Talk:Pauline Maier

'Ratification' and a 'Pauline Maier' WP article
I got the "Ratification" volume for Christmas. Really liked it. Looking into the author, found a fifty year career rich in contributions and online connections. Tried to convey some of it here. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 01:00, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

'Neutral' per 'resume' tag
My interest is solely that of a reader who enjoyed a book. See my first post on the Discussion page.

There is now no promotion in the article as there was when I found it. It had stood from 2006 until 2011. All effusive prose has been cut. The lone featured publisher for five years with external links to one publisher’s edition of Maier’s work has been included with all four publishers and their titles. Articles and lectures have been included, as well as independent reviews apart from the lone publisher.

I do not cite myself. I have no financial stake in the scholar, her university(s), foundations funding her fellowships, her publishers, or her spouse. I am not engaged in a lawsuit, I am not the scholar. The scholar is not my client, I am not a part of any promotional organization. I have no connection to MIT, NEH, Harvard, PBS, the History Channel or any other commonality.

Reliable, third party sources are used throughout. The article is edited in a neutral point of view. No reference of disparagement is made of other scholars. There is no unsupported opinion, no contested assertion, the language is non-judgmental.

The article as amended now accurately indicates the relative prominence of opposing views to the subject of the biography and her work. See 'Scholarship' section above.

The lone anomily is WP administrator driven, featuring a link to PBS in the intro but not CSPAN, Charlier Rose or the New York Times. New York Times op-ed pieces, maybe reviews, to follow at a later article expansion. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:27, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Compare with the comparable.
Okay. It's been about a month of expanding the Maier article from a one-publisher, one-online encyclopedia source biography page. I've got a couple more things to line up like tighter ISBN editing and expansion in journal citations, but for now, look at four other WP biography pages of comparable historians.

I see four as comparable contemporaries to Maier for most of her career. In the interest of balance, let's look at two neo-Whig historians (Bernard Bailyn and Gordon S. Wood), and two neo-Progressive historians (Gary B. Nash and Howard Zinn), since for most of her career, this was the major dichotomy in the field. All participated in writing social history to one degree or another, and all four were from the old-school archival crews, as opposed to pychological history, etc.

None of these four are tagged either as resume, biased, given to original research and promotional. The Zinn article is tagged as making undocumented assertions, but it is hidden; it does not show as an article banner. a) The Maier now article follows the modified info box to accommodate WP resources as found on Bernard Bailyn and the Gary B. Nash pages. (a recent improvement.) b) The Maier article followed format as found on the Gary B. Nash page when tagged as reading like a resume and promotional. It is improved.

c) The Maier article follows the accounting of recent projects and published work as found on the Gordon S. Wood and Howard Zinn pages when tagged as promotional. It is improved. d) The Maier article follows making the literature available to the people via WP:ISBN as found at the Howard Zinn page, it includes external links to online resources as found on the Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood and Howard Zinn page when it was tagged with promotional. It is improved.

None of these treat any counter scholarly trends which critiqued the subject's work. So, I was hoping for a little detailed discussion on how the article might be improved from fellow editors in a collegial way. Maybe even a rating if it's ready. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:33, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

delete 'resume' tag
I'm unsure how this is done properly. I spent a week or two upgrading the one-publisher, one-online encyclopedia, one publisherr link biography to something approaching the untagged Gary B. Nash article. Then the tag, which I have answered to the best of my ability revising and extending the article, and explaining on the discussion page. The April 2011 tag, "resume" is no longer applicable to the article in May 2011. It is deleted. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:50, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

looking for balance
Trying to avoid the concern that this article might be promotional, there are four critical or comparative elements incorporated to date. So we have something concrete to compare with other articles in their balance. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:18, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Treating the subject’s professional contributions, both neo-progressives and the cultural historians who question or oppose the subject’s approach are featured and explicated;
 * in the published works, a reviewer critical of Maier’s treatment of Jefferson's preeminent authorship of the Declaration in “American Scripture” is in the annotation;
 * in textbooks, an economist is critical of Maier and her co-author for failure to give the corporation it's cental role in the narrative of American history.
 * In online courses, the document based curriculum used at MIT and the Annenberg material used at Virginia Tech is contrasted with the lecture-only format available online at Yale.

