Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red/Essays/Primer for creating women's biographies
This is a WikiProject advice page. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more WikiProjects on Wikipedia or its process, as pertaining to topics within the WikiProject(s) area of interest. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. |
This page in a nutshell: Writing about women on Wikipedia requires additional knowledge and know-how. |
Primer for Creating Women's Biographies
So you want to write a biographical article about a woman, but can't make sense of all the "rules", "guidelines" and "policies"? In a nutshell, here's how to do it.
Notability
[edit]Developing a strong statement of notability is one of the most important things you can do. The lead is a summary and is the introduction to your article. The statement of notability tells reviewers or other readers why the topic is unique, relevant, or worthy of an encyclopedia article. Note that the inclusion of a person's name on a Women in Red Redlist is not a guarantee of notability, but rather an invitation to the user to consider whether the person is notable enough to support an article. Since notability is not derived from an association with someone or something else, your statement should reflect why that person is notable without referencing other people. It should also be written neutrally and not attempt to promote the person.
If you are unable to make a statement as to why your topic deserves its own entry, consider adding the information to an existing article, an often-overlooked area of improvement. Studies have shown that women's biographies often mention family members and life events (marriage, divorce, child-rearing), while men's biographies do not. In part, this is because men's careers have not traditionally been interrupted by children, nor have their names changed if their relationships change. These events cannot be peripheral to a discussion of women's lives because they explain gaps in work history, as well as names needed to complete a biography. Adding women back into men's biographies, organizations they participated in, or other women's lives is another means of restoring the historical contributions of women. There may not be sufficient sourcing available now to meet Wikipedia notability standards, but as information becomes available, adequate information may come to light for a stand-alone entry.[1]
Poorly written notability statements include examples such as:
- X was the sister (daughter, wife, partner, mother) of Y
- X is a British "insert profession" (Lots of people are engaged in various professions, simply being a teacher, artist, athlete, etc. does not make one notable)
- X is the most important member of Y (Promotional: Qualifiers for knowledge, quality, size and success violate neutrality)
Proper lead notability statements include examples such as:
- X was a Mexican teacher and the founder of the Women's Seminary, one of the first schools for women in her state.
- X was a Russian astronomer who discovered Y and was recognized as an Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation in XXXX.
Sourcing
[edit]If you are able to make a statement of independent notability, the next step is to develop sourcing. Sources must be independent of the subject and must be reliable secondary sources, preferably over a period of time, with significant enough coverage to give a detailed profile of the subject. You can combine sources to satisfy the need for ample coverage; however, trivial statements, such as "X attended a meeting", "X said something about a topic", are not generally acceptable. Single sentences with weight, "she was president of the country", may be used, but require additional sourcing to confirm notability. On average a minimum of 3-5 reliable sources is needed to substantiate a woman's biography. More sources may be needed as academic research has shown that the media disproportionately focus on male subjects.[2] Biographical dictionaries, books, encyclopedias, journals and newspapers are typically acceptable and reliable secondary sources, because editorial control traditionally ensures that the content is factual and accurate. Basically, if there is no one evaluating the content other than the writer, it may be questionable whether the facts are accurate or neutral.
Sources which should be avoided include:
- Personal, fan-based, or employer websites
- Blogs (unless there are citations to reliable source materials stated in the article or the blog is from a reputable source such as a museum, university, or national broadcaster)
- YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn (see Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites)
- Self-generated or promotional material (see WP:SELFPUB)
Writing about living people presents particular difficulties. Besides neutrality, articles should avoid promotionalism, attacks, and adhere to the policies for Biographies of Living Persons. A living subject who is not a public figure may ask for birth dates or other personal details to be removed from an article, even if the statements are sourced. A best practice would be to comply with the request, especially if the information is not widely available on the internet. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not the news, so ensuring that notability has not diminished over time is imperative. The requirement that notability has been established over time, means that some people have not developed sufficient notability for inclusion in the encyclopedia as stand-alone entries.
