Wikipedia:Peer review/Rosalind Franklin/archive1

Rosalind Franklin

The article has been hotly debated for nearly a year and I recently rewrote it. There are only a few contributors to the talk page, and much of what is written there is not relevant to improving the article. I think the article needs a fresh perspective. Alun 13:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

• Needs expanding in a number of areas, especially re background and personal life (for example, the article fails to mention the fairly salient fact that she died in 1958). Controversies section is useful and should remain, but could do with a substantial rewrite. There are a few additional minor mistakes throughout the piece. I notice that the preponderance of the refs are to a single biography- I don't personally have a problem with that, but some others may. In terms of the frequency of refs however, this article is very good. Why is she consistently referred to as 'Rosalind Franklin'? Unless there is some other Franklin with whom she may be confused, it is perfectly acceptable to just identify by her surname, which may improve the flow of the text a little. Not a bad article by any means, but there is room for substantial improvement. Badgerpatrol 14:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I mainly used Brenda Maddox's book because as far as I know it is the only comprehensive biography of Rosalind Franklin. I used Maurice Wilkins's book as much as I could for the King's parts of the article because he was actually there, and I tried to used both as references for the same information as much as possible. Anne Sayer's book may have some additional things to offer. Francis Crick and James Watson were not at King's and I don't know how much of the information they can offer for this period is just second hand. I think the article gives her date of birth and date of death at the very beginning, it can also be added at the end of the article, I wasn't sure about adding it or not. Alun 15:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Wilkins was obviously there, but that doesn't mean he was impartial- in fact, I think everyone accepts that he didn't like her and she didn't like him, at least at the time. Nonetheless, I can't see any obvious POV anywhere. As for the death issue- the article does mention that she died in '58, but the last statement on her working life is She returned to work in January 1958 and was given a promotion to Research Associate in Biophysics.[53]. I'm all for upbeat endings, but I think it might be relevant to mention that she was dead within months! Badgerpatrol 16:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You are quite right, the final paragraph should make reference to her death shortly after, I suppose I was struggling with a way to phrase it and waiting for inspiration. Wilkins and Franklin didn't get on at all well, there has been some comment on the talk page about trying to keep personalities out of the article, so the article tries to reflect the events that happened without too much speculation, I'm not sure how effective this is as a strategy. There has certainly been a big divide on the talk page between a pro-Franklin point of view and a pro-Crick, Wilkins, Watson point of view, one of the purposes of the rewrite was to try to balance the competing views as evenly as possible. It's the reason for the request for a peer review really. Your comments are appreciated. Alun 17:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I found it a bit jarring when reading the article, as things are sectioned off and compartmentalized to an extreme degree. As an example, when reading about the race to discover the structure of DNA (in the section on Franklin's work at King's), we read that Watson and Crick had "...similar data to that available to the team at King's". Nary a word about photograph 51. Now I realize it's mentioned much later in the controversies section, but as Watson-Crick's use of this and the info from her talk is not disputed by anyone AFAIK, it's extremely misleading not to make even a barest mention it in the most relevant passage. It's also poor writing style IMHO.

Speaking of writing, this might be symptomatic of a larger problem. There are a lot of citations, and that's well and good, but it's very distracting. In fact, I suspect it is over-cited. I found at least one place that was definitely overdone: "Articles by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin [48] illuminating their x-ray diffraction data published in the same issue of Nature supported the Crick and Watson model for the B form of DNA.[49]". The first cite is to the Franklin-Gosling paper and the second cite is to the primary book source. Why are they both necessary? Does the book not make it clear that there is in fact a paper by Franklin in the same issue? I suspect it does. So why the first cite? Or, why even the second, if you have the first? The article by Franklin-Gosling (I believe) says it supports the Crick-Watson model. --C S (Talk) 08:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

It's also poor writing style IMHO. It's a fair point, I'm not a professional writer, just an amateur trying to do my best, like most wikipedians. The article is highly referenced, this is mainly to show that everything is properly verified. There has been some debate on the talk page of published material that is biased so I have tried to use both Wilkins's and Maddox's books to produce multiple citations for certain points. There is much more controversy surrounding her life than I could ever have imagined when I first started working on the article about a year ago, when I made my first ever major edit of a wikipedia article, and I admit it is very difficult to maintain a neutral point of view, which is another reason for so many citations, to show that this is not just the opinion of an editor, but from a cited published source. My rationale for omiting the use of King's material in the discovery of DNA section was so the section only dealt with what happened and when, the idea being to concentrate on the controversies in a seperate section where they could be more freely dealt with, and would not affect the flow of the biographical narative. It is also true that none of this information had come to light in 1953, the controversies started some 10 years after Franklin's death (on the publication of Watson's book, I have not used this as I think it does not constitute a reliable source), so I wanted to include them in the correct chronological order. This may have been a mistake, but there were reasons for doing it this way. Was there nothing you liked about it? Thanks for the comments. Alun 10:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There's plenty I liked about it, so don't take my criticisms as meaning the article is worthless. Anyway, I hope you take my comments into consideration in your revisions. --C S (Talk) 10:38, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Alun, its nice to see the improvements made in the article since I last looked at it. My two quick observations (I'm just popping in because I saw your note again and realized I hadn't stopped by, and figured a quick comment is better than no comment): I can see both sides above re-the references, and I think that for the "see also" section there shouldn't be anything (or at least a much leaner list) that was linked above in the article. I usually prefer See Alsos to be related topics that may not have been referenced in the text, but I don't know how that agrees with the WP:MOS. Syrthiss 18:46, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I am a professional writer about biology and occasional wikipedian. I wrote a very detailed profile of Franklin many years ago for a textbook (pre Maddox, but similar in approach). I just read your entry and these comments very quickly. I think the article generally looks excellent. I would probably make much less of the Nobel Prize, which is moot, and the defense of Wilkins as being moderately off topic. But in any case, I would be happy to contribute another time if you would like. Like some of your critics, I consider Wilkins a not reliable source based on his animosity towards Franklin when she was a alive as well as the heavy criticism he's received over the last 50 years. He's got to be defensive by now. I actually think Watson is more reliable (when he's not talking about her fashion sense!) and I did use his book when I wrote my piece. Anyway, Alun, nice article. Cheers, Eperotao 02:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)