site design
There is a great photo base in wikicommons. No photo of Maier, but buildings to illustrate career, publications, work. Since we are in the era of students listening to podcasts of the last lecture on the bus to class, it seemed to make sense to feature Maier's presentations online video. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:58, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Pictures and rationale
Run thumb illustrations down page right, the length of the text. Limit cut lines to two-three lines, refering to touch stones of scholar's work as noted in reviews. Parallel the text information down the page. Make appropriate WP links to other articles as they relate to scholar's work.


 * applied '|upright' to pics to limit size, and linked them more closely to text, spacing them out per WP guidelines. still not happy with tall building, but it is somewhat tamed. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 04:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

1. “The Dome” is the logo of MIT in Maier’s career. External link to Maier lecture on teaching history at MIT. 2. “Old State House” site of Massachusetts Ratification in Maier’s “Ratification”. Lead into book write up. WP link to building. 3. Federal Street Church (Boston). Site of Ma Ratification Convention final vote. Reviewers of 'Ratification' remark on Maier’s describing just how public the process really was. WP link to church building history, name changes. 4. Washington at Convention. Reviews note how Maier places Washington at the center of the ratification process. WP link to George Washington. 5. Declaration committee. Site of Maier’s American Scripture. People’s inability to distinguish Declaration Congress and Constitutional Convention is repeatedly referred to in Maier’s presentations. See pic #4, #5, #6. Lead into book write up. WP link to Declaration. 6. Independence Hall. Site of writing Declaration and Constitution. Maier emphasizes the distinctions between closed process and open process. WP link to building. 7. Madison’s Montpelier. Site of interview featured in an external link. WP link to James Madison’s homestead. Disambiguate from Montpelier, Virginia, once the site of an annual weekend of steeple chase and cross country horse racing. Interview addresses writing of Jefferson (Declaration) and Madison (Constitution). 8. Jefferson Building, Library of Congress. Site of lecture featured in an external link. WP link to Library of Congress. 9. Mary Baker Eddy Library. Site of panel featured in an external link. WP link to Library. 10. MIT Bldg E51. Site of MIT office for department of humanities, art and social sciences. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Pics relating to Maiers career and work
It is not clear how showing pictures related to Maier's career and work must be deleted wholesale. Perhaps it is that the descriptive lines did not tie explicitly into the text. Descriptors have been amended with that unspoken critique in mind.

It may be that WP administrators object to the work of the subject. But to allow a biographic article is, in some way, to allow readers to see the work. In I.M. Pei's article, there is no attempt to 'balance' the architecture shown with that of Frank Lloyd Wright. Isaac Newton's equations are not compared and contrasted with Einstein's. Claude Monet's paintings are not juxtiposed with Picasso. Henry Ford's production is not explicated along with photos of contemporary Olds'. Although all of those existing articles might be reasonably expanded in those ways, it does not seem to be a requirement before allowing any pictures at all related to the subject themselves.

I am reluctant to overargue a point that has not been made. If you will pardon the expression, a "professor" professes something, which is, willy-nilly a point of view. Will WP community allow illustrations pointing to the places and subjects of books and lectures authored by the historian being treated? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:31, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Just in case the administrator's objection which lead to the whole-sale deletion of all illusttations of Maier's scholarly production, output, work, oeuvre, was that the illustrations given did not represent the entire range of Maier's scholarship, I've added two additional illustrations to the originals pictured. I did not mean to slight full inclusion of good social history, nor to bias the article by acts of omission.


 * So, I added (a) Samuel Adams (he was always called 'Samuel') and the Tea Party along with a tie-in for Maier's Old Revolutionaries. It caused something of a stir when Maier discovered many if not most of the leaders of the 'people in the street' for the Sons of Liberty could read and write.


