Talk:Gertrude Barrows Bennett

GA nomination

I am going to put this page on hold briefly for two reasons.

• You need to include a fair use rationale for your use of the book cover (click on image for an explanation).
• Is that list of short stories complete or not? Please indicate "Partial list" if not.

I have now passed the article. Awadewit 23:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want to flesh out this page a bit more for a possible A rating, you might think about contextualizing Bennett within early twentieth-century science fiction. Also, I wonder if there is some actual scholarship on her or at least women science fiction writers of the time? I know that scholars within that field are fast publishing articles and books; research on this topic might allow you to include a "writing style" section and a "women in science fiction" section. Also, it would be good to expand the lead a bit so that it truly summarizes the article and doesn't repeat word for word statements that come later in the article. Awadewit 22:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. I've now made your first two suggestions regarding the fair use rationale and making sure the list of short stories is complete (it is). I also like your other suggestions and will work on them in the coming weeks. I've requested some scholarly articles which should fill in a writing style section. I do wonder, though, if a "Women in science fiction" section wouldn't be repetitive of Women in science fiction and Feminist science fiction. For now, I've included these links as a See Also section in the article. If you feel that the article needs any more work to reach Good Article standards, please let me know.--Alabamaboy 23:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

One of the reasons I suggested a "women in science fiction" section is because you state in the lead that she was the first major female writer of fantasy and sci-fi in the US. It would seem, then, that something should be said about that - why weren't there any women before? Did she inspire any other women? Why was it so difficult for women to publish science fiction? Why were they forced to publish under "masculine" or androgynous names? Did she write about any topics differently than other male writers of sci-fi and fantasy at the time and might that have been because of her experiences as a woman in early twentieth-century America? Answers to these questions would help contextualize Bennett for the reader unfamiliar with the genre, the writer and the history of the period. Awadewit 23:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent point. I'll see if I can work up that section. Unfortunately, it'll take me a while to do so b/c I'll have to track down some good sources. Thanks for listing the article as a good article. Best, --Alabamaboy 00:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The list is not complete--missing at least "Elf Trap" (I think it is). Also, Serapion and Possessed! are the probably the same story. And what evidence is there that the cover portrait portrays the authoress? I own the book and can find no indication that the cover is modeled on her--in fact, have never seen a photo of her.

Nice to see this enigmatic lady represented. --M-K, 31-05-07

Further improvements

I stumbled across this article a few weeks ago while following spamlinks by a NN publisher whose article was delete by a CSD-A7 ... I noticed beau coup duplications in the references (the first one appeared six times!), and didn't want to risk an edit conflict at that time, so I made a clone in my sandbox to work on ... then I forgot all about it until a bot tagged/zapped the image, and Some Other Editor zapped the Categories so that my sandbox page would not be incorrectly listed in all of them. <My bad!>

Anywho, I've replaced the main body of text with the new version ... all I did was add {{cite web}} and {{cite book}} (with ISBNs found on Amazon.com), and with the use of <ref name=WhatEver /> tags, the number of references was reduced from 15 to 6 ... so if anyone is wondering, that's why the References list is so much smaller.

BTW, I ain't researching any more ISBNs to this one ... and if Some Other Editor chooses to summarily UNDO this edit as vandalism simply because (a) I'm just an anon-IP editor, (b) they eschew the use of "cite" templates, and/or (c) this is already a Good Article, well, I figure I've put enough lipstick on this pig, so it's time for me to delete my sandbox copy and MOVE ON.

Happy Editing! —68.239.79.82 (talk · contribs) 02:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing up the references.--Alabamaboy 20:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)