User talk:Mshuang2/sandbox

Salve, Munde!

This is the first talk page edit! Mshuang2 (talk) 15:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Hello, world!

This is a simulated commentMshuang2 (talk) 15:46, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

This is a simulated subcomment Mshuang2 (talk) 15:46, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Editing Classical Reception Studies

Kind of tricky, because of the vast amount of work done in the field now, on everything from Zach Snyder's 300 to the Stephen Feld board game, Trajan, to art and architecture, to the smallest musical or literary reference, etc. Not sure if I should go by time period/era (ancient, medieval, renaissance, modern) or by theme (mythology, historical figures, art, literary, film, etc.). The danger of theme is that I might miss some topic, while time period is less 'browsable.' I suspect time frame is more accessible to scholars (only interested in Homeric reception in art from 500-1000 CE), while theme is more interesting to the layperson, but I could be wrong.

I am also considering adding on sections for links out to example lists-- like the Ancient World Magazine's section or publisher's pages on Classical Reception (like Bloomsbury).

I also want to add on links to the Classical Reception Studies Network, Animated Antiquity, Barefaced Greek, Centuries Coexist, and others, but many of these are blogs. However, it's probably important to include non-scholarly sources, because so much of classical reception is performed informally. In these cases, I wouldn't use them as sources, but as part of the reach of classical reception, which I think is an important distinction. So maybe that'll make it okay? Mshuang2 (talk) 20:15, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Feedback

@Mshuang2: Nice start on your draft. Some feedback:

• In other words, it is the study of... As a whole, Wikipedia aims for a terse style that omits phrases like "in other words". Similarly, in the next sentence, The nature of reception studies..., you could omit "the nature of".
• Wikipedia articles avoid quotation marks around things that aren't actual quotes. For example, they could be omitted from historically considered a subset of the "classical tradition." Punctuation, by convention, is also kept outside of quotation marks unless they're part of the original quote.
• It's helpful to cite things that seem obvious. For example a statement like While scholars generally agree that classical reception differs from the classical tradition could benefit from a pointer to a source that supports this assertion.
• By and large, a description and a link is better than a title. Rather than saying Johanna Hanink, Associate Professor of Classics at Brown University, defines..., consider saying something more like Classics scholar [or some better term, I really don't know] Johanna Hanink defines.... Since her position and rank is likely to change over the course of her career, it's better to leave them out and simply link to her biography. Some Wikipedians will also see this as either promotional (for Brown) or an appeal to authority (as trying to add the weight to Brown' reputation to buttress Hanink's claims).
  • An aside on linking - you could also have linked Charles Martindale even though he doesn't have a bio - red links can point to articles that need creating.
• Feel free to change what's in the article already. In the Definition section, you kept what was there and then added Hardwick has also previously defined.... This makes it feel a little tacked on - it would read better if it was woven into the previous paragraph somehow. You should feel free to remix existing text in any way you see fit. Attribution is preserved in the page history - apart from accuracy, readability is what matters most.

Structurally, you should think of the lead section as presenting a summary of the main points of the article. Right now, you don't really have a lead - you jump straight into the heart of the topic. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 11:03, 16 July 2019 (UTC)