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@Ian Rose and Laser brain:, I've collapsed some of the threads in this article that hold nothing useful for the development of the article, or that don't relate to the proper review of the article. Personally I think they should be moved here, to the talk page, but if this review is ever gong to be remotely constructive, despite the extraneous noise, then the walls of text I've collapsed shouldn't get in the way of the review. I have little doubt that the collapses will be reverted at some point, but I know that would be a backward and unconstructive step as far as this review goes. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 22:59, 8 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Victoria source comments

[edit]

Adding to my own comments above - this will be my source review:

  • 1.c (well researched) - I've already mentioned Morrell who come early in the scholarship arc; also Atkinson is not a scholar, published in 1988; Crawford - encyclopedia (tertiary source), not a scholar; Hawksley, 2018, not a scholar; Hume, 1982, not a scholar; Kent, first published 1987, professor at University of Colorado; Marlow, ebook, contains snippets of first person accounts and press accounts, no page numbers but our article seems to be relying on this quote from Winston Churchill, here (I don't know how to paginate w/ ebooks so I can write it out if necessary).

Stopping now & begging patience in terms of time. Victoriaearle (tk) 00:02, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Re: Marlow, I can't access the GoogleBooks version, but we don't use that source to rely on a quote from Churchill (as far as I can tell). We use Marlow re. the police A Division being on duty. Can you check? Thanks. - SchroCat (talk) 05:30, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've found it on my copy. We don't use any information from the Churchill quote. We refer to the different police force that was brought in (A Division): none of that is from the Churchill quote, it's from the section in Marlow's own words. The same information can also be found in Rosen and several other sources. - SchroCat (talk) 13:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's incomplete and maybe would have been better to work offline or in a sandbox, but I decided to shorthand notes here for the sake of transparency. I'll post the completed list by the weekend and make replies then. Victoriaearle (tk) 01:03, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, no problems: I'll hold off until you're done. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 08:50, 15 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Take two: okay this is a thumbnail source review, not a full-blown technical formatting review as we normally see at FAC, but I've run out of steam and posting this now. The methodology I followed was to check entry at WorldCat, look at Google Scholar. I googled names and titles to determine the author's credentials. If reviews existed I took a look, or looked at abstracts, etc. Pugh's The March of Women returned a review June Purvis wrote (the very last sentences quoted here), so I took a look on Jstor, which I did for a couple of others (some were there, others not). I've marked whether the author is an academic or not, if the book is reference, primary, tertiary, or in some cases based on primary sources. Repeat the process with the "Journals", "News articles", and "Websites" sections. There appears to be a rift in the literature in that some authors lean more in favor of the less-radical "Constitutionalists" and the more radical women of the WSPU, so I noted that (given the article is about the WSPU). List is here:

Books
  • Atkinson - not an academic, writes about suffragettes, Votes for Women multiple re-prints, illustrated history.
  • Crawford - encyclopedia (tertiary source); suffrage historian
  • Hawksley - not an academic; based on primary sources
  • Hume - not an academic; anti-militant/pro-constitionalists [1]
  • Kent - first published in 1987 by Princeton UP; academic & scholar
  • Marlow - quote from Winston Churchill, The Times, 11 March, 1911, + Marlow annotation. Not an academic; compilation of primary sources; cite as the editor
  • Morrell, Caroline. First published in 1981, OCLC 14001148
  • Mulvey - primary sources; collection of writings & 1st person accounts published 1907-1913; cite as editors, provide chapter titles?
  • Murray et. al. - primary source, WorldCat gives the Conciliation Committee for Woman Suffrage as author, see OCLC 562868150
  • Pankhurst, Christabel > primary source
  • Pankhurst, Sylvia > primary source
  • Pugh - pro-constitionalist suffragists, per June Purvis,

    Pugh does not deliver a revisionist analysis of the women's suffrage campaign, but offers instead a useful lesson in historiography. In 1913, Christabel Pankhurst, the key strategist of the WSPU, wrote: "No men, even the best of men, ever view the Suffrage question from quite the same standpoint as women themselves." Pugh's book illustrates that her comments are still relevant. Times Higher Ed.

    and a Jstor review returns this:

    Pugh is not interested in exploring the processes of suffragist identity formation or the meanings embedded in their rhetorical strategies. He offers a well-researched and clearly argued, but methodologically limited, account of this multifaceted movement. Jstor review

  • Purvis - academic
  • Railings, Colin, et. al. OCLC 237422619, reference material, mention edition?
  • Robinson - not an academic, seems to be about suffragists in 1913,[2],
  • Searle > academic, covers general history 1886 to 1918
  • Smith, Harold > academic, text book, 2014 is the revised 2nd ed.
  • Tickner, Lisa > art historian, examination of women's suffrage imagery
  • Van Wingerden > attorney, writes about suffrage movement
Journals
  • Cavendish -History Today > behind a paywall
  • Churchill - primary source
  • Crawford - academic journal
  • Hiley - History Today
  • Holton - academic; ODNB
  • Kelly - academic, academic journal
  • Trueman - Billinghurst on ODNB
  • van Heyningen - ODNB
  • Watson - History Today
News
  • Eight primary + one current BBC
Websites
  • Reference work
  • Purvis - academic; publisher = Taylor & Francis for Routledge Historical Resources
  • National archives record

