Talk:Ohio Wesleyan University/Archive 2

message: The reference cited for the statement, "Adjusted for size of the school, Wesleyan is second only to Macalester College and Mount Holyoke College among all American colleges and universities in total aid awards to international students and the average award per international student" points to the wrong place. I'm guessing it was meant to point somewhere on oacac.com -- perhaps to www.oacac.com/docs/IntlFinAid.xls (but that table doesn't directly support the statement about OWU being 3rd only to Macalaster and Mt Holyoke). Hopefully whoever added this statistic can fix up the reference. Bob schwartz 21:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  International aid 

message: Below is a correspondence I had with User:WikiprojectOWU.  I am including it since it has not been addressed yet, and others can easily fix these issues.  This was following a detailed list of things to improve the article that I gave User:WikiprojectOWU on his/her talk page (User_talk:WikiprojectOWU):
The edits you have made have definitely improved the Ohio Wesleyan University article greatly, but you are taking too much from the Duke University article.  I said to look at the current FA's for good ideas, and didn't mean for an exact word-by-word account to just substitute certain words that fit Ohio instead of Duke.  While there are good ideas in the Duke article, it is definitely not the only way to do it, and I'd encourage you to focus on other things if more appropriate and especially re-word it so it's not blatant copying.  Although I guess wikipedia articles are public domain, so plagiarism doesn't apply?  I'm not really sure. In any event, for the sake of originality, I implore you to change this pattern of editing before the article becomes a replica of Duke's.  These are just a few of the examples I found that you should reword and not copy the Duke article:
*Duke: "The school, which officially became Duke University in 1924, traces its institutional roots to 1838"
*Ohio: "The school, which officially became Ohio Wesleyan Universiy in 1844, traces its institutional roots to 1841"
*Duke: "In its 2007 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked the ..."
*Ohio: "In its 2007 edition, U.S. News & World Report ranked Wesleyan ..."
*Duke: "Besides academics, research, and athletics, Duke is also well known for its ..."
*Ohio: "Besides academics and international diversity, Wesleyan is also well known for ..."
*Duke: "Duke's 8,709 acres (35 km²) contain three main campuses in Durham as well as a marine lab in Beaufort, North Carolina."
*Ohio: "OWU's 2,000 acres (0.8 km²) encompass three parts: the residential and academic campus, Perkins Observatory and its wilderness preserves."
*Duke: "Construction projects have updated both the freshmen-housed Georgian style East Campus and the main Gothic style West Campus as well as the adjacent Medical Center over the past five years."
*Ohio: "Construction projects have updated both the Modern-style science facilities on the academic side and several of its athletic facilities over the past three years."
*Duke: "Other projects are underway on on all three campuses, including..."
*Ohio: "Other projects are underway, including..."
*Duke: "Recent history: Duke University's growth and academic focus have contributed to the university's reputation as an academic and research institution. The school has regularly sent three-member teams to the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, earning the title of the best collegiate undergraduate math team in the United States and Canada in 1993, 1996 and 2000. In nine out of the past ten years, Duke's team has finished in the top three, the only school besides Harvard to do so."
*Ohio: "Recent history: Ohio Wesleyan University's growth and academic focus have contributed to the university's reputation as an academic and teaching-focused institution. The school has regularly sent its teams to the Ohio Five mathematics contest. In this competition for the past ten years, the school's team has finished first among other team entrants five out of the ten times."
*Duke: "Construction continued on campus, with the 314,000 square foot Levine Science Research Center (LSRC) opening in 1994 to house interdisciplinary research, and construction has continued. In 1998, Duke President Nan Keohane initiated a five-year $1.5 billion Campaign for Duke fundraising effort. Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. ('47) endowed the Pratt School of Engineering with a $35 million gift in 1999."
*Ohio: "Construction continued on campus, with the 150,000 square foot Science Center. The new science center opened in 2001 to house all of the school's science departments. In 2006, Wesleyan's President Mark Huddleston initiated a five-year $250,000 million Campaign for Ohio Wesleyan's fundraising effort. Branch Rickey ('67) contributed to the new athletic campaign that started in 2005."
Those are almost the majority of the edits you have done.  You can and probably should include most of this information, but rephrasing it would be nice.  It's not even disguised as all of these are pretty much located in the exact same sentence of the same paragraph of the same section of the articles.  Thanks for your attention and I'm glad to see that the article is improving, just don't copy other articles too closely. -Bluedog423Talk 05:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Taking too much from [[Duke University]]

message: I think the intro section needs work.  The initial changes I had made were reverted, so I thought I would explain my rationale and let people discuss it here before changes are made to the actual page.  Basically, the phrases that were taken directly from the Duke article do not immediately work well here and should be rephrased or removed.  Specifically:
* "Nobel laureates among the college graduates include..."
: As far as I know, there has only been one OWU Nobel laureate, and I'm not sure that the fact is one of the distinctive features of OWU.
* "Wesleyan is also well known for being in the geographic center of the state of Ohio and the university's proximity to downtown Columbus, Ohio."
: I hope that we can say something more interesting about OWU than this.
* "OWU's 2,000 acres (0.8 km²) encompass three parts: ..."
: Needs rewording.  The campus doesn't naturally split into three parts: it's more like the main campus plus some other facilities.
* "the Modern-style science facilities on the academic side"
: I'm not sure what "Modern-style" means... It seems like this was just an attempt to reword the Duke article.
* "...a new initiative for Integrated Marketing that will realign the school's efforts to articulate fully and accurately the value proposition to key constituents."
: This is just fancy-speak for some management-level project that doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article.
I think the goal for the intro should be to concisely and uniquely describe the prominent features of OWU to someone who doesn't know anything about it.  We should emphasize quality over quantity.  Let's get to work!  —BryanD 16:29, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro section 

