Talk:William McAndrew/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Viriditas (talk · contribs) 01:18, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Lead

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section - Please review MOS:INTRO; Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography - Please review MOS:FIRSTBIO. Read those two articles, paying attention to the house style of lead sections on Wikipedia. Now, do this: open a new sandbox page, and from your own memory and understanding of this topic, write a new lead section from scratch, without looking at the current article. Once you are satisfied at your new attempt, go look at the current article and make any necessary corrections to the new lead you’ve composed. Then, copy it over. I’ve used this technique myself, and it really works. Try it. It’s a great way to do a rewrite because it forces you to focus intently on only what is important.

• McAndrew was, at the peak of his career, one of the best-known educators in the United States It helps if you say that after explaining what made him notable.

• Before becoming Chicago school superintendent, he worked as superintendent of schools in St. Clair, Michigan; principal of Hyde Park High School in Chicago, Pratt Institute High School in New York City, and Washington Irving High School in New York City; and assistant superintendent of schools for New York City. This is a waste of the lead section. On the one hand, you can simply say he worked in Michigan, Illinois, and New York, and highlight any notable accomplishments or milestones. You really want to reserve as much space in the lead for summarizing the main points, not for lists of places where the subject worked early in his career. You can accomplish both goals with less words, and keep the interest of the reader. If I see a list like that in the lead, I stop reading. Instead of adding these kinds of lists to the lead, ask what is important about his early career, and then answer that question.

• While he garnered national reverence in some circles, he also became an enemy of local teachers unions. In the lead, where we summarize the article, it helps to briefly explain why he garnered reverence as well as why he was an enemy of the unions. It can even be done in the same sentence.

• The third paragraph of the lead has an astounding 214 words about Thompson’s allegations, the subsequent fallout to McAndrew’s career, and the trial that vindicated him. I suggest that this can be edited down to half its size and have an even greater impact. Remember, it’s not how much you say, it’s what you say. Great Wikipedia articles say a lot, with few words.

• Copyedits. Please review. Viriditas (talk) 09:37, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Early life, family, and education

• MOS:COMMA: McAndrew was born August 20, 1863 in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
• MOS:OVERLINK: you do not need to link to Scottish, immigrants, United States, furniture, obstetrician, or liberalism. You should, however, link to Scottish immigrant to the United States.
• WP:PARAGRAPH: "Paragraphs should be short enough to be readable, but long enough to develop an idea. Overly long paragraphs should be split up, as long as the cousin paragraphs keep the idea in focus. One-sentence paragraphs are unusually emphatic, and should be used sparingly." For example, early life should be two large paragraphs instead of four. This is Wikipedia house style:

McAndrew graduated from the local Ypsilanti elementary school and from Ypsilanti High School. He first studied at Michigan State Normal School (now known as Eastern Michigan University), before entering the University of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1886 with a Bachelor of Arts from the literary department. At the University of Michigan, he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He would later return to Michigan State Normal School to receive his Master of Education in 1916.

• Copyedits. Please review. Viriditas (talk) 01:43, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Early career

• In 1892, McAndrew found a job in Brooklyn, New York as the principal of Pratt Institute High School (Public School 44), holding this job until 1902. Merge one sentence paragraphs into larger paragraphs.

• Avoid unnecessary repetition: He became the school principal…He was fired in June….He had been ordered to certify… Use noun and pronoun variation to avoid putting the reader to sleep. "McAndrew became the school principal…He was fired in June…McAndrew had been ordered to certify…"

• Last paragraph is 288 words! Please split it up into at least two paragraphs for readability.

Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools

• Copyedits. Please review. Viriditas (talk) 01:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Appointment

• This paragraph contains 285 words! Please use paragraphs for the reader. Between 2-4 is fine.

Early actions

• WP:PARAGRAPH: “One-sentence paragraphs are unusually emphatic, and should be used sparingly." Combine these into larger paragraphs.

Other actions

• WP:PARAGRAPH: “One-sentence paragraphs are unusually emphatic, and should be used sparingly." Combine these into larger paragraphs.

