Talk:Alfred Woodford

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:41, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

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Alfred Woodford c. 1910

• ... that for two decades, Alfred Woodford (pictured) single-handedly ran a one-person geology department at Pomona College? Source: Geological Society of America "He received his Ph.D. and established the Geology Department at Pomona in 1921. Woody headed the department until his formal retirement in 1955. For years he single-handedly taught the entire geology curriculum. ... In 1941 John Shelton, a former student, joined Woody, doubling the size of the Pomona Geology Department."

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Magnus Olsen

Created by Sdkb (talk). Self-nominated at 21:28, 11 February 2021 (UTC).

• Long enough, nominated in time. Hook is short enough, interesting and broadly checks out; adding "nearly" is probably required, as one source states he took leave for 1921–22 to complete his PhD work. The repetition also needs rewording: don't need "one-person" & "single-handedly". I've added "pictured" to it, but actually I don't think the image should run. Article appears neutral except per below. Adequate inline citations to reliable sources except for minor nitpicks below. Earwig found no copyright problems, and source spotchecks found nothing concerning. QPQ done. Some issues:

• His nickname and the name of his mother are not explicitly cited.
• The parents field in the infobox is usually reserved for notable people with existing articles. In the absence of an article if his father is notable it would be better to explain how in the body.
• The article should be expanded at least a little to mention his contributions to geological research, which are covered in detail in the sources. Otherwise it is essentially a stub.
• Some of his books seem to be co-authored; this should be mentioned.
• The article has some one-sentence paragraphs that could be amalgamated.
• I'd reorganise the sections so that his death does not precede personal life.
• The image is quite low quality. The licensing is not fully compliant; what proof is there that it was published before 1926? The immediate source is dated 1989.
• What does "graduated more geologists on a per capita basis" mean? A higher proportion of their intake/graduates? It's a bit meaningless and promotional without some idea of total the numbers involved. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:13, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Espresso Addict, thanks for the thorough review! Replying in order:

• Adding "nearly" sounds fine; good catch.
• Re the repetition, that irked me a little too, but I'm not precisely sure how it should be changed. for two decades, Alfred Woodford single-handedly ran a geology department might imply that he was the sole administrator in a multi-professor department and for two decades, Alfred Woodford ran a one-person geology department might imply that he only ran the department for two decades, when actually he ran it for longer but only single-handedly for that long. Any ideas?
• I've cited his nickname and his mother's name.
• His father was an early general manager at what would become Sunkist. I wrote family of successful citrus farmers and the added references have more, but at the article's current length, I think it would be WP:UNDUE to go into further detail.
• I added a sentence on his academic specialties.
• I corrected the co-authorship; thanks for catching that.
• I amalgamated in the recognition section; for the others, I like them separate because they're separate topics, and it helps indicate that there's room to expand.
• For the image, I've made a request for the paywalled Journal of Geological Education article, which from the Google preview I believe has a higher quality non-rounded version of the image. Hopefully it'll also have original publication information; I assume that it was originally published in Pomona's yearbook, which unfortunately has not been digitized to my knowledge. It'd be nice to run with the image, but not the end of the world if we have to leave it out.
• The source text is From around 1920 to 1940, Pomona College was at the top of the list in the production (per thousand graduates) of geologists listed in what was then called American Men of Science. I take it to mean that, when you counted up everyone listed in American Men of Science and sorted them by college, then divided by the size of each school, Pomona had the highest number. Should the wording be clarified?

Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:25, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi there Sdkb - Thanks for the long response. I've added "nearly" to the hook and hidden the image for now; I don't think the yearbook appearance would quite count as publication? (Difficult, as modern ones presumably go on the website, which would count.) What about the wording of the article, which says "He was Pomona's sole geology professor for two decades" -- which might be more accurate, as thinking about it, the sources don't rule out there being secretarial help, research assistants or other non-professorial staff? Fine with your other points. Cheers, Espresso Addict (talk) 06:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

@Espresso Addict: Sounds good! So we have:

• ALT1: ... that for nearly two decades, Alfred Woodford was the sole professor in Pomona College's geology department?

I worded it to keep "department", as that makes it clear that people were majoring in geology, not just taking his class as an elective. I restored ALT0 and crossed it out just so others can more easily trace our conversation here. I'll update here if I get access to the source of the image. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:57, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Alt1 approved, only without the image. (Ping me if the source checks out.) Espresso Addict (talk) 07:43, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Journal of Geoscience Education article

If anyone wants a copy of the Journal of Geoscience Education article on Woodford, feel free to contact me; I have one (on Microfiche) thanks to the helpful folks at the WP:Resource Exchange. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)