 * And (b) the Paxton Boys march on Philadelphia as an example of 'out-of-doors' political activity. Elites called these mobbing "committees" with tongue in cheek, mocking the self-importance of the non-readers calling themselves "committees" in their mass assemblies, along with the tie-in to Maier's From Resistance to Revolution. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 16:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


 * sorted pics by chronology in the sections. pulled all four major works suitable for WP-book articles due to their impact in the field into the historiography section. pulled Radcliffe pic up into bio, since it's a two-fer with Harvard connect. cut the three-pic dome deal as too cute by half, deleted the duplicate UWisc., dropped the Quincy birthplace pic of college summer work as too detailed for encyclopedia and spacing concerns per WP guidelines. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 04:23, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Narrative outline and rationale
For an academic
 * a. Name, field, position. written for search engine view, not 'she was born'. It's not distinguishing on merit outside your favorite state or hometown. First line is what a 'search' sees.
 * b. scholarly accomplishment generally, detailed enumeration to notes, should not be a resume. here, a link to scholar's university gives major accomplishments and that gets updated. Also, a link to the program notes of one of scholar's visiting lectures that is a good resume as of that date.
 * c. popular career, link to author pages, notable shows online. Detail to notes. for instance, the New York Times website allows a search by contributors. Here a link to the scholar's page for 10 cites. They will update. That makes this page, by reference, current for NYT contributions by this scholar.
 * d. placement in scholarship of the field. School-of-thought. Comparable scholars. Outlook. Here, American historiography. This can be controversial. I read two scholarly sources on American historiography which mentioned the scholar by name in context, a major history by the scholar, five articles and watched five online presentations (six-plus hours). Tried refect what the subject says in the historiography write up.
 * e. academic credentials. -- scholar went to school. f. personal. -- scholar has a life.

TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:41, 19 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Modified per anonymous "Resume" tag. I surveyed eleven Wikipedia biographies of American Revolution historians, from Bailyn to Nash to Wood to Zinn. Then restructured the article headings. See section below. [User:TheVirginiaHistorian|TheVirginiaHistorian]] (talk) 02:35, 23 April 2011 (UTC)

ISBN for books and rationale.
One of the most powerful services Wikipedia offers the reader is a huge web of resources linked to a book by its International Standard Book Number (ISBN). The numbers as inline text puts up too much blue near the titles. Put them in footnotes from the scholar’s titles.


 * Explain in the listing of scholar’s published books at the top of the ‘published’ section:

The ISBN links in footnotes go to WP’s “Book Sources” for direct links at “find this book at”. These include online text, bibliographical information, libraries in universities and world-wide, book sellers, book swappers. Each ISBN is a different edition.


 * Put in a footnote to the ISBN statement above:

Wikipedia site also shows how to expand edition searches to paper, most recent or foreign language, with “xISBN”, a free search of all editions. The “Library Thing” has more paperback editions and foreign language.

Find additional sources online by titles (and their ISBN) using “Google books” or “Amazon books”. Generate bibliographies from ISBN automatically with “OttoBib”. These three items are generated for the reader at the ISBN Wikipedia link. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 23:20, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Article organization (ii)
To more closely conform with living person's biographies, I've collapsed the subcategories in "external links" and structured the four elements of the scholars "Work" under headers: a. books and articles. b. texts and teaching. c. lectures and panel. d. TV and video. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:43, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

A working life in three chapters (org iii)
The presentation of Maier’s work now sorts out into three sections. So to accommodate the WP format for biography articles, the Table of Contents now reads:
 * As a professional scholar, peer reviewed work that is referenced in other scholarly work is the point of an academic career.
 * Maier has a passion for effectively communicating the narrative; she is developing an area of expertise related to teaching history in the United States, in college courses, AP secondary classes, a middle school text, and including online offerings for professional development of secondary teachers.
 * Lastly, the Radcliffe undergraduate who was interested in the newspaper business communicates in ever widening and influential circles with the larger (not-captive) audiences on the subject of American Revolution history by popular reviews and columns in the press, and with educational videos and publically aired TV series.

