Talk:Mary Amdur

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Mary Amdur/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 20:54, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Reviewing. I believe I am still eliigible as a reviewer as the edits I have made to the article have been minor, basically involving addiing some cleanup tags that were reverted without cleanup, and deleting one word, but if others disagree then please let me know.

To begin with, I believe that many things in the article are vague, making it far from the GA criteria 1 and 3. So before I give a full review, I would like to see the article answer the following questions:

• Who was Amdur's doctoral advisor?

  I'm personally struggling to find who the advisor was. Her thesis was published by her alone, and one source has specifically mentioned how quickly she achieved her PhD (just 3 years), so it appears she didn't lean to heavily on her advisor. I am not in academia, so I'm not sure how important the role of a doctoral advisor was in the 1940s - nor do I know where else I could look for that information without breaching original research (contacting Cornell and doing the investigation). Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• I can see the reason for mentioning Amdur's marriage (as the later parts of the article refer to experiments done jointly with her husband) but is the name of her son relevant? Would we typically include this sort of information at this point in a biography of this length for a male academc?

  I've only recently started writing biographies on Wikipedia, my history was in writing articles about food - so I don't know if this is information that we'd typically include for a male academic. But it is information that I would personally expect in any decent biography of an individual, male or female, which is why we included it. My concern would be that a new editor would add it to the infobox, as the infobox has a spot for it, but not to the article, and not with a source. That said, I wouldn't object to it being removed, if you think it necessary. Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• What happens to a test subject who breaths sulfuric acid? Does it damage their ability to breath? Does it make them more susceptible to pneumonia? Does it make them more susceptible to lung cancer? Does it get into the blood and cause problems there? Does it do something else beyond the lungs? And which of these specific effects did Amdur discover?

  I struggle here with the delineation of a biography, which should be available to anyone, and an article on the subject, which can be expected to be more technical. The intention was to make the biography accessible, however, I'll try to find a balance, as I accept it's too vague currently. Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

  Now done, I hope. Worm^TT(talk) 11:14, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "She went on" elides any description of where the content for the human effects paper came from. Did she do more experiments? Did she collate hospital records from the 1948 smog? Was this work her own or was it another collaboration with her husband?

  The "she went on" text has been modified, I've also re-written a lot of that part based on When Smoke Ran Like Water - a book which seems to hold the definitive description of what happened, as a number of other sources refer to it. Worm^TT(talk) 13:21, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "Drinker was put under financial pressure": this is very vague, but the vagueness is in the source. Can other sources (for instance biographies of Drinker) be found to substantiate this and make it less vague?

  Re-written to make it clear where the financial pressure came from, and to add a quote where Alice Hamilton (part of Harvard Faculty explained Drinker's behaviour). Worm^TT(talk) 13:21, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "department's funding being withdrawn": this makes no sense according to my understanding of how university departments are funded. Perhaps it was Drinker's specific research project whose funding was withdrawn?

  I've removed any comment about funding being withdrawn, it appears that it was the threat rather than actuality. Worm^TT(talk) 13:21, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• Is the ordering of events here chronological? She was threatened, then Drinker was threatened, then Drinker actually withdrew the paper (rather than just intending to), then she discussed it with Drinker (while still at the conference), then the paper was un-withdrawn, then she gave the talk, then she (and Drinker?) returned home, then Drinker canned her? It would be helpful if we could triangulate by finding another source for the same events. But if we don't know whether it is chronological and all happening in a single weekend, we shouldn't present it as if it were.

  From everything that I've read, it all happened very quickly, but perhaps some of the things that happened could be better phrased. Based on the "when smoke ran like water" the chronology is much more plausible, hopefully the re-write makes more sense? Worm^TT(talk) 13:24, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "terminated": what type of position did Amdur have in Drinker's lab, that would have allowed such a speedy termination? I.e. what was her job title?

  Re written, perhaps it explains better? Worm^TT(talk) 13:24, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I also have the following preliminary comments about the grammar of the article:

• "a spell": unnecessarily informal. "Come set on my porch a spell", ok, but in an encyclopedic biography?

