User talk:Technetium25

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--Steven J. Anderson (talk) 08:11, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chomsky

Since you liked it so much, I went back and proofread and copyedited the entire article. If I had only known what I was getting into before I started. Unfortunately, I left the article with a few problems that I wasn't ready to get into sorting out

  • First, the article has a few links to newyorktimes.com. That site is deprecated by Wikipedia because it requires registration to view the articles there. There's no reason why you can't put the articles in footnotes the same way you would any newspaper article in a research paper, though.
  • I had to remove one reference to a Wikipedia article (check my edit summaries to find it). Unfortunately, (or fortunately) Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source by Wikipedia. We just can't use it as one.
  • The reference to the David Mamet book is a link to amazon.com, another deprecated site. This is because it's a commercial site that exists mainly to sell things. The book should be cited, again, just the way you would in a research paper. There's a standard Wikipedia template for that, but I'm just too tired to look it up right now. Maybe you can do it.
  • There are parts of the article that read suspiciously like original research. That's not allowed on Wikipedia, either. Basically, if I write something like "Smith says that the XYZ theory is true (source 1), but Jones's work effectively contradicts this (source 2)," even though I've cited Smith and Jones appropriately, if I'm the first person to notice and point out that Jones contradicts Smith, that's original research. Not allowed. You have to find a source that made that comparison or analysis or synthesis before you and cite him.

I don't have any plans to challenge or change any of this, but as the article starts to get attention, it will probably happen, especially with someone as controversial as Chomsky.

If I can be of any more help, send me a message.

--Steven J. Anderson (talk) 08:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Your recent edits

Hi there. In case you didn't know, when you add content to talk pages and Wikipedia pages that have open discussion, you should sign your posts by typing four tildes ( ~~~~ ) at the end of your comment. On many keyboards, the tilde is entered by holding the Shift key, and pressing the key with the tilde pictured. You may also click on the signature button Image:Signature_icon.png located above the edit window. This will automatically insert a signature with your name and the time you posted the comment. This information is useful because other editors will be able to tell who said what, and when. Thank you! --SineBot (talk) 15:04, 19 January 2008 (UTC)