message: I removed the following rather contentious sentence after being unable to find a reliable source:
: The incident caused many international alumni to stop donating to the school due to soured relations.
Can someone find a source confirming the rest of the information about this protest?  Thanks  —BryanD 12:37, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quillin protest claim 

message: The "Activism" section of the article begins, "For many years, there has been a strong activist population on campus."  But do we have any references to support the  "strong" claim?  I'd say OWU is about average in this regard.  For example, it has not been mentioned in 14 years of "Mother Jones' top activist campuses" articles, unlike Oberlin, Wesleyan, or bigger schools like Ohio State and Michigan.  Without a reference to support "strong", I suggest that word be dropped in the service of notability and verifiability, as well as making the article a tad less boosterish and more objective. Bob schwartz 14:39, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is activism notably strong at OWU? 

message: The article states, "Ohio Wesleyan is also among gay-friendly colleges, actively recruiting students from the LGBT population." Is OWU any more gay-friendly than other colleges (e.g., Oberlin, Wooster, or Denison, not to mention NYU, Georgetown, Wesleyan, Macalester, Wellesley or Reed)?  The new Advocate College Guide lists 100 top colleges for gays, 6 of which are in Ohio: Antioch, Bowling Green, Case, Oberlin, Ohio State, and Ohio U. The National Consortium of Directors of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Resources in Higher Education (what a mouthful!) lists 5: Bowling Green, Miami (OH), Oberlin, Ohio State, and Ohio U. Based on articles in The Transcript, PRIDE seems only somewhat active, and its Web page lists officers as of 2002. Do we have any references to support OWU's being more gay-friendly than most other colleges? If not, this doesn't seem to meet the standard of notability, and may mislead the reader. Bob schwartz 15:05, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is OWU more gay-friendly than most colleges? 

message: I'm not sure what the point of this picture is, so I moved it here for further discussion.  I can't actually see the building the caption is referring to.  —BryanD 04:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Branch Rickey Picture 

message: Three articles in the Template are still empty (in the last row), so if anyone wants to take a lead on these, I'd greatly appreciate it! WikiprojectOWU 06:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Three Articles 

message: Any suggestions for a better title for Campus expansion and the university presidents? WikiprojectOWU 05:55, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better Title 

message: A metamorphic rock next to Smith Hall has been part of the residential campus for the last 50 years and students continuously repaint it with graffitti and slogans.[165]
Frist, the reference doesn't mention a rock... second, did they move the rock?  Last time I checked it was outside Hayes.  Third, when I was there the Rock was used to announce events/activities and to invite people to things.  It wasn't simply random graffitti or slogans.  Has this changed?  Also, what is a 'metamorphoric rock?'Balloonman 19:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Rock 

message: *References should go after punctuation, not in the middle of sentences---throughout article it's in the middle of sentences, it also needs significant copy editing... I noticed several places where there are stray commas.  It looks like the page was redacted from other pages... and when the cut and pasting was done, there was minimal effort to check punctuation marks.  (For example the section on Branch Rickey.)
*"[5]# ^ USNews.com: America's Best Colleges 2006. US News and World Report. Retrieved on 2005-11-10."  Now a bad link.
*"Thomson and his successors her vocal in other political debates of the time " were vocal?
*"[18]^ Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia. University of North Carolina Press. Retrieved on 2005-10-15." This site does not support statements made in article.  No mention of Thomson or OWU.
*"[19] ^ a b The Methodist Movement Comes to America and Impacts Slavery. Reve' M. Pete. Retrieved on 2003-01-01." This is not an authoritative site.  It's a personal website.
*"[22] ^ OWU Students Celebrate Sukkot. Ohio Wesleyan University. Retrieved on 2006-12-02." This article does not mention Monnett Hall or the year Monnett Garden was built.  Thus it does not support the sentence it is serving as a reference to.
*"The Dartmouth College case had opened a wide range of freedom for the establishment of private or denominational schools,[23] and the charter was issued by special legislative act." The paragraph beginning with that sentence needs to be cleaned up---the case and its ramifications should be explained in the article.
*"Wesleyan" should not be used because it could be mistaken for Wesleyan University
*"[25] ^ Delbanco, A.. Colleges: An Endangered Species?. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved on 2003-10-15." This cite does not mention Ohio in the 1800's, methodism, or an educational renaissance.  In fact, if anything, it is critical of the colleges which were "in fact not colleges at all, but glorified high schools or academies that presumed to offer degrees."
*"During the mid-19th century, the school focused as on curriculum and fundraising. During this era," back to back sentences begining with "During"  Also, renaisance is used twice in very close proximity.
*The first paragraph in Campus Expansion can be cleaned up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Balloonman (talk • contribs) 07:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Review

message: The section is on Activism.  One of the early purposes of the School was to prepare missionaries.  This is a historical fact as mentioned on the Universities own webpage.  It is not coming from an unknown unreliable blog, but part of the schools' OFFICAL lore.  How is this POV?  OWU was founded as a Methodist school.  If the article is to be comprehensive and demonstrate a history of activism, then it needs to include issues go back to the schools foundation.  This is something that the school itself deems important enough to include in its history.  This is a better source than some of the other "activism" issues.  It is also presented in a neutral tone.Balloonman 07:44, 14 December
*I never knew that proselytizing is a form of Activism. Chicomo 07:50, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: West Point of Missions