Very general assessment: it seemed that more academics must have written about this watershed moment, so I looked on google scholar using variations of "WSPU suffragettes", "'Women's Social and Political Union' WSPU", etc. as keywords, and really briefly on Jstor (it's the only database where I have access). I noted i.e Jorgenson-Earp's 2015 "The Transfiguring Sword" and Sandra Stanley Holton, Professer, University of Adelaide, and these two recent articles,[3], [4]. In my view, what's lacking is rigorous scholarly analysis, research that posits and answers the question: why take to the barricades? We need to contextualize the women's actions, what happened on Black Friday 1910 in London went against all prevailing social norms and yet they were willing to risk their lives. It is scholars whose job is to conceptualize and the reason we use lean on scholarly sources. I'd like to see more of it here. There are a few more replies I need to make above, but not sure I'll get to them tonight. Victoriaearle (tk) 23:04, 15 June 2018 (UTC) [reply]

  • There seems to be two general parts to this (please do correct me if I'm wrong): the first is about the sources used, the second about what could have been covered?
From your list of extant sources, I am not entirely sure which you think acceptable, and which are up for discussion: could you please clarify?
I need to correct an assertion you make first of all: "it seemed that more academics must have written about this watershed moment". Well, not in any great depth, no. It turns up briefly in the histories, and there are mentions of varying lengths of it in various articles, but it's not really covered in depth in most places. I partially agree that contextualisation of motives are needed, but we already cover that women had been protesting to gain the vote, and give a brief background to that as far as it is pertinent to the events of Black Friday. I will look at the two articles you've added but (after a very quick skim) the connection to Black Friday is limited, and I need to take a little more time to go over them both properly to see if they are any use. - SchroCat (talk) 00:24, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, I've been through the various additional sources that you've suggested. Gullickson mentions BF only briefly; Richards not at all. While the Jorgenson-Earp book (first published in '97) is interesting, we have better and more up to date sources covering the material she provides. While the question of why "the women's actions  ... went against all prevailing social norms and yet they were willing to risk their lives", that is a much wider question that doesn't belong in this article, I think (either the WSPU article of the general women's suffrage one). The context we provide in this article is germane to the background to why they demonstrated on that day, not why they demonstrated in general, and I think that balance is right. I look forward to your comments about which sources you think are not suitable for the article. Thanks - SchroCat (talk) 08:31, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
It's a holistic assessment. As you know the sources satisfy RS, but in my view it's not, per WP:Featured article criteria, 1., c a "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". The issue is less about what's there, though if pressed it appears there's an over reliance on primary sources and a lack of high quality scholarly sources, but rather about what's missing. I haven't looked at the few links I supplied; they showed up in the search and I grabbed them randomly as examples only. If I were working on this I'd do a deep dive and see what's available, which takes time. I'm seeing that more is available. As a small example I read somewhere in a snippet that the Concialition Committee was chaired by Constance Lytton's brother, which may or may not be important, nor do I remember where I saw that. Holton, maybe? Dunno, but it's not my job to do the research. And I hesitate to give a specific example like that because without a thorough reading of literature have no clue whether it's worth including. Given the circumstances of this particular FAC and given my personal circumstances, which have taken a turn for the worse in the past week, I'm choosing not to !vote. In my view Outriggr's comments about prose are excellent, but he's given examples only. Rosa May's conveyance is probably the first time in my Wikipedia experience when an image describes better than words and the article would benefit with it. Those are only a few points. Sarah's point about the speed seems to me about right. But ... well it's all too loaded, tbh. I'm saving this comment and then moving it all to the talk page. Victoriaearle (tk) 14:59, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comments Victoria. I'm sorry, but I can't accept that this fails criteria "1., c a" without specific examples of what is missing and why that is better than the sources we have in place. I have been through the relevant literature and—with the exception of the sources that were complained about from a sexist perspective—this reflects the best sources that are available. Unless you are able to identify specific sources, this article passes criteria "1., c a".
I would also completely disagree with the claim this is over-reliant on primary sources: I'm afraid that is baseless. Nearly every citation that uses one of the the primary sources is "through" a reliable source, e.g. FN 79: "Murray & Brailsford 1911, p. 33, quoted in Purvis 2002, p. 139." Once those are taken out, there are possibly 2 or 3 uses of primary sources, identified as opinions of people that were there. This is entirely reasonable and within the guidelines of WP:PRIMARY.
I also refute that claim that there is a "a lack of high quality scholarly sources". There clearly are high quality scholarly sources used throughout, and this article is based on them. Again, come up with specific examples please, because this review carries no weight without them. As it stands (and as someone who has studied political history for many years and written about it a few times) the sources used in the article are the most relevant and appropriate.
I'll ask again: do you have any comments about which sources you think are not suitable for the article, or sources that should be included?
I'm not entirely sure why the source review has been separated onto the talk page – I've never had any part of a review moved to the talk page while it was still going on. – SchroCat (talk) 21:10, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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