Talk:Morna Stuart

Discussion during review at Articles for Creation

@Lcb03: Great work in finding the additional information. This article is looking better and better! I have five points that merit discussion, three of them minor and two major.

1. Your citation to the Pittsburgh Gazette treats the newspaper as if it were a book that needs only a page number for a citation. That isn't the case. Is this an article that is being used as a reference? Then we need the article's title and author. Is it a theater column? Same thing -- name of column and author. Is it an advertisement for a performance? Then we need to know the date and venue that is being advertised.

I don't have access to the full newspaper page, just the slightly-scrambled OCR available as plaintext below the low-res JPG. I removed the claim and the reference to the Pittsburgh performance. For what it's worth, it turns out that "Traitor's Gate" was shown all over the place -- I found references in the Irish Times, Australian Times, multiple cities in the US, etc... It was a popular play. I'll dig up some more refs when I have the time but for now I'm just interested in getting this article out on Wikipedia. My view is that the OCR on the Pittsburgh Gazette page should be sufficient proof that it was shown in Pittsburgh (as you know, it's all one can get without registering) but if it's not then okay we can just leave it out.

1. Your mention of Moonfleet in the listing of BBC credits makes it look as if Stuart was the author (and, of course, she wasn't). Is there any reason why it couldn't be mentioned along with Cry the Beloved Country as examples of adaptations? I'll be happy to make the change; I'm asking here if there is some reason why that change shouldn't be made.

Change made.

1. Unless I missed something, the Gale text verifies that Traitor was on the London stage, but doesn't specify that it was at the Duke of York's Theatre. And you have already found confirmation of the venue from another source. So, is there any reason why the Gale text continues to be used as a source for that fact?

Not needed, removed.

1. The first of the major concerns is with the Hagans-Smith thesis. Wikipedia is generally leery of using theses as sources, mainly because (by definition) they are written by college students and not by people who have already established expertise in their fields.

Well, they're typically written by graduate students (either MS or PhD), not college students, and in theory the work is closely supervised by a professor, but point taken.

1. And that concern is magnified by the fact that you are using that thesis to cite a rather outlandish claim -- that Stuart's 1966 work was "one of the first works of children's literature to feature Black characters". Really? Uncle Tom's Cabin was published a century earlier than that and, even if you reject Cabin as a children's book, there's still the work of Mark Twain. And how about the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s? Are we really to believe that it produced no works of children's literature featuring black characters?

It's not outlandish but it should be limited to post-1930. What's interesting here is that there seems to be a haitus between the Harlem Renaissance and the 1960's. If you look between, say 1930 and 1965, children's books involving nonwhite protagonists are extremely hard to find. That's one of the implicit points of the Hagen thesis. Not "no" works but "few" works. Not "the first" but "one of the first." Even today in 2016 the situation is pretty dismal -- you probably already know this.

1. What's more, you haven't provided a page number for where the thesis writer makes the claim. I looked for the claim in the thesis, but failed to find it.

Page 2/3 she identifies new financial inducements starting around 1964 to write books involving nonwhite characters, and then the entire rest of the thesis lists them out one-by-one. There aren't many.

1. All in all, it's a dubious claim being sourced to a less-than-fully-reliable source. I think it should be dropped. In its place, I'll be happy to cobble together a sentence or two summarizing the Kirkus review of the book.

It's not a dubious or outlandish claim (see for example the description of "Snowy Day" found here) but you're right that it definitely reads funny without the post-1935 context. More importantly, though, I agree that it's a claim based on synthesis, and I can see why Wikipedia would prefer to avoid synthetic claims. So sure, if you're willing to summarize the Kirkus review, terrific, thanks. I also propose a new page on Wikipedia listing children's books featuring nonwhite characters. Wikipedia has list pages, yes? I will look.

1. You seem committed to the idea that Stuart's primary profession was that of a writer, and that this point needs to be proven within the article.

No, I'm committed to (1) listing out a person's verifiable achievements and products, (2) accurately reporting statements made by reliable sources, while also (3) not redacting contradictions between and within these sources.

1. But this type of writing is called (here on Wikipedia) "synthesis", and we have a set of rules about it at WP:SYNTHESIS. The short version is -- don't do it.

Got it. So okay, I'm interested in editing the article in such a way that it (1) states the facts, (2) no longer smacks of synthesis.

1. Right now, we have only one real source of biographical information (the Peters text) and it says, with no reticence whatsoever, that Stuart worked at an advertising agency for twenty-five years.

We have two sources of biographical information. First we have the Peters text, which is not a primary source in this context. Peters is clear that his biographical information comes straight from Who's Who; his journal article is thus a secondary source. I have a library request in to obtain that particular copy of Who's Who to obtain the primary source. Second, we have the author blurb on the back of the copy of Marassa and Midnight. This is a primary source because it is a book by the author herself. The blurb in its entirety reads: "Morna Stuart, the last generation of a family born in India, now lives in England where she has been a teacher and script writer for the B.B.C."