Confirming that there is adequate information to meet the significant coverage requirement of the General Notability Guidelines, typically means that you have sufficient sources to write a comprehensive encyclopedic article for your subject without doing original research. Using Who, What, Where, When, Why and How will help you do that. Who and What define the scope, who are you talking about and what they did. When and Where determine the time and place and put the scope into its historical context. Why and How define the context, in other words, why was it significant and what steps or other people were involved. Overall, your biography should fully cover the person and what they did, telling why they were noted at the time that their life happened.[3] Length of the article, the same holds true for sourcing, is less important than the depth or weight of the material, as trivial detail does not help in assessing the evidence confirming significance.[4]
When searching for sourcing it is important to recognize that standardized spellings are fairly recent. Historical name variants were common, especially in times when few people were literate and people wrote what they thought they heard.[5] Foreign names are often transcribed in different ways or Anglicized,[6] or simply indexed incorrectly. For example, in names of Spanish speaking countries which use the father's last name preceding the mother's last name, the actual surname is the paternal name. In other words, in the name Emma Catalina Encinas Aguayo, the surname is Encinas. But, when she married and appended her husband's name, using Emma Encinas de Gutiérrez Suárez, American sources indexed her name under Suarez, instead of her actual surname Gutiérrez.[7]
Check sources which give surname customs for various countries, like this guide. If your subject has a hyphenated name, look for both parts of the name individually, as well as in its double-form. Just as there is no particular rule of the order of the combined names (unless they are hereditary nobility), some are "party 1-party 2" and others "party 2-party 1", there is no particular rule for indexing hyphenated names.[8][9] Search under your subject's birth and married name, as well as variants of them, i.e. Catherine, Cathy, Katherine, Kathryn, Kate, Parrot, Parott, Parret, Parrette, Barott, Barrett, etc. If either the first name or last name is unusual, try searching for just the surname or just the first name.[10] You can also "back in" to a woman's history by looking for the other people in her life, try searching for histories on her male relatives or employers with her name included in the search.[11]
Other search tips include employing various quotes in your search. When looking for a maiden name, try adding "née". If you are searching for works about a writer, rather than articles written by an academic, author, scientist or journalist, try "Jane Doe was", "Jane Doe wrote", "Jane Doe had" or other variations in the search query, making sure to include the quotation marks. Search for your subject in quotations, followed by the name of a father, husband, partner, employer, association, and so forth. In periods before the 1970s, try searching for married names without using her first name, for example "Mrs. John Doe".
Choosing a title
[edit]Dealing with women's names presents special problems. Articles should be titled in the name which most reference materials call the subject; however, there may well be discrepancies between historical sources and current sources due to custom. For example, in the 19th century in numerous countries, it was common for a woman to be known as the wife of her husband and identified by his initials, for example Mrs. C. C. Stumm,[12] or to camouflage her identity as a woman to protect her reputation.[13][14] Current practices tend to reflect the given name followed by the birth surname and then the married surname or using the birth name as the professional identity and the married name for one's private life,[15] though it is still common in many countries for women to adopt their husband's surname.[16]
In general, the article should be titled as sources dictate for the adult person, except in the rare instances that notability was earned as a child.[17] However, excluding the birth surname, effectively has written women out of history,[18] and should be avoided. The easiest rule is to follow the sourcing (of the time of the event, not later revisions). If records indicate that Jane Doe was the daughter of X & Y, that is the name that should be used in the sentences describing that event, even if she later became notable as Jane Roe. Likewise, if she adopted a stage name or pseudonym, the legal name should be noted prior to the adoption of the fictitious identity. Failure to include other names which women were known by, can not only obscure the biographical history, but also their professional history.[19][20][21][22]
If the most common name is already taken, either use an occupational identifier, like [[ARTICLE NAME (occupation)]], or insert a middle initial or maiden name. Then create hatnotes or disambiguation page entries as noted below.
Make redirects (see below) from all other plausible versions of the name, so that readers can find the article through any of them.