User talk:JudyDarby

Hello, JudyDarby, and welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages you might find helpful:

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Identification of states in the US

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I see quite a lot of articles that reference place names in the United States and in almost every one of them it is written like this for example: Judy came from Ruston, US state of Louisiana.

The redundancy is annoying and a waste of space since it says United States state . . . and no other country in the world has a state called Louisiana. In most cases there is also a map with the location. I would change it to: Judy came from Ruston, Louisiana. Please clarify Wikipedia's preference. Thank you in advance.JudyDarby (talk) 18:01, 4 February 2019 (UTC)JudyDarby[reply]

I assume you are from the US and thus are familiar with US states. Would you know where, say, Warri, Delta State is? How about Aizawl, Minoram? Typing them in the search bar is cheating, but there are no other countries than these with a Delta State or Minoram, respectively. Of course it becomes even more interesting if someone is from Tblisi, Georgia... The current method gives not just the state, but also the country, and thus avoids both ambiguity and presupposing a knowledge of US political geography. Huon (talk) 19:47, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Passive voice

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Also, I am frustrated by the use of the passive voice in articles and cannot find anything definitive in the MOS. Please clarify whether a change is warranted when the meaning of the sentence is not changed, but simply made grammatically better. Thank you, JudyDarby (talk) 18:05, 4 February 2019 (UTC)JudyDarby[reply]

The Manual of Style says something on passive voice. see in particular footnote n: "Passive voice is used much more frequently in encyclopedic writing than in most other forms, in which it may be frequently advised against. In an encyclopedic context, its careful use ..." The short of it is: It depends on context; sometimes use of the passive voice is warranted, sometimes not. Huon (talk) 19:47, 5 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]