1. There is simply no reason to assert, or even question, that this was not her primary avocation during those years.

There are many reasons to question the idea that her primary avocation was advertising. First, Peters is not a primary source; he is a specialist on Thomas More, not on 1930's Britain intelligentsia. Second, the author's own book describes her as a screenwriter. Third, there is ample evidence online that she was a writer, closely involved in the literary circle of the time. Here's just one of about 12 examples I found, this one from The Gambler by Stuart Cloete (page 189 in particular); note also that this reference seconds the statement that she was a writer for the BBC and a freelance writer. Finally, there is no evidence to be found anywhere on the web that she was involved in advertising any way, though that evidence would be hard to find.

1. Yes, it's true that she has about 70 writing credits with the BBC, but they were earned over a period of thirty years and, at an average of two or three per year, were not a source of substantial income for her (especially considering that some of those credits are for lectures for which she likely received little or no payment).

Your statement about income is sheer speculation. It would be equally valid to speculate that she made more money as a screenwriter than in advertising; 2 - 3 screenplays a year is writing at a phenomenal clip. There is no evidence either way. It is well documented that women were involved very early on in the BBC and often very well (for the time) remunerated for their work (see book by Kate Murphy).

1. I think the prior version of this paragraph did a better job of summarizing what we know about her biography. But before I change it back, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

I think we need to state what the Peters' reference says, state what the book cover says, and then list Stuart's verifiable work. (Note that this would seem to be the opposite of synthesis). But I am eager to update the page with a more accurate bio when I get the primary Who's Who source.

To try to achieve this balance between the sources I moved the BBC scripts to "works" instead of "biography."

1. Two final points, both minor. Regarding the Dell Publishing edition of Marassa, did you have a web link for it? If so, it will be helpful to add it to the reference.

I have a copy here in my hand, but can find no online link to the back cover. I could take a picture.

1. But regardless, I question whether its single use of the word "teacher" is enough to place that word into the article. It is too vague to actually mean anything. Was she a teacher in the years between passing out of college and starting work at the ad agency? Did she teach after she left the ad agency? At what level did she teach? Elementary school, college? Or, did she give a televised lecture on the BBC and is this what the book jacket is referring to? We don't have the answers to any of these questions, which leads me to think it is better to not use it at all.

Hmmmm...... I wonder whether use of the phrase: "worked in an advertising agency" is worth including. Did she write ads? Was she a model? Was she a secretary? Copy edit? Did she work as a food server in the company cafeteria? I agree teacher is vague but no more vague than "working in advertising."

1. The second minor point is more of a suggestion. If Stuart wrote a play for the Aluredians, she might also have garnered an obituary in their publication. I don't know how one would go about finding out (their web site doesn't allow one to search the archives), but I thought it might be helpful to mention it here.

There's actually a lot of material out there on Morna Stuart, but I'm not going to have a chance to get it all into the particular form required for Wikipedia in a timely fashion. In the meantime I hope Wikipedia can publish a preliminary version that offers readers all available information without redaction.

I look forward to your comments. NewYorkActuary (talk) 22:32, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

@Lcb03: As you can see, I published your draft after a final round of copy editing. Most of my changes are self-explanatory, except possibly for the removal of sourcing from the lead paragraph. For the lead, sourcing is not required (or even wanted) if the material is simply a summary of information already sourced in the body of the text.

I assume your submission was part of last week's BBC edit marathon. But I hope you'll stick around to do some more editing here, either to improve existing articles or to create new ones (your idea for listing children's books with non-white characters seems good).

I enjoyed working with you. NewYorkActuary (talk) 19:52, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with the Stuart article and fixing the lead paragraph. No, I know nothing about the BBC edit marathon. I'm in the US and did not see it. I did start a couple more articles. One is draft, one (stub) article is accepted. Thanks esp. for pointing me to reference templates and for improving phrasing in numerous places.Lcb03 (talk) 20:18, 11 December 2016 (UTC)

Checking the validity of the Peters' claim that Stuart worked in advertising and the army

I got the Who's Who book from 1971. The Peters' claim that she worked in advertising is completely made up. Who's Who 1971 mentions nothing about advertising. Who's Who states: "Tutor in English, History, Mathematics, 1928-1935; Scriptwriter (educ). for B. B. C. Radio and Nigerian B.C., 1937-62; Civil Defence (Warden), 1942-45; Incident Officers Clerk, Belgravia Relief Control Team, 1943; and for Flying Squad, 1944" My guess is that Peters relied on Unterweg's book without actually checking Who's Who. I've got a request in for Unterweg's book so we can find the origin of the falsehood. Lcb03 (talk) 03:20, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

In addition, the Peters' claim that she served in the army also appears to be false. The three organizations listed in Who's Who are all civilian organizations. Lcb03 (talk) 03:45, 17 December 2016 (UTC)