   Done by passing IP (thanks IP!) Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "graduating": this word has the connotation of completing high school or college, not of finishing a Ph.D.

   DoneI've changed it to achieving her PhD, but is there a better term you know of? Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "At their annual meeting": the obvious antecedent for "their" is the thugs. Is that what was intended?

   Done by passing IP (thanks IP!) Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "She was quickly given a different position": this wording makes me wonder who gave it to her. If we don't know, maybe we should say that she found the posiition, to make it a little less passive.

  The role was given by James Whittenburger, who was also at HSPH. I can't see a date, but one source says that it happened "quickly". It's quite possible that she wasn't actually "sacked" which would involve HR (I'm not sure how that would happen for an untenured research associate), but rather that her position on the team was removed, and that Whittenburger picked her up, meaning she was never technically out of work. I can imagine how that would happen in a company, but I don't know if academia works differently. Worm^TT(talk) 13:21, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "in the Harvard School of Public Health, gaining a reputation" — it is not the HSPH that gained.

   Done has been fixed by Stacey. Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "Amdur joined a number of societies and was a committee member for a number of organisations." If this is merely summarizing the next two sentences, it is unhelpful. If not, it is overly vague.

   Done it was repetition, I put it in then expanded the information and didn't take it out. It's now gone. Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "whilst" is perfectly good UK English. Why are we using UK English in an article about an American?

  Simply because the article looked like this when we picked it up - Stacey and I effectively wrote the article from scratch and both of us are British. I don't believe either of us would object if someone were to adjust the article to be written in American English. Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

• "A number of societies": that number is three. Why be so coy?

  I thought it plausible that there were others. I've changed it to "at least three", would that be better? Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

—David Eppstein (talk) 20:54, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi David. I'll have a look at these issues, as I fully intended to, but I would request that you don't do this review. You have been extremely confrontational about the content and it appears to me that you are on the edge of a content dispute, and I worry that that will instantly add partiality to the review. Remember also, this is a good article review, not a featured article review, completeness is not necessarily as important. For example, your first issue, the doctoral advisor, I've not seen any sign of in any sources I've read, however at GA level, this shouldn't be considered an issue. Worm^TT(talk) 21:12, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

My motivation is to make the article be good, since I belieive that it's a topic that deserves to have a well written article. I thought that tagging the article for improvement and letting that improvement happen, rather than immediately requesting that improvement in the context of a GA review, would be less confrontational, rather than more, but obviously the article editor didn't take it that way. Nevertheless I think there are serious gaps in the article's treatment of the subject that I would like to see filled. GA criterion 3 does ask for all aspects of the subject to be covered in broad terns, so I don't think that it is accurate to say that what I'm asking is only needed for FA level review. I don't see how that disqualifies me as a reviewer, and I'm a bit shocked that I'm getting such strong pushback from both you and Stacey on what I intended as constructive criticism, but I guess ymmv. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:22, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

David, I'm glad you intended the criticism as constructive, but it certainly didn't come across that way. By adding those tags to the article, you pushed it into "quick-fail" for a good article review, at a time where more Wikipedians were looking at it and it was therefore much more likely that the review would be undertaken. Combine that with the fact that the recent authors of the article (Stacey and myself) were waiting for a GA review, we would be very aware of changes made on the talk page - that would have been a much less confrontational place to to raise any concerns with the article. If they had then been ignored, tagging would have made sense. What's done is done, I hope you can see why we reacted as we did. I fully expected to have to make changes for GA, I'm not a strong writer - I expect to have time tomorrow to address your concerns, either by making the suggested changes or explaining why I feel they are not a problem. Worm^TT(talk) 10:10, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

