Talk:William Alexander Hammond

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 William Alexander Hammond was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: April 22, 2007
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Contents

[edit] Sources

This is a great article, but it would be nice to see it a bit better supported with references. Pending that, I'd have no trouble passing it for GA status. Chubbles 07:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I will add a few more footnotes, but I unfortunately do not have the time today. I shall definitely do that soon, though. Dar-Ape 01:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

This sentence: His work in the army was primarily in the west; here Hammond notably served as the medical director of Fort Riley.

  • Contradicts the entire rest of the article, as this is the only sentence that refers to his work in the west, the rest talks about work in West Virginia, Washington DC, and, after the Army, various eastern U.S. university. This should be addressed immediately. IvoShandor 12:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. Hammond was in the army twice, and his work was primarily in the west during his first period of service, then primarily in the east during his second period. I have clarified this-- if you believe it is clear enough, I will remove the template. Dar-Ape 01:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
His pre-Civil War work in the army was primarily in the west
  • Maybe try: His pre-Civil War work, during his first stint in the Army, was primarily in the west, or something like that, that may be a poor example. In some way, clarify upon first reference that he was in the army twice and that the work in the west was during that first "tour." Otherwise, I think this is still confusing. IvoShandor 08:12, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold

Since I had commented above, I decided to go ahead and just conduct the Good Article review for this article. I have placed the article on hold, a status that will be good for 2 to 7 days. If the issues that are outlined below are not addressed within that time frame the article will fail the nomination this time around. I will post some further comments in a short bit, thanks for your patience. IvoShandor 08:17, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Issues/Notes

  • Prose etc.
  • Be sure to address the above.
  • Watch for awkward sentence structure. This is just an example: Hammond demanded that either he be returned to his office and Barnes be deposed, or else that Hammond be sent to trial by court-martia
  • Maybe try: Hammond demanded he be returned to his office and Barnes be deposed or be sent to trial by court martial.
  • Make sure the lead represents a good summary per WP:LEAD, it should also adhere to length guidelines there. Make sure to compose the lead after you have completed the necessary expansion.
  • The lead won't need refs when all is said and done as long as the refs are provided when the points in the lead are mentioned in the body of the text, and they should be per the above guideline.
  • Make sure to do a thorough copy edit, get someone fresh to the article and unfamiliar with the topic to look it over (as reviewer I am barred from doing so or would).
  • Remember to keep an eye peeled for awkward wording, redundancies and run on sentences, not too short not too long, read them aloud if in doubt.
  • An expansion will probably require additional sections, make sure these are added appropriately.
  • Broadness
  • Ah, I see he wrote quite a lot. What did he publish as far as medical research? How prominent did he figure in that endeavour? Did he write any books? Is there more information about his time as a journal editor/publisher, this is barely touched upon.
  • In 1857, he won an American Medical Association Prize for his essay Experimental Research Relative to the Nutritive Value and Physiological Effects of Albumen Starch and Gum, when Singly and Exclusively Used as a Food, which Hammond had researched and compiled over the course of several years with the army.
  • This sentence, indeed, shows his prominence as a doctor. A more detailed discussion of his life and career prior to the Army is necessary to touch on all "major aspects."
  • He received an M.D. from the University of the City of New York at the age of twenty, and after an internship and a few months in a private practice, he became an assistant surgeon in the US Army in July 1849.
  • Wow! This guy was a doctor by 20!? That definitely merits further discussion.
  • and gave his name to Hammond's disease, a type of athetosis which Hammond was the first to describe in 1871.
  • The only mention of this is in the lead, it seems important.
  • Anything about his personal life would be useful.
  • The whole Post Army section could use an expansion, ideally.
  • More is required on the court martial/exoneration. This seems a political scandal of sorts, consult relevant academic sources as well as news of the day to find out the relevance here. There isn't enough info in the article on this occurence, it seems to major a point in his life to gloss over with a few sentences in his bio, at least if it is to be GA.
  • NPOV
  • This sentence: In 1878, Congress exonerated Hammond, and he was restored to the list of retired army personnel on August 27, 1879, though he remained without allowances or pay. In 1888, he moved back to Washington, D.C., where he founded a sanatorium.
  • Now was he really exonerated if he remained without pay or allowances? Sounds to be that there is more to this than meets the eye. Watch for tricky POV sneaky in from source material.
  • References
  • At minimum, references need to have the title, author (if available) publisher and date of retrieval (for web refs).
  • Make sure you read the article thoroughly to assure that anything extraordinary or "likely to be challenged" has an inline citation.
  • An example: In 1878, Congress exonerated Hammond, and he was restored to the list of retired army personnel on August 27, 1879, though he remained without allowances or pay. In 1888, he moved back to Washington, D.C., where he founded a sanatorium.
  • This sentence presents other problems, see above.
  • Several assertions of fact in the Biography section could use inline citations, examples follow, look for others.
  • Hammond demanded that either he be returned to his office and Barnes be deposed, or else that Hammond be sent to trial by court-martial.
  • These two: For instance, entrance to the Medical Corps was reorganized and expectations for new recruits were increased. He founded the National Museum of Health and Medicine and Satterlee Hospital in 1862, and suggested many increases of the presence of medicine in Washington, including the establishment of a permanent hospital corps, a permanent general hospital, and a medical laboratory for the military
  • n 1857, he won an American Medical Association Prize for his essay Experimental Research Relative to the Nutritive Value and Physiological Effects of Albumen Starch and Gum, when Singly and Exclusively Used as a Food, which Hammond had researched and compiled over the course of several years with the army.
  • There are probably others, look closely for this, as I cannot point out every detail here, if you have questions later I will be glad to assist.
  • If you use the same reference more than once consider giving it a name, like so Roberts, Bob. <ref name=bob>[http:bob.com Bob's Home Page], Bob's Home Page Publications. Retrieved January 34 1756.</ref>. This way when you want to use that reference again all you have to do is type <ref name=bob/> and it will cite the same ref in the footnotes section with a superscript letter.

