User:StarryGrandma/Writing an article about a professor or researcher

This is a guide to writing Wikipedia articles about professors and researchers, coming from my own experience. For general information about articles see the excellent guides at Wikipedia:Your first article and the Wikipedia:Article wizard. The inspiration for this guide is User:Yunshui/Article creation for beginners. I highly recommend reading it and User:Yunshui/References for beginners.

Click on the blue links in this essay for further information. For example, this blue link is a sample article showing the writing process: Professor example 1

Before starting check to see if the person already has a Wikipedia article under a different version of their name. If so, add new information there. If not, follow these steps to write the article.

Notability

A person must already be well known (that is, notable) and meet at least one of the criteria at Wikipedia:Notability (academics)#Criteria. You must have references independent of the person and his institution to back this up. See the section Tracking down sources at the end of this article.

Find sources

Everything you add to a Wikipedia article must have been published somewhere else first. References to show that the person is well-known must be written by someone other than themselves or their institutions. Other facts can come from sources connected with the person. The best source to start with is the person's curriculum vitae (academic resume), or an online profile of them at their institution's website.

It is not easy to find things written about academics and researchers, rather than things written by them. For help see the section at the end of this article.

No copying

Always write in your own words. Do not copy and paste material into Wikipedia from published material or web pages about the person.

• It is illegal (copyright violation) for Wikipedia to contain most material that has been published elsewhere first, even if you wrote it yourself.
• Copied material won’t have the right tone. A good web page or magazine article should promote the person. An encyclopedia article needs to be neutral.

Write the article

Step 0. Ask permission

If the person you intend to write about is known to you and still living, ask them if they agree to you writing a WP:BLP on them. Although you are not bound by their view, embarrassment can be caused if an article is deleted subsequently due to lack of notability.

Step 1. Start the article

An article about a professor or researcher (or many other people) has a standard form.

(A summary paragraph)

Early life and education

Career

Awards and honors

Selected publications

Usually the most cited publications

References
{{reflist}} - this line will make the references visible, or add the References list template with Visual Editor.

External links

Write one or two summary sentences about the person. Don't include a birth date unless you have a reference to support it.

David A. Hafler (born 1952) is an American neurologist. He is the Edgerly Professor and chairman of the department of Neurology at the Yale School of Medicine.

Create the section headings in the editor by putting pairs of equal signs before and after: ==Early life and education==, or use Visual Editor to do so.

Step 2. Put in the basics, with dates

Using the professor’s profile or CV as the reference put in the basic biographical and career information with dates into the "Early life and education" and "Career" sections. This will serve as the basic structure of the article, in historical order. Write in the form of paragraphs, not lists.

Put a link to the person’s CV or profile and a link to their web page under "External links".

Step 3. Add information from independent sources

Using the sources that are independent of the person, add further information. Put in the material on research, books, and awards. Place them as they happened into the history of the person's career created in Step 1. Sources will often be written emphasizing the "wonderfulness" of the person. For an encyclopedia article be careful to keep to a neutral tone; just include the facts. Leaving out most adjectives may help.

Step 4. Complete the article

Fill in more facts using the sources that are connected to the person and their institutions. Show how the person developed as a researcher or academic by describing their work/research in the corresponding historical sections. Include the references.

Enter a short list of the person’s most important publications.

Expand the summary paragraph to add the major things the person is known for and one or two major awards if any. References aren’t needed in the summary since they are in the article.

David A. Hafler (born 1952) is an American neurologist. He is the Edgerly Professor and chairman of the department of Neurology at the Yale School of Medicine. He is known for his work in immunity, genetics, and multiple sclerosis. In 2018 he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Tracking down sources

When a noted academic person dies, his colleagues will often publish a detailed obituary article in one of the academic publications in their field within a few months of the death. Published information is harder to find about living academics. Organizations often put out press releases about academic awards or elected fellowships. These may be published in a college or university's own publications or still available on the organization's website. Some academic organizations are compiling oral histories in their field and an older academic may have one of these available online. In many fields academics contribute chapters to books. In some cases the editors' introduction will describe the academic history of their contributors.

Google will be your friend.

• Google web search
• Google books
• Google news
• Google scholar

Examples

• Catherine L. Besteman - anthropologist
• David A. Hafler (Dec 2018) - neurologist
• Rae Helen Langton - professor of philosophy
• John Swinton (theologian)