It is not the tags that can cause a quick-fail; they are only the symptom of an underlying problem (and a helpful crutch to make it less likely that your article would be passed through without cleanup by a lazy reviewer, an outcome I assume you wouldn't want). An article can be quick-failed if "has, or needs, cleanup banners" (emphasis added). By making the cleanup needs more explcit I was hoping to draw your attention to them before the GA process actually started (as it can often take months for a review to happen). Instead, here we are. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:31, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't want the article passed by a lazy reviewer, any more than I'd want it failed by a lazy reviewer, a likelihood that would be significantly increased by the tags you placed. What bothers me is not the fact that you were assuming the reviewer would miss any suggestions you made, but that you assumed that Stacey and I would ignore any suggestions on the talk page. That is where the conflict has appeared, I do hope you'll consider that in the future. Happily, we don't have a lazy reviewer, so quick fails and passing without review aren't an issue. I'll get to addressing your issues now. Worm^TT(talk) 09:30, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Responses in line. Worm^TT(talk) 10:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Since this seems to have stabilized again, I'll try to take another look this weekend. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:46, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Second reading

Good article criteria

1a. Prose quality. Mostly ok but with some issues detailed below.

1b. Layout and other style guidelines. See below about membership and works sections; otherwise ok.

2a. Well-formatted references. Mostly, but see below in detailed comments for works and references.

2b. Sources are reliable, and direct quotes are properly attributed: yes.

2c. No original research: the only issue is the "pioneer" claim in the lead.

2d. No copyright violations or plagiarism: none found.

3a. Addresses the main aspects of the subject: I'd still like a little more detail in her human subjects research, but this has greatly improved.

3b. Avoids unnecessary detail: no problems found.

4. Neutral and unbiased: yes, I think so, although maybe some polluters could find room for disagreement.

5. Stable: other than improvements suggested by this review, yes. No major controversies or editing disagreements.

6a. Images are properly licensed: yes.

6b. Images are relevant and suitably captioned: mostly. The infobox image is not captioned, and I think doesn't need a caption; often these are captioned with information about where and when the photo was taken but that information doesn't seem to be available in this case.

Lead

• Wording has generally been improved.
• Two sentences in a row begin with "despite".

   Done Changed the first one to "undeterred by" Worm^TT(talk)

• Is "now considered pioneering" sourced anywhere in the article?

   Done It was pioneering, but much work is, and I can't seem to find a source that uses the phrase or similar. So, I've changed it to focus on the creation of air pollution standards and made sure that was well sourced. Worm^TT(talk)

• Infobox image has an appropriate fair use license.
• Link in infobox to Benjamin Amdur is just a redirect back to this article, and should be removed.

   Done Redirect was created subsequently, good spot. Worm^TT(talk)

Early life

• I'm not entirely happy about using Who's Who as a source but if it's just for her birth data it should be ok.

  Odd, I've always considered the British "Who's Who and Who Was Who" to be a good source, I assumed that would carry across the pond. At any rate, it's only being used for birth data, so I'll leave that and keep it in mind for future writing. Worm^TT(talk)

• "postgraduate" is one word and is missing an article: "the postgraduate level".

   Done Worm^TT(talk)

• Biochemistry does not need to be capitalized.

   Done Worm^TT(talk)

• "Dr Benjamin Amdur": see WP:HONORIFIC. Also, spelling it as "Dr" instead of "Dr." is UK English.

   Done (and that explains Dr Pepper, which always confused me) Worm^TT(talk)

• Re who advised her on her doctoral work: her co-authors on the publications from that time were Leo Chandler Norris and Gustave F. Heuser, both on the faculty at Cornell, so either or both would be a likely guess. Of course we need sources but maybe those names would help? Given their co-authorship, maybe we can at least mention them as mentors.

Research

• ASARCO is not mentioned in 1948 Donora smog. What was their role in it?

  My understanding is that while they were not involved in the disaster (that was US Steel and American Steel and Wire), they were processing very similar chemicals in a very similar manner, so had a vested interest in showing that the pollutants were not harmful or at least not a significant factor. Worm^TT(talk)

• The Guinea pig experiment results are now clearly described; thanks for the improvement. We're still missing a description of how she determined the effects on humans, though.

