to continue to add things in this area. I grew up on Nantucket and just did a lot of research on Maria Mitchell for a project at Mystic Seaport. I will supply footnotes for everything! Please let me know what types of things you would like to see added. (CaptMeow (talk) 18:08, 23 September 2013 (UTC))

I tried adding footnotes by copy and pasting from inside the wiki document. Can someone help me clean these up? I don't know which part of the formatting I got wrong. Thank you (CaptMeow (talk) 18:29, 23 September 2013 (UTC))

Christian thinker?
I think the link to the "List of Christian thinkers in science" should be removed (as she would need to be removed from that list). As a unitarian she would not have accepted that Jesus is the son of God, hence she is technically not a Christian. Peteruetz (talk) 01:37, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Plagiarism
The second paragraph in "Academic achievements" appears to contain sections plagiarized from sheisanastronomer.org. While it is of course possible that the plagiarism runs the other direction, the Wikipedia version appears to me to be a trimmed and edited version of the information on the external site. SarahLawrence Scott (talk) 14:17, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Content and Linking Edit Suggestions
Hello everyone! I think that certain aspects of this article might require some clarification. In the portion detailing her discovery of the comet for example, the article states, “she submitted her calculation of the comet’s orbit, ensuring her claim as the original discoverer”. This claim appears immediately after a sentence in which she published her initial discovery under her father’s name, so I as a reader am quite confused about the name she used when actually submitting her calculations. I also think that the introductory material, for example, should incorporate more of her prominent achievements (of which there are many) in lieu of details about the gold medal she received and the fact that she was the third child. This information, in my opinion, would be better suited to the portion of the text that speaks of her early life and her scientific achievements.

As far as links to other Wiki articles are concerned, the link provided for the Nautical Almanac Office redirects readers to the Wikipedia article for the "United States Naval Observatory". I think that the top of the "United States Naval Observatory" article should include a comment to alert readers that “Nautical Almanac Office” redirects to this article to lessen confusion.Belajane41 (talk) 15:44, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Making changes to the article.
I am reworking the lead section by adding text and rearranging it to make it more concise and clear. Tswptd (talk) 15:12, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Making changes
Beginning revisions to the article to improve its clarity, chronological organization, and conciseness. We are making changes to the lead section, early years, and Miss Mitchell’s Comet section.Tswptd (talk) 15:17, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

"Politics" Subsection Heading
Hi Jim! My name is Belajane41; I'm one of the students who has been working to update the Maria Mitchell page this fall. Thank you for reading and editing the page! My partner on this project and I were talking about the new heading, and were wondering what your thoughts were on how to name the subsection currently titled "Politics". We retained the heading "Efforts" from the original version of the article because we felt that it encompassed Mitchell's wider interests from her religious background to her work with women's rights and education. To us, the term "Politics" seems like a closer fit but may still be a bit too narrow, as Mitchell's involvement in these issues seems to be more reflective of a participation in a social or ideological movement rather than a purely political one. Perhaps a term like "Activism" could show this perspective? We would love to hear your thoughts on this topic! Feel free to respond here or reach out to our talk page. Thanks again for your help and contribution!

All the best, Belajane41 (talk) 01:18, 6 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Glad to discuss, but this may become somewhat complex, thus better served by the Article Talk Page Talk:Maria Mitchell in case others are interested in the subject but not looking in my personal Talk Page. I have copied your comment there, and we'll see. Drat; I find myself close to bedtime. I'll see if my mind can tick along well enough to say something substantial before nodding off.


 * All right; I think part of the problem is that most of the article is about our subject's astronomical and academic life, properly presented in chronological order. Normally a "Legacy" section is at the end of a biography and describes awards, honorary degrees, having a hall named for her, and things that happen, if they do, when the subject is old and past her intellectual prime as I am. However, the subsection that I renamed as "Politics" isn't about such things. It's about the other side of her life, namely religion, public morality, academic politics, real-life politics, and the like, also presented in more or less chronological order. It doesn't fit, so shouldn't be in that section, and it doesn't fit in the scientific / academic section either. Darn, I have the feeling I had an idea what should be done with it, but it has slipped my feeble old mind. I'll see if I can remember tomorrow, or say something else intelligent before going to my early-evening astronomy meeting. Jim.henderson (talk) 04:42, 6 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Butting in, since I am here: one possibility might be to merge the three "level 2" sections following "Early life" into a single "level 2" section entitled "Career as an astronomer" / "Astronomical career" or something similar, with the three existing sections as "level 3" sub-sections. I would also remove the dates on the "Early life" section heading. Next I would move the current "Politics" "level 3" sub-section to a stand-alone "level 2" section following the new "Astronomical career" section.  I might call it "Political activities" or "Campaign activities".Did I manage to explain that suggestion comprehensibly?  I'm also not sure that "Death" belongs inside "Legacy", but it's not yet obvious to me how that ought to be dealt with.  Best, Wham2001 (talk) 17:30, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

"Early years" section
I received the following enquiry on my talk page which I would prefer to reply to here: "Hi Wham2001! My name is Belajane41; I'm one of the students who has been working to update the Maria Mitchell page this fall. Thank you for reading and editing the page! My partner on this project and I were reviewing the 'Early Years' section and were wondering if you could tell us about your thoughts on the first two paragraphs. When we published our first edits to the article, we wanted to rewrite first two paragraphs of the 'Early Years' section to present facts about Mitchell's upbringing in a clear, unbiased manner. We also wanted to reduce the amount of repetitive information we found to 'streamline' the article. In rereading the page recently, we have observed that some of the information you inserted in the second paragraph appears similar to information we thought we presented in the first paragraph. We were wondering if there is a way that we could combine these paragraphs in a simple, straightforward manner. We would love to hear your thoughts on this topic! Feel free to respond here or reach out to our talk page. Thanks again for your help and contribution!

All the best, Belajane41 (talk) 01:33, 6 December 2019 (UTC)"

I am not sure that you contacted the correct editor about this section, since my only edits to the article have been to revert vandalism and poorly-explained removals of sourced content - I haven't read any of the sources or written any significant content for the article. However, having read the section carefuly, I agree with you that the first two paragraphs (and perhaps part of the third one) are partially redundant. I would be inclined to merge the first two paragraphs. I think it would be advisable to check source #11 (Maria Mitchell The Soul of an Astronomer by Gormley) to see whether it adds much to the sources already cited or whether it can be omitted from the first paragraph. In my opinion the point about social conditions in Nantucket in the final sentence of the second paragraph is interesting and should be retained somehow. Hope this helps; I would like to leave the actual editing to your more capable and better-read hands. All the best, Wham2001 (talk) 17:17, 6 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Seeing that others had joined in at your invitation, I stayed out for a while. I see that there was a little more vandalism, a good sign that not just insiders are looking at this article. Rather than make more suggestions I did a bit of editing on the lower part of the article a few minutes ago; perhaps the new section names and structure will be seen as improvements. The article is still on my watchlist, so I'll see whether anyone else makes more useful changes. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:20, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

New section
Can someone please add how is her work used today? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NotJoeMama1903 (talk • contribs) 00:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)