Talk:Michael Billington (critic)

Copyvio
The article seems to be a copy of this mini biography produced by the British Council. WP page was started 7 July 2006, with substantially the same text. British Council has blocked Wayback Machine, so I can't say for certain when the material first appeared there but from similar pages it may be 2003 (not confirmed). If I can find out more I will consider tagging it as . --Old Moonraker (talk) 22:30, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Deleted and replaced with original work. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:10, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

See comments below re: continuing plagiarism from sources throughout this article and reason for templates being added throughout it due to missing citations. --NYScholar (talk) 20:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

State of the Nation reviewed in TLS
Valid link and well worth a read, I thought. Any reason why it should have been deleted? --Old Moonraker (talk) 15:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

After making many other format corrections to citations, I've added a link to the book review (citing Times Literary Supplement as published in Times Online) in proper citation format after the book's title in his bibliography. I've also corrected the broken linnk to another ref. added by another editor/other editors. --NYScholar (talk) 20:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Old Moonraker (talk) 21:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Missing citations throughout
Added template; reformatted several of citations that had errors. Missing URLs for verification of some of them. Access dates need updating as they are corrected. Plagiarism from references needs correction [i.e., missing citations and quotation marks as required need to be supplied by editor(s) who added the content; otherwise the material may be deleted]; see earlier comment by earlier editor(s). --NYScholar (talk) 20:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC) [added info in brackets. --NYScholar (talk) 20:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)]
 * As the editor who noticed and replaced the previous plagiarism, I have checked the current version of the piece in response to this post and can confirm that it is still plagiarism free. No source is quoted directly and the whole is a synthesis from nine cited works. --Old Moonraker (talk) 22:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry; but you are not following Wikipedia's own policies and guidelines pertaining to WP:CITE, Reliable sources, and WP:V; Wikipedia requires that in-line citations follow statements. The material taken from sources without documentation of the sources (source citations) is Plagiarism, whether or not it is intentional.  All the statements in the article must be followed by source citations according to WP:CITE and the other policies and guidelines.  All readers must be able to verify (WP:V) that the material in the article comes from the sources being cited.  Just listing a source in a reference list is not adequate.  See the problem templates linked via the article WP:CITE.  Wikipedia explicitly prohibits the kind of "synthesis" of which you speak: WP:NOR.  Please add the necessary citations or remove the unsourced content.  Thank you.   --NYScholar (talk) 23:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * See also: WP:NOR. That relates both to the need to avoid Plagiarism from sources (due to missing citations) and to adhere to another core Wikipedia editing policy: Neutral point of view.  For these policies and guidelines relating to editing Wikipedia articles, please read the linked material in the top talkpage header (template).  Thanks.  --NYScholar (talk) 23:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Since I wrote that, I saw your additional citations; thanks for adding them. I've made some further formatting revisions, and I've added some editorial interpolations, which are visible only in editing mode in the article (preview).  Please see them too.  Thanks.  There are still changes needed in some instances. --NYScholar (talk) 00:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Note also that paraphrasing material from sources without giving source citations for the paraphrases is also considered Plagiarism; both quotations and paraphrases and also part-paraphrase and part-quotation from sources need to be attributed properly to the sources from which the material has been taken; quotation marks are necessary for the non-paraphrased material, for phrases that appear in the sources, for exact words used by the source(s).
 * Giving a source citation at the end of a paragraph of more than one sentence does not clearly indicate which of the sentences in the paragraph comes from the source; transitions may be necessary within a series of sentences when material in them comes from the same source(s), to identify the continuation of the use of that source or sources. All of the sources must be verifiable (WP:V; WP:V).  Fee-based or institutional subscription-based services (available only to registered users of institutional libraries, e.g.,) not accessible to other readers without such subscriptions are not "demonstrably" verifiable by them.  Page numbers are needed for printed publications that are not published on the internet so that other readers can verify the source citations.  (See the editorial interpolations in editing "preview" mode.)  Thanks.  --NYScholar (talk) 01:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Please document w/ a verifiable reliable source: "Visiting Professor, King's College London." Thanks.  [Moved here from inapprop. listing in "Honours".] --NYScholar (talk) 02:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I documented it w/ source from the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Program in London. (King's College London's "find faculty" facility is not yet available for its humanities programs.) --NYScholar (talk) 02:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