3. Work. 3.1 books and scholarly articles -- Paperback and ebook; Hardback editions; Co-authored and contributed chapters; Scholarly articles; Scholarly reviews 3.2 texts and teaching -- Texts; Online courses; Lectures and panel discussions (see external) 3.3 popular reviews and columns. -- WaPo review; NYT reviews (grouped in three categories); NYT columns; TV and video series (see external links)

5. External links -- Lectures and panel discussions (scholarly); TV and video series (popular and instructional); Biographical and publishers pages; Referenced places (for research); Universities (for research)

More later. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 19:39, 30 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Split (5) 'further reading' element from (6) 'external links' per WP guidelines. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 04:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * expanded applicable (7) categories per WP guidelines. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 04:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

'Career' section expansion
Added university information from MIT catalogue, department (SHASS) online facebook. summarized THS in a line or two in the article, and tried to be balanced and avoid controversy by an expansive footnote ... the affair seemed to start off with some sensational coverage that does not bear up to scrutiny. The heartfelt plaint of the untenured instructor is the takeaway, answered now in some fashion by all interested parties. Teaching the teachers of American history, both for college intro courses and high school, is a major and continuing chapter in Maier's career. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Article as a webpage
To date, when I access this article, it has one frame of my laptop given over to the intro, bio box and contents box. There are two frames of text. One frame of references. Nine frames of works listed with isbn links, and short annotation. These are in categories which are conventional in the academic world, spaced out to quickly accessed by the reader, and illustrated with pictures described in explicit, concrete terms relating to the accompanying text and Maier's life and career. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:04, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Scholarship expanded per 'resume' tag
Per "resume" tag, I sought to be more neutral and encyclopedic. First I expanded a brief historiographic description of neo-Whigs. Four sources yielded a narrative of reasonable scholarly exceptions made to the neo-Whig school. Then, at each critique of neo-progressive or social historians, I inserted at least one example of Maier's work as a scholarly response. The intent is to neutrally present the call-and-response of contemporary historians, each extending a more complete narrative in the literature of the American Revolution (and before and after). TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:49, 23 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Three years ago, Maier was a contributor to a collection on Early American history published at the U of SC. The old dichotomy of neo-Whig (political) versus neo-Progressive (economic) analysis seems to be passing in the flurry of expansion in scholarship by chronology, geography, and topics. It is impressive that she is such a part of the discussion. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

'Google scholar' = add some
There is no attempt to be comprehensive in listing Maier's work, merely suggestive in several categories. One or two more recent or most prominent of her prolific career are used in some cases. Nevertheless, 'Google scholar' points to some really big ones I missed with 30-100 scholarly citations. I would include them as I find them online without objection. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:39, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

add WorldCat information and OCLC
For publications of an author, www.WorldCat.org can list current sources available in libraries, in this case, I only updated 2008-2010 citations there into here. There is a sort feature on the left bar to extend years to 2010 and you can then see publications of and publications about the author. Some few false positives, mostly at the bottom of the listing for the three years I checked for Maier. I found it looking at one of the WP examples of a biography rated 'good'. Also there, I saw the OCLC and ISSN numbers for reference about articles, which I am still learning about. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:36, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

mining evri.com
At evri.com there are current connections across media. Starting with Pauline Maier, there is the recent review she wrote on 'Liberty's Exiles' for the Washington Post. One of the related bubbles is Thomas Jefferson. click on the bubble, and a couple looks down page, the reference to Jefferson losing slaves to Loyalist emancipation pops up in Bender's review of 'Liberty's Exiles' in the NY Times. Ta-dah. Lead readers to compare Maier to Bender: Balance. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 22:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Last night and again this morning, I tried to add "George Washington Book Prize nomination for 2011." alongside the 'hardback editions', 'Ratification' first line. It did not show on the 'preview page', but on saving, it shows as saved in my 'edit' code but it still does not show on the page. As I closed out last night, it seems I had opened the pauline maier page more than once, or opened it once, and using the internet explorer to look elsewhere online, came back to it, making a second access to the pauline maier page. Does that automatically block me from editing? How is that unblocked? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:LINKSTOAVOID
Deleted publisher and school links

Links normally to be avoided. 5. Links to individual web pages that primarily exist to sell products or services, or to web pages with objectionable amounts of advertising. -- 14. Lists of links to manufacturers, suppliers or customers. -- 19. Links to websites of organizations mentioned in an article.

