Talk:Pat Barker

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This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations: Cohen, Noam (January 31, 2011). "Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia's Contributor List". The New York Times. "Interview: Wikipedia seeks to close gender gap". Times LIVE. 2011-12-08. Archived from the original on 2012-08-22. Retrieved 2012-08-22.

What does "W" stand for in her name?117.221.178.239 (talk) 05:38, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do to the ubiquity of her work (at least in the UK) this article could be larger. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.5.81.123 (talk) 13:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. But sadly Wikipedia does not expand itself! Francium12 (talk) 10:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just added some additional information to this article; mostly early biography stuff. I'll probably edit it more later. It really does need beefing up: she's a major, critically-acclaimed, award-winning novelist, and deserves better than this thin article. Sue Gardner (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:52, 23 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Occupation	novelist
Language	English
Nationality	England
Alma mater	Man Booker Prize, Guardian First Book Award
Children	Anna Ralph

Sue, this is a great article expansion - well written, well structured, well cited. I've been tinkering around the edges: fully formatting the citations (tedious but oh-so-important for offline use, or when web sites get taken down or restructured); fixing up ambiguous wikilinks; and a few other details. I've also started an infobox (to the right) which you may or may not want to include in the article; if so, just copy and paste.

I have a few thoughts about the article. In general, I think the

. I personally believe very firmly -- and believe that the RS guideline supports -- the idea that blogs like this are generally OK for sourcing fairly uncontroversial facts; but for a highly subjective (not to mention sought-after) claim like "most important," I think much stronger sourcing is required.

This same issue can also be addressed, to some degree, in the phrasing. I favor phrasing like "Pat Barker is an influential[CITE] contemporary novelist from England. Often considered one of the most important historical novelists of the early 21st century,[CITE] she writes about…" That's obviously a very rough cut, but you might want to play with it.

Also, a detail, and one that I see is a vestige from before you started working on the article: I would change the way her biography is introduced. Stating with authority that Shannon Monteith is her biography seems unusual. Many people could write biographies of her; it seems like a strong way to put it. Especially without a third-party citation to back it up. My inclination would be to take it out of the article text, and put a full citation to Monteith's book in the "Further reading" section.

Hope this helps -- I'll keep chipping away at the details! -Pete (talk) 16:03, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I moved the Monteith biography (as described above, and as discussed with Sue offline) to the "further reading" section. I also added another book there that looks relevant; and I removed this news article, which I'm assuming is not especially useful, since it has not been used in any

. If I'm wrong, feel free to add it back in, of course:

• Rustin, Susanna (June 30, 2007). "Double vision". The Guardian.

-Pete (talk) 17:26, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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