National varieties of English
I have changed the use of "fall" for the season of the year to "autumn" and "matriculate" to the most commonly used British term "go up" (it's in the OED thus). WP:ENGVAR has "no general preference for a major national variety of the language" but points out that "If an article has evolved using predominantly one variety, the whole article should conform to that variety" and "the variety chosen by the first major contributor to the article should be used". These changes are to reflect that policy: there is no good reason for recent edits imposing US usages onto an article written in British English. --Old Moonraker (talk) 10:42, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's discussions of varieties of English also direct editors to avoid using regionalisms wherever possible; matriculation is not an Americanism; if one reads the linked article's section on the signification of the term in the United Kingdom, one can see that. I've changed the article's focus from narrative to more factual importance of the degree earned and the dates of attendance. Was Billington a graduate of Warwick School as well, or did he just attend it for a period and then another school from which he was graduated? (check sources; I don't know). Usually, when one says only "attended" a school, one is indicating that he attended more than one school or was not graduated from any school. The latter possibility is not likely, since he later went on to earn his baccalaureate degree from St. Catherine's. No one is "imposing US usages onto an article written in British English." The UK spelling of "honours" and "theatre" is intact, and, as stated, the word "matriculation" is not a "US usage", as the article on the word establishes clearly enough. I've avoided the matter entirely by focusing on the fact that he earned a BA from Oxford, which is far more important than when he "matriculated" or began going there; the years in parentheses indicate his dates of attendance at Oxford, and the source follows. --NYScholar (talk) 21:29, 7 June 2008 (UTC) [Clearly, I can use American English in my comments in this talk page or editorial interpolations; I am not from the UK and do not use UK English in my own writing. This article could have been written in either American English or UK English; as it began predominantly in UK English, I have followed it (or tried to), but I am sensitive to the fact that Americans need to understand this article as easily as users of British English would. The idea is not to use diction that interferes in any way with ease of understanding. WP:MOS and its links make that clear. --NYScholar (talk) 21:33, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Re: "Fall": the information is sourced; it comes from the webpage of an American university program, which lists its schedule as "Fall" not "Autumn"; see the source. "Fall 2007" etc. is a specific semester in an American university, not a reference to the season. --NYScholar (talk) 21:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I've avoided the problem, by revising it with a link that makes clear that "Autumn" in UK is "Fall" in the US (particularly in relation to designation of semesters).

Re: the 4 guidelines relating to variety of English usage, my comments above relate to: WP:ENGVAR. The aim is to make the article easily comprehended by all readers of English, not just some. --NYScholar (talk) 21:54, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The re-wording to avoid the issue is a useful and constructive way around: thanks for this. I still have doubts about the frequency of citation here—I do not believe that this level of detail is necessary to defend the allegations of plagiarism made above—but there is no doubt that the quality of the article has been improved a great deal. --Old Moonraker (talk) 09:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Erroneous photograph featured in source cited
A source provided earlier, Andrew Haydon's article "Critical Thinking", timesonline.co.uk, features a photograph of Michael Billington (actor), not the subject of this article Michael Billington (critic). (The actor Michael Billington died in 2005.) The photo featured in Haydon's article online (and possibly also in print?) is the same as the IMDb photograph of the actor. I've corrected the link in the section of notable participants in the National Student Drama Festival to go to the critic, not to a disambiguation page (as it was linked) or to the actor. --NYScholar (talk) 22:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * [Publisher alerted to the error and will perhaps replace the photograph in due course. --NYScholar (talk) 23:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)]

Fellow of Kings College London
2009 admissions and the complete list are here, but Billington isn't included. Is there a source I've missed? Apologies if so. --Old Moonraker (talk) 11:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

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