Overall this article needs a lot of work to meet the GA criteria. If you don't feel this can be accomplished in seven days let me know on my talk page and I will fail it, you can work on it and then renominate it. Good luck with the article and thanks for your contributions so far. IvoShandor 08:53, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] If the review were today

If I reviewed the article as is it would appear as follows:

GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is well written.
    a (prose): b (structure): c (MoS): d (jargon):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (inline citations): c (reliable): d (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Pass/Fail:
    a Well written:
    b Factually accurate:
    c Broad in coverage:
    d NPOV:
    e Stable:
    f Images:
    g Overall:

If the article failed the nomination, the comments below will help in addressing the problems. Once these tasks are accomplished, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. If you feel that this review is in error, please feel free to take it to a GA review. You can see how I, personally, applied the six criteria above at this link. I sincerely thank you for your work so far.

If your article passed the nomination, congratulations on making Wikipedia all the better. Your contributions are greatly appreciated. If you didn't know there is a groovy user box, {{User Good Articles}}, for those users who have significantly contributed to a good article. The "essay" linked above is also how the criteria are applied to passing articles as well. Thanks again for your hard work.

Review by: IvoShandor


IvoShandor 08:53, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Failed

No response to review, on hold expired. IvoShandor 17:41, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It hasn't been seven days, but I suppose I wouldn't have had time to address all this anyway. Thank you very much for your time in performing this review, and I'm sorry I won't be able to fully respond to all the issues you have raised right now. Someday when I have more time available I will improve this article and comment more specifically on your concerns. Dar-Ape 18:45, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hammond and "Annals of Neurology

The first issue of the Annals of Neurology appeared in February 1977, thus it is unlikely that Hammond had anything to do with it. Hammond may have had something to do with the Transactions of the American Neurological Association. The library of the American Neurological Association is at Wake Forest University ---- jcsneuro —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcsneuro (talk • contribs) 19:54, 27 November 2007 (UTC)