Article length

• You’ve got three articles here: a primary article about the biography of William McAndrew; a secondary article about the mayoralty or campaign of William Hale Thompson; and a tertiary article about the trial of William McAndrew. Per article length and WP:SIZESPLIT, move the sections to new or existing articles and replace them with summaries here per Wikipedia:Summary style.
• Subsequent split of the trial content by the nominator was successful. Cleanup and copy edits per the suggestions on this page are still needed.

References

• No copyvio detected using Earwig’s copyvio detector
• No dead links detected with InternetArchiveBot
• No original research nor violations of NPOV were detected, however multiple references should be consolidated whenever possible, and statements should be easily verified in at least one source. The use of multiple citations for simple statements can sometimes indicate a possible NOR and NPOV issue, so they should be avoided or used infrequently. Multiple citations can be useful for supplementary footnotes, however, such as pointing readers to further information.

Discussion

@Viriditas: Did I do a serviceable job spinning-off content? SecretName101 (talk) 07:31, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I will take a look in about eight hours or so. I think you did a good job, but on the other hand, I also think the summary style section can be reduced to four or five large paragraphs, without sections. It’s okay if you think differently, as I’m coming at this from the POV of readability rather than content. We don’t have to agree, but maybe we can meet somewhere in the middle. Viriditas (talk) 07:59, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Viriditas: made further copyedit changes, per your encouragement on my talk page. SecretName101 (talk) 00:34, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: Thank you. Please continue to eliminate one-sentence paragraphs per my concerns up above and merge small paragraphs into larger ones. Conversely, break up the larger paragraphs into smaller ones. Viriditas (talk) 01:00, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: Please rewrite the lead section, paying attention to what I wrote up above and on your talk page. Viriditas (talk) 01:45, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: The article mentions that "McAndrew supported a bill introduced to the Illinois State Legislature by Walter R. Miller (an Illinois state representative and teacher at Lindblom High School)". I can find no record of anyone by that name. Please check the source again and see if "Walter R. Miller" is a typo. Viriditas (talk) 02:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Found it in The Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year Book for 1925. Viriditas (talk) 00:19, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: Citation 30 (Good Politics Is Good Go olitics Is Good Government": The T ernment": The Troubling Hist oubling History of Mayoral Contr al Control of the Public Schools in T ol of the Public Schools in Twentieth-centur wentieth-century Chicago". American Journal of Education) needs to be fixed. Viriditas (talk) 00:08, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: Consider creating a new "Legacy" section to summarize his achievements and posthumous notability and significance. Also consider trimming the last paragraph of the lead and ending it with a sentence or two about his legacy. Right now, you’ve got content about his legacy in the second paragraph of the lead, but it would have more impact at the end, although this can work both ways. In the "other actions" subsection, you’ve got a list of trivia which should either be incorporated elsewhere or removed. One of these items would work well in a new legacy section: "During his tenure, McAndrew expanded vocational training programs in the city." Viriditas (talk) 22:58, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I included the USS Constitution factoid because (as the article dedicated to the trial states) it was later a notable line of attack against McAndrew during his trial. It might look like a trivia fact otherwise, but it gains signicance due to its later use as an attack. SecretName101 (talk) 23:02, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: It’s really important to get the historical framing right. Even though the sensationalist press at the time pretended that McAndrew was undergoing a trial, there was, in fact, no such trial, only a public hearing. See Moreau 2010, p. 75 as to how and why this is the case. This is why you need to be very careful using primary and secondary sources from the time of an event, and why it’s also important to rely on sources like Moreau to set the record straight. Viriditas (talk) 23:33, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@Viriditas: All other book sources I have used refer the it as a "trial" as well. That is where I base the use of the wording "trial". SecretName101 (talk) 23:45, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@Viriditas: Moreau seems to object to the use of the term "trial" because it did not take place in the formal court system. However, per Wikipedia itself, a trial does not need to take place in a formal court. Per wiki, a trial is a "a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes". For instance, the Impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson did not take place in the court system itself, but rather the United States Senate. SecretName101 (talk) 23:53, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Rolled back last three changes related to this. The use of trial appears wholly appropriate.SecretName101 (talk) 00:00, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

