Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katheryn Edmonds Rajnak

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Closing due to early consensus. Missvain (talk) 23:48, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Katheryn Edmonds Rajnak[edit]

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline and the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (biographies) requirement. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar. PROD was removed by User:Graeme Bartlett with no rationale despite my explicit request for one. Pinging User:Melcous who tagged this article for OR (one of the references is described as 'email'), User:Kj cheetham who tagged this for 'example farm', and User:John B123 who asked for better refs. I will note that there the subject is covered in American Men & Women of Science. I have checked the 2005 edition and verified this fact, but I am not impressed by this source. The entries are just CV excerpts. Here is the entire excerpt for the subject, minus their mailing address and email (through I guess those are part of the public record anyway): "RAJNAK, KATHERYN EDMONDS, ATOMIC PHYSICS. Personal Data: b Kalamazoo, Mich, April 30, 1937; m 1961, Stanley. Education: Kalamazoo Col, BA, 1959; Univ Calif, Berkeley, PhD(chem), 1963. Professional Experience: RETIRED; adj assoc prof, Kalamazoo Col, 1985-1996; vis prof, Univ Paris, IV, 1979 & 1980 & Univ Paris, Orsay, 1979 & 1981; consult, Lawrence Livermore Lab, 1975-1989; physicist, Lawrence Livermore Lab, 1974-1975; asst prof physics, Kalamazoo Col, 1967-1970; Consult, Argonne Nat Lab, 1966-1989; Fel chem, Lawrence Radiation Lab, 1962-1965; adj lectr physics, Kalamazoo Col. Research Statement & Publications: Theory and analysis of lanthanide and actinide spectra. M". I am not seeing anything that seems to meet NPROF, unless the inclusion in the cited reference work is enough. For the record, the reason I don't think this reference work is sufficient is that I'd expect at least few full sentences, with a qualifier that the subject has done something significant, and said entry to be written by another scholar. This is the standard I am used to with other reference works like the Polish Biographical Dictionary. To repeat myself, I see no evidence that American Men & Women of Science is doing anything except reprinting CV excerpts, and as such I don't think inclusion in this work means that the subject meets NACADEMIC #1 or 2 (a quick glance at some other entries in this book suggests that one doesn't even have to hold a title of professor to be included in this work). PS, I started the discussion at Talk:American Men and Women of Science. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:53, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:53, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:53, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. American Men and Women of Science is a perfectly decent reference. In addition to that, the citability data is highly impressive. As the publication list indicates, the subject was publishing her papers as "K. Rajnak". A GScholar search for "K. Rajnak" produces top hits of 2765, 1182, and 1205, for journal papers published in 1968, 1968 and 1989 accordingly, before the internet age, which is quite remarkable, especially given the theoretical nature of her field of study. Passes WP:PROF#C1. Nsk92 (talk) 11:30, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- I am not convinced. Three papers (co-authored with two other authors) with good citation counts, that's all - is it really enough to pass PROF C1? And the assertion "American Men and Women of Science is a perfectly decent reference" is just that, an assertion. I provided an argument why it is bad to which you reply "no it is good". What is clearly not "perfectly decent" is your argument. Try again. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:37, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - American Men and Women of Science used an old-fashioned compressed styled of summarizing a biographical entry that was completely common for various biographical dictionaries and almanachs earlier and is still not that uncommon today. What matters is not the style of the entry but the reputation of the source. American Men and Women of Science is not a vanity press but a legitimate well-established publication with wide holdings. Here is a sample published review of them from 1977[1]. Regarding co-authors, in theoretical fields like mathematics and theoretical physics, joint papers usually don't have the "first author", the authors are typically listed alphabetically and the credit is not subdivided. It is extremely rare for a journal article in those fields to get 1000+ citations; that usually only happens with books. Here we have three such articles, all from pre-internet era. That alone would have been quite enough for me in terms of WP:PROF#C1 even if the American Men and Women of Science reference didn't exist. Nsk92 (talk) 12:10, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. ^{Engr. Smitty Werben} 11:40, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Several very highly cited papers in medium citation field is the kind of impact that we're looking for with WP:NPROF C1. I also think that American Men and Women of Science is probably the kind of encyclopedia entry that WP:ANYBIO refers to (per the Wikipedia article on that publication); additionally, Kalamazoo College thinks she's notable enough that the library has a collection of materials related to her. [2] While she didn't hold an especially fancy academic position, it appears plausible that she fell into the systemic problems faced by many midcentury female academic. (For example, colleges at this time often had nepotism rules preventing hiring both of a married couple as professors.) Russ Woodroofe (talk) 12:22, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Citation record is good enough for WP:PROF#C1 and we have enough sourced material for an article. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:57, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As per comments by others, seems to be a pass of WP:PROF, especially in light of the time period. WP:DINC. -Kj cheetham (talk) 19:25, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I removed the prod because I was checking out new pages to do with chemistry. This person appears to have made more publications than the typical academic with an article here. And also in a subject area I am interested in. Really I think that NPROF should be changed, but as it stands NPROF would allow this page, due to large numbers of cites to publications. Also given that the person has died, and has a biographical entry in an independent book, this is ahead of most academics here in Wikipedia. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:53, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep An h-index over 20, seven papers in the at-least-triple-digit citation range, three with over 1000, all in the pre-Internet era — that sounds like a WP:PROF#C1 pass. Moreover, I agree with Russ Woodroofe that inclusion in American Men and Women of Science is the sort of recognition that WP:ANYBIO is asking for. XOR'easter (talk) 23:33, 17 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The high citations are enough to meet WP:PROF, with one 1968 paper on 2765 GS citations (afaik, extremely uncommon in an era when there were far fewer journals than there are now and much less citation bulking), two other papers >1000 and a total of 7 >100. Inclusion in a national biographical dictionary also meets WP:ANYBIO; echoing those above who state this compressed presentation was entirely normal in paper biographical dictionaries. Online searches should never be used as a basis for determining notability for people who retired before the internet era. ETA: In case anyone is worried about the implied original research, the e-mail source in question relates to an entirely trivial point not directly related to the subject. Espresso Addict (talk) 09:25, 18 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.