Talk:Aisha Musa el-Said

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doctorate unclear[edit]

The Sudanow article (ref [1] in this version):

  • refers to Musa as "Dr. Aisha Musa" (emphasis added by me), suggesting that she has a doctorate;
  • says that she "was in the UK 1965 for a thesis study", but doesn't say what sort of thesis;
  • says that she "met the prominent poet Dr. Mohamed Abdel Hai, himself then a student, doing a PHD research", but this is ambiguous as to whether Musa or Hai was "doing a PHD research";
  • quotes Musa stating that in 1965 she was at the "University of Leeds Institute of Education for a 2year TESOL Diploma", which from the context appears to refer to what is also called a TEFL diploma, not a PhD.

However, The National (ref [4] in this version) has a brief profile on Musa which only mentions "a master's degree from the University of Manchester and a diploma from Leeds University". It would be a bit embarrassing to not mention the fact that she has a doctorate if she does have one, and it's not terribly in the interests of a major UAE newspaper to pretend that a Sudanese co-head of state has less academic degrees than she really has. Two reasonable alternative interpretations consistent with the two sources are:

  1. she did doctoral-level research in parallel to her TESOL/TEFL diploma, and obtained the doctorate later, either at Leeds or another university, and The National was unaware of her receiving her doctorate; or
  2. "Dr" is an honorific title associated with Musa informally in recognition of her general level of education, without referring to the academic PhD degree.

I tend to go for 2., but I'm only guessing. We need better quality sources. For people who want guidance on what to do in terms of editing while waiting to find better sources, see WP:CREDENTIALS. I would think that "Dr" should be dropped from the infobox while waiting for a better source. (Unfortunately, the Sudanow interview focuses on Musa's late husband rather than on Musa herself.) Boud (talk) 21:38, 24 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I removed "Dr" from the infobox, since the infobox is for formal titles, for which we don't have a strong source. The informal, honorific usage is OK for the lead. Anyone with better sources, feel free to update the article appropriately. I don't own it. Boud (talk) 21:53, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]