That’s a NPOV issue. The use of the word “trial” was deliberately used sensationally by the sources of the time when it was a public hearing. Wikipedia frames articles and its subjects in terms of precision and accuracy, not sensationalism or bias. Historian Joseph Moreau notes that the use of the word “trial” in this context is a misnomer and historically inaccurate. His explanation is also supported by historian Douglas Bukowski (The Mayors, 2013, p. 78) who calls it a civil service proceeding which was deliberately manufactured as a showcase trial by Thompson and the sensationalist media. Wikipedia does not write from that context or frame. Educator Gerald Leinwand (Mackerels in the Moonlight, 2004, p. 55-56) refers to the proceedings in the context of a media circus and a show trial. Author Walter Lippmann also corrects the record (American Inquisitors, 1928): “…the trial, or more accurately, the hearing…” Historian Jonathan Zimmerman also corrects the historical record (Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools, 2005, pp. 17-18) and accurately describes the subtopic:

"By 1923, at least twenty-one legislatures were considering measures to regulate the content of "new" history textbooks. Countless school districts and municipalities also moved to bar the offending books, culminating in a lengthy "textbook trial" convened by Chicago Mayor’s William "Big Bill" Thompson in 1927—actually a dismissal hearing for superintendent William McAndrew, whom Thompson had accused of imposing "treasonous" and "un-American" texts on the schools."

It was a dismissal hearing, not “a formal examination of evidence before a judge, and typically before a jury, in order to decide guilt in a case of criminal or civil proceedings”. To quote Moreau again:

"Trial" was something of a misnomer. McAndrew sat before the city’s school board, not a judge and jury in a civil or criminal court. The superintendent faced neither imprisonment not fines, only dismissal and loss of pay. In essence, the affair amounted to an extended public hearing on several of the countries most popular textbooks and their authors, and secondarily, on McAndrew’s job performance. But participants as well as newspapers, opted to label the affair a "trial". The term lent drama to the story, and it also recalled the recently concluded trial of John Scopes, another educator accused of introducing subversive ideas to students.

This is why it is so important to rely on secondary sources removed from the event. For accuracy and precision, Wikipedia should place the topic in the appropriate historical context, which was a public hearing or proceeding. We would never frame a topic in a non-neutral manner. The use of “trial” in this context was meant to bias the public against McAndrew, even though there was never an actual trial to begin with. I think it is important for you to understand why historians put the word trial in quotes here. That’s a good indication we shouldn’t use it. The most neutral and unbiased term is “dismissal hearing” or proceeding. We know it wasn’t a real trial in any sense of the primary definition. Viriditas (talk) 01:52, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