  Things get a little complicated here. I haven't found the article to explain how she determined the effect on humans, just similar articles before, for example the Amdur, Drinker and Silverman article you mention below. What I have found though, is on page 75 of When Smoke Ran Like Water where it says "To this day, no one knows what happened to the paper. The Lancet never published it, and it seems to have disappeared". This would explain why we're having such a hard time tracking it down, and why we can't explain how she extrapolated from guinea pigs to humans. I've added a line to make that clear to readers Worm^TT(talk)

• "Were presented to the AAAS in 1953": at a conference? In a journal? In general this sort of question could probably best be answered by adding to the "Works" section any publications specifically referred to in the text of the article, and then using a footnote to indicate which one it was.

  At the annual meeting of AAAS in December 1953, I'll make that clear Worm^TT(talk)

• Amdur and Drinker were co-authors (with L. Silverman) on a journal paper "Inhalation of sulfuric acid mist by human subjects" (Arch. Ind. Hyg. Occup. Med. 6, 1952), a year earlier than the events of 1953 described here. They are also co-authors with R. Z. Schulz of "Toxicity of sulfuric acid mist to guinea pigs" (Arch. Indust. Hyg. & Occupational Med. 5, 1952). Were these works precursors to the papers described here, or are they the actual papers and the events are described out of order? And if the guinea pig experiment was done with her husband, why is he not a co-author?

  I couldn't tell you why the husband was not listed as a co-author, but the books are clear that they worked on the experiment together. The importance was the combination of sulphuric acid and sulphur dioxide, rather than the individual substances, there had been previous research on each but the combination was surprisingly potent. Worm^TT(talk)

• The Lancet should be linked and italicized. The paper is "Effects of inhalation of sulphur dioxide by man" (by Amdur, W. W. Melvin, and Drinker), I think. Again, it should be included in her selected publications.

  I've linked and italicized, but as I explained above, I don't believe that was the paper in question. I'll make sure to had that paper though to the selected publications, which is certainly relevant. Worm^TT(talk)

• The Harvard School of Public Health is missing an article and should be linked.

  I'd already linked to the School in the early life section and in the lead, and am concerned about over linking. If you think it's worth putting in again though, I will do. Worm^TT(talk)

• "notably for her colleague Sheldon Murphy" needs clarification. It seems misplaced in a discussion of her tenure troubles, and I'm not sure what it is supposed to mean.

   Done Yeah, that doesn't make sense does it. The Toxicology Sciences obit makes it clear that she was having a battle with the dean to get Sheldon Murphy tenure and took her work elsewhere. Worm^TT(talk)

• When was the move from MIT to NYU?

   Done Worm^TT(talk)

Membership of groups

• We don't generally list all society memberships in academic biographies here, only the ones where the membership level is a high honor (fellows of societies) or where the subject played a significant role in the society. The Delta Omega Honorary Society membership looks misplaced in this section; it would better fit the Awards section. And the other ones are not particularly meaningful without any hint at what the committees she participated in did.

   Done removed section Worm^TT(talk)

Works

• This section is mistitled. We shouldn't list all works by most academics, and in any case that's not what this one does. Instead, it's more typical to have a "selected publications" section listing only the works that were particularly significant.

  I initially retitled this, but then removed it all together, as I'm not confident in deciding which ones should be included. The ones referenced in the research section, that makes sense, and probably her thesis - any others you'd recommend? I'll have a good think after the weekend. Worm^TT(talk)

• Why were these particular works selected for inclusion? The main research publications mentioned in the research section are missing.
• The formatting of these citations is unclear. The references appear to be using Citation Style 1; why isn't that used here?
• The titles of these works are inconsistently formatted.
• "The Industrial Environment, Its Evaluation & Control" does not appear to be a publication primarily authored by the subject. Are the rest singly-authored or did she have co-authors for any of them? If so they should be listed.

Awards

• The Society of Toxicology and American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists should be linked.

   Done Worm^TT(talk)

Death and legacy

• "whilst" is UK English; American English would use "while".

   Done Worm^TT(talk)

• "a book, in which she edited previous editions" grammar is a bit awkward.

  I removed the awkward bit. Worm^TT(talk)

• Period at the end of the section is missing.

   Done Worm^TT(talk)

References

• I'm not happy with including the {{Research help}} navigation template experiment. Can it be removed?