What can normally be linked. 3. Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues. -- that would be the places of interdisciplinary scholarship, unimaginable fifty years ago. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 21:32, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Collapse bar
Following WP style, I did not use the 'collapse bar' for article text or references. Most categories and many titles are addressed directly in the text. In some biographies, the subject's work is in a table. Here, a table is less useful because of the annotation length and variety. But they are behind bullets, so not counted in the article text count anyway. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:43, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Peer review request
I've listed this article for peer review because…I want to a) prepare article for B rating, b) develop as a writer editor. I got Maier's latest book from my kids for xmas, I found the WP bio as a dated book blurb "stub", so tried to fill out what I discovered to be an astoundingly varied career. Thanks, TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:31, 27 June 2013 (UTC) TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 10:04, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Referencing style
Thanks for mentioning this article on my talkpage. I've started doing some editing on it and will continue to do so, but wanted to mention here that the article's referencing style is difficult to work through and is holding the article back from gaining a higher rating. I would strongly recommend using the cite templates (as I've just done for The New York Times article in the lede). --Rosiestep (talk) 13:27, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Images and image captions
Please review Image captions as the current style doesn't follow the general convention, i.e. use of arrows, etc. Instead of "Radcliffe College. Maier’s undergraduate campus, now Harvard's Radcliffe Institute" consider something like, "Maier attended Radcliffe College during her undergraduate years"; instead of "Wheatley Hall, UMass-Boston. Maier taught here 9 years. Also site of Massachusetts Archives and Commonwealth Museum", consider something like, "Maier taught at Wheatley Hall, University of Massachusetts, Boston, for nine years"; instead of "“The Dome” at MIT, Maier taught there from 1978", consider something like "Maier taught at MIT form 1978". Some of the other captions, such as "Paxton Boys at Phil. Disorderly "out-of-doors" disrupted cities. → From Resistance to Revolut'n" I don't understand at all. --Rosiestep (talk) 13:44, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The caption Paxton Boys at Philadelphia, was an example of the period's disorderly "out-of-doors" demonstrations featured in Maier's book "→From Resistance to Revolution: Colonial Radicals and the Development of American Opposition to Britain, 1765-1776". The → was added by another editor to make the caption more concise.


 * It looks like I tried to do too much with the captions, both illustrating Maier's work and listing the works themselves, and compounding the error with too much abbreviation. This is from some time ago, before I noticed GA articles had a ratio of image to text word count of about 1:350-300.


 * A previous editor culled several of the illustrations to the present count. Another shorthand estimate might be one image per view in my browser... but it was fun finding them all. Please feel free in selecting the best illustrative of Maier's body of work, rather than trying to represent every single major book. I would appreciate the help. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 15:53, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Sections with lists
--Rosiestep (talk) 13:57, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The "Books and scholarly articles" section: The list is too long. Rename it "Selected works" and then only include the major ones. If your wish, discuss some of the books/articles in prose form within the body of the article.
 * "Texts, online courses, avatar gaming" and "Popular reviews and columns" sections: Instead of list form, switch to prose and mention within the article, or drop them altogether.
 * "Further reading" section: It is way too long (Further reading may be helpful)
 * too long? no I don't think so. What's really valuable are the short annotations. This is an article for specialists and they will appreciate the detail, in my opinion.Rjensen (talk) 15:21, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikilinks
I added several wls. While the articles I wikilinked would be easily understood by Americans, I try and remember that people form around the world might read this article and they won't have the same understanding of US TV programs, etc. (think about a teenager or grandmother from another continent reading this article ten years from now). I got as far as the Career section, so you might want to look at the sections which follow and add wls accordingly. --Rosiestep (talk) 14:13, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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