But I did rely on secondary sources. Plenty of books providing a retrospective look, as well as reputable articles providing a retrospective look, use the term "Trial". Particularly this WBEZ article, which was one of my starting points in writing. In fact, my use of contemporary sources on the trial/hearing section largely came much later in the writing proccess. I started out with secondary non-contemporary sources. Furthermore, [the documents of this 1931 court case referencing the McAndrew hearings uses the term "trial" for it https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3416777/the-people-v-gorman/] However, per your objections I have retermed it an "administrative hearing". SecretName101 (talk) 02:08, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Another issue for you to consider is that while this wasn’t a legal case like Tennessee v. Scopes (1925), popularly known as the Scopes Trial, to which it was compared to in somewhat an absurd fashion, it was preceded by an unusual zeitgeist of anti-British sentiment which Big Bill latched on to as an opportunist. In other words, the manufactured controversy against McAndrew was part of a much larger tide in US history that had very little to do with McAndrew himself; he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and subject to the machinations of Big Bill. The larger phenomenon of the campaign against textbooks began in 1920, possibly with Edward F. Sweeney, and notably occurred among many states before coming to Illinois, bringing Anglophobia to a head in New York before it reached Chicago, as I’m sure you are aware by now. The hearings of McAndrew were only one small part of this phenomenon, and the reader needs the larger context of this textbook controversy that took place around the country before McAndrew was even implicated to make sense of it. See for example Moser 1998, pp. 63-64 (Twisting the Lion's Tail). To conclude, this period of Anti-English sentiment in the US is poorly covered on Wikipedia. With a cursory search at best, I could only find one article that covers this period of history, United Kingdom–United States relations. The relevant content that precedes and leads up the McAndrew affair appears at the end of the "World War I" section and is interspersed (non-chronologically) in the "Inter-war years" section of that aforementioned article. Given that this is the actual, larger historical backstory as to why McAndrew was put under the microscope, some small effort should be made to mention it. Viriditas (talk) 10:06, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: This is looking good. Aside from copyediting and saying more about his legacy (if you haven’t already added it), I think we are almost done. Consider adding a legacy section and finishing the lead with a final statement or paragraph about his legacy. It’s not required of course, and if you choose not to do it, that’s fine, but it would greatly help the narrative of the biography and give the reader a finality to who McAndrew was and what they should take away from the bio. Right now, you’re ending the lead with the admin hearing, and that doesn’t wrap up the bio in an encyclopedic manner. How is he remembered by historians? What changes did he make or implement that have lasting effects that are still felt today, in either the classroom or in pedagogy? That’s the kind of thing you should end the lead with, and it’s why a legacy section is needed. My guess is that you already have the content for a legacy section, but these items appear throughout the article in different sections (accomplishments, initiatives, impact on the field of education). If you were to isolate these points, group them together, and then solidify them as a restatement of his influence from the perspective of today looking back, you would have a good legacy section ready to go. Viriditas (talk) 22:46, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: article still requires copyedits to meet the reasonably well written criterion. Viriditas (talk) 00:33, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: good job adding a legacy section. I think that kind of quote is better off as a paraphrase, but it’s totally up to you how you want to do it. One thing I would highly recommend doing is using this material to address my previous questions about the lead. In the second paragraph, you write "While he garnered national reverence in some circles, he also became an enemy of local teachers unions", but you don’t explain why. The new quote you just added to the legacy section answers part of that question, so if you could say something about this in relation to the material in the lead ("His concept of administration clashed with the philosophy of teacher participation in policy formation… which was administratively embodied in the system of Teachers' Councils, which McAndrew discontinued") that would be helpful to the reader. Viriditas (talk) 00:01, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@SecretName101: regarding this content: Teacher representatives expressed concern as to whether middle schools would or would not offer terminal programs for children who would not attend high school can you explain or disambiguate the concept of a terminal program? In contemporary parlance, a terminal program has a specific, technical meaning. Viriditas (talk) 00:58, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Review

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

   WP:TOOLONG

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Subject did not undergo a “trial” of any kind, but a public hearing that was covered by primary sources of the time in a sensational manner

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

   On hold for seven days. Article is too long and has two other articles within it needing splitting and summary style per the above. If you don’t know how to do this or need help, just ask. Viriditas (talk) 00:12, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

   Closing review comments: nominator did a good job adding missing biography elements and splitting out the longer sections and summarizing the larger articles. Nominator also did a good job addressing specific, but minor issues with NPOV and adjusting the section headers as needed. With that said, the article was not ready for GA when it was nominated, and nominator needs to pay closer attention to prose, grammar, and spelling errors. I understand that the nominator wants to focus on FA, but there are a number of minor roadblocks and hurdles that need to be surmounted on the road to that destination. For one, the nominator should focus on constructing a biographical narrative that is consistent with secondary source coverage when possible, and relies on primary sources and dissertations only for direct support for already cited content. In terms of framing the narrative, the nominator should pay special attention to featured biographies and pay close attention to the way citations are used. For example, in most featured articles, you will rarely have more than one citation per sentence or paragraph because the sourcing is tight and easy to check. In this article, the nominator uses multiple sources for statements that likely don’t need it, and it is difficult to check specific content in some instances. If this style is preferred, what many featured writers do instead, is to use a single citation in the body of the reference, but otherwise bundle multiple citations in the reference section. The point is you want the prose to be as free and unencumbered as possible, so as to both enhance readability and ease of fact-checking. For this and other reasons, I would suggest a major rewrite of the entire article, paying attention to constructing a flowing narrative with readable prose and easy to check sources, before attempting the featured article path. Thank you for your effort. Viriditas (talk) 01:51, 17 February 2022 (UTC)