Talk:America in the King Years

A fact from America in the King Years appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 4 February 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that each of the three volumes of Taylor Branch's biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. were named based on aspects of the Book of Exodus?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/America in the King Years.

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Started article

OK, I started this article, which I know is still stubbish and can use some cleaning and enhancing. Please feel free to contribute.

(I had been meaning to get to this article anyhow, but starting it on MLK Day seemed appropriate.)

KConWiki (talk) 21:41, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Haha that makes sense, it looks real good now. nice job.Sweat1nce (talk) 22:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Plagiarism?

This sentence (an important one) got removed, with the rationale that it was plagiarism. In what way is it plagiaristic? What source is allegedly being plagiarized? There are only so many ways of stating that two books won the History Pulitzer that year...

It shared the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History with James McPherson's history of the American Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom.^[1]

KConWiki (talk) 20:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Article: "It shared the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History with James McPherson's history of the American Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom."

Source: "Mr. Branch's book, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (Simon & Schuster), shared the Pulitzer for history with James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford University Press)."

The sentence structure, word order, and word choice are quite similar. The Signpost article here explains plagiarism (and its many flavors) fairly well. Take a look at the "Problems in paraphrasing" subsection. Shubinator (talk) 02:46, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that greater detail about the concern. I want to be sensitive to this and do the right thing. However, as I mentioned above, there are only so many ways of saying that two books won the Pulitzer for History in 1989. The Signpost article details a number of examples of concerns about just moving phrases around, etc. and I do not contest any of that. However, for a basic fact that I believe merits inclusion in the article, but probably does not merit more than a single declarative sentence, I am not sure how to wordsmith it in a way that would not be open to criticism based on the guidelines in the Signpost article. Do you (or does anyone else) have a suggestion on how better to state that fact in our article?

(And thanks for your diligence, I mean that sincerely. It is an important part of what makes Wikipedia work.) KConWiki (talk) 03:24, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How about this? "America in the King Years and Battle Cry of Freedom, a civil war history written by James McPherson, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1989." Thanks for being open to feedback :) Shubinator (talk) 03:23, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Kaufman, Michael T. (31 March 1989). "Books Focusing on 60's Among Pulitzer Winners". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2012.

Direct quotation of private conversations

I've only read the first of the three volumes, Parting the Waters. I was struck by the extensive use of direct quotation to report private conversations and semi-public meetings. This was due to Branch's use of wiretaps, bugs, and police reports. I wonder if this is an innovative use of such sources. If so, it would deserve mention in the article. Direct quotation of private conversations is less commonly used in historical writing than in docudrama, to lend the latter an air of verisimilitude, and it is striking to see it put to use in an actual history. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 05:07, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Kaufman, Michael T. (31 March 1989). "Books Focusing on 60's Among Pulitzer Winners". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 February 2012.

[1]