   Done now gone, not sure when it was put in, have never seen it before, and I see it's up for deletion. Worm^TT(talk)

• In general, the references look reliable and well-formatted in a consistent style (CS1).
• The Harvard Gazette reference should put the Gazette in the |newspaper= parameter of {{cite news}}, not the |publisher= field, so that it will be properly italicized.

   Done Worm^TT(talk)

• Why is "When smoke ran like water" in sentence case when other sources like the Gazette obituary have their titles capitalized? And why are some of the other titles in all-caps? This should be more consistent.
• Reference [6] is a publication by the subject, not a reference about the subject.

  Yes, but it explains the results of the experiment, which was important to add to the article. I didn't find any secondary sources which actually explained what she did, so used a primary source there. Worm^TT(talk)

• Journal names like Harvard Gazette, Toxicological Sciences, and Public Health Reports can be linked.

   Done Worm^TT(talk)

Further reading

• What is the point of listing this obituary again here when it is the most-used of the actual references?

   Done removed Worm^TT(talk)

Summary

There are still quite a few minor issues to be improved but I think once those are handled this will be on-track for GA status. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:19, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks David for the thorough review. I'll have a good look as soon as I can. Worm^TT(talk) 11:15, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Just a note to say, I haven't forgotten about this, but have come down with a virus... I should be back to normal in a couple of days. Worm^TT(talk) 16:10, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Third reading

Most of the issues above are now handled, so I have only a few small points to go.

• Lead now pretty good; one-paragraph lead meets WP:LEADLENGTH
• What is an "acceptable" standard and how does it differ from other kinds of standards?

  Removed extraneous word. Worm^TT(talk)

• The new claim that her Lancet paper was never published is adequately sourced. I'm confused how this relates to her actual 1953 Lancet publication; maybe it's a different publication, or maybe the source is confused. But I guess we have to go by what our sources say. On the other hand, re the claim in the response above that "The importance was the combination of sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide": in the section of the article on human subjects, only sulfuric acid is mentioned. The source does say something about combined effects, but of a different combination, of sulfuric acid and particulates. So maybe this could still use additional clarification.

  I've seen three sources describing the guinea pig experiments, with three different descriptions of the experiments. There are a number of sources which confirm that the paper she was going to present to the April 1954 AIHA meeting was related to the 1953 guinea pig experiment, and that it was damning in relation to humans. "When smoke ran like water" confirms that the paper disappeared. This is also confusing as there was a paper published in May 1954 regarding the 1953 experiment, in Amdur's name only, but does not mention humans, let alone a damning report. I could put in a note regarding the confusion of sources, possible due to the missing paper and also due to her subsequent work on the combinations (she was still doing similar experiments and writing papers until the late 70s) - but I'm not sure how better to write the article, which currently matches the source (that the low levels of sulfuric acid in the smog was still dangerous to humans, combination or not) Worm^TT(talk)

• "She continued the research, begun under Drinker, on air pollution until she left the school in 1977, becoming more interested in the role of metals in the inhalation of sulfuric acid.": too many subordinate clauses, confusing the logic of this sentence, and out of chronological order, make it hard to follow.

  I've reworded, splitting the sentence. Hopefully it's easier to follow now. Worm^TT(talk)

• "In 1986 she got": this reads too informally for my taste. Maybe "received" instead of "got"?

  Yep, done. Worm^TT(talk)

• We are not being consistent in spelling between sulfur/sulfuric and sulphur/sulphuric. I didn't previously realize this, but apparently it's another UK/US English variation; see Sulfur#Spelling and etymology. According to that, "sulfur" is the form that both types of English have now settled on, so I think that's what we should standardize on for this article, despite it currently running 7-1 the other way in the article. But in any case we should be more consistent rather than using both forms. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

  Fair enough, that'll be my archaic Chemistry GCSE in play. Tidied it up to sulfur. Worm^TT(talk)

—David Eppstein (talk) 23:01, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for all the improvements! Everything has been addressed so I'm passing the article now. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:28, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

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