Talk:Barbara H. Bowman

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 Yoninah (talk) 20:29, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that Barbara H. Bowman was one of the geneticists who discovered the polymorphism responsible for variations in haptoglobins? Source: There, she characterized additional serum proteins, particularly haptoglobin, that showed genetic variation. Seventeen years later, she and Oliver Smithies showed that the variation in haptoglobin was due to a polymorphic duplication of its encoding gene.

Created/expanded by Citing (talk). Self-nominated at 21:15, 10 March 2020 (UTC).

• Long enough, nominated in time, should perhaps be moved to 10th when created (but that might be a timezone issue). No QPQ noted but editor appears not to have any DYK credits. No obvious neutrality problems in the article but unfortunately I think some work is still needed before this is ready for DYK.
• The hook is concise & interesting to me, but might need a bit of unpacking for the general reader.
• The source is not cited inline with the fact in the article.
• Earwig seems completely down at the moment but a spot check found too much similarity to the wording in Ref 1.
• Despite the length, I'd still characterise the article as a stub. For example, it is missing the timeline of her career -- it jumps from doctorate to death in Life section -- usually there's a position-by-position account with dates. The Life section needs breaking up, and the honours part moving to Legacy or under Awards and honors.
• There are also major problems with the sourcing. Most of the Research career section is not sourced, or sourced only to primary sources. Most of the material in the infobox also needs a source.
• Full details needed for refs 1 (not clear from pages that it is just the legend to the cover), 2, 3

Espresso Addict (talk) 05:04, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the review Espresso Addict (talk · contribs). Most of the material is based off of the citation from the AJHG cover story as it's the most thorough source on her life. The scientific references are to add context to the experiments that she carried out (the timeline of her research is based off of the AJHG citation) rather than as primary sources for the biography. I don't know how much more I could add to this article however as she died before the internet really took off and I don't have access to local newspapers and archives which would probably have more about her. If that's not sufficient for a DYK entry then I understand.Citing (talk) 17:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

• New reviewer needed; previous reviewer did not respond before their most recent edit on April 4, so we need someone to take over the review. Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

• No attempt has been made to correct any of the issues raised in the first review. I don't really understand the problem the first reviewer had with ref #1 formatting, it looks fine to me. Earwig is not raising any problems except for one minor close paraphrase "Barbara Bowman Distinguished Texas Geneticist Award to recognize outstanding geneticists who have made major contributions to the field and have been affiliated with Texas institutions." If that is the way the award is cited, then it should be in quotes, otherwise reword. However, Earwig cannot read the text of ref #1 (it's difficult for humans to read as well), but checking manually, there is some close paraphrasing, but nothing I'd consider really serious (but no reason not to fix it). On the hook cite, the only place "polymorphism" is mentioned is in the lead and there is no inline cite there. In any case, the hook is a little technical for most readers to understand. Perhaps a hook about the award renamed in her honour would work better. On the length issue, it is not really a requirement of DYK that the article covers all important aspects of a subject. It is definitely not a stub—it is "C" class in my opinion ("The article is substantial but is still missing important content"). SpinningSpark 14:13, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you for the secondary review Spinningspark (talk · contribs). As for the items raised:

• I was not aware what QPQ was (I had wrongly assumed "no quid pro quo" meant I did not have a conflict of interest in getting this article on the front page) -- not sure if I have to do anything for this
• The part about the award has been fully quoted instead of roughly paraphrased
• The hook now has a citation. I propose the following less-technical hook:

ALT1... that Barbara H. Bowman was one of the scientists who discovered the genetic difference responsible for variations in haptoglobins, a human blood protein?

If that's still too technical I can suggest:

ALT2... that Barbara H. Bowman, one of the scientists who discovered genetic variations in the HP gene, has a Texas Genetics Society award named after her?

• I've reworded parts of the article as well.Citing (talk) 19:34, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• @Citing: Before I take a second look, can you please confirm that you are now sure the article is free of close paraphrasing. One of your sources has to be checked manually and you were not 100% clear about this, so I don't want to waste the effort. On QPQ, no you don't have to do anything. This is the requirement that editors must review another article for each one they nominate, but those, like you, with less than five DYK credits are exempt. SpinningSpark 20:00, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• @Spinningspark: I've rewritten it to get rid of close paraphrasing.Citing (talk) 21:07, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• New enough, long enough, within policy, QPQ exempt. Hooks are all cited. I prefer ALT2 with ALT1 a second choice. ALT0 is a bit too obscure to be hooky. I'm not convinced that the gene part of HP gene should be italicised since this is surely using the word generically. The haptoglobin article writes it as HP gene. Bowman's article uses two different italicisations, and both are different from the haptoglobin article. But this is a minor matter of style. SpinningSpark 16:26, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

• I agree "gene" shouldn't be italicized. I've changed it in ALT2.Citing (talk) 19:59, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

• Hi, I'm promoting ALT1 because ALT2 has gene and genetic repeated a few times. Yoninah (talk) 20:29, 14 May 2020 (UTC)