Featured Author Column

From Scholarpedia

The featured author column should be updated every monday starting January 1, 2008.

Project leader

Leo Trottier

Email list

Leo.Trottier@scholarpedia.org, Biswa.Sengupta@scholarpedia.org, Srikanth.Ramaswamy@scholarpedia.org, Juan.Carbajal@scholarpedia.org, Nikos.Green@scholarpedia.org, Jian.Liu@scholarpedia.org, Abdellatif.Nemri@scholarpedia.org, Elias.August@scholarpedia.org, Maxime.Lemieux@scholarpedia.org, Sundeep.Teki@scholarpedia.org

How to prepare the featured author column

There is a template "Template:Featured Author" that creates a box with the author's photo and some text. The best way is to copy the template from one of the previous featured authors and just replace the content.

The permanent place for the featured author info is on the author's userpage in Scholarpedia. The "previous featured author" link at the bottom of the box creates a thread of "featured authors", with the last element - John Milnor (the first featured author, Fields Medalist).

When changing the "previous featured author" field, make sure you change it in the userpage first, and then copy the new version to the main page. This way, the thread of featured authors will not be broken.

Emailing authors/curators

The following text could be useful when soliciting authors for information.

Prof. X,

I'm writing a brief bio of you to appear on the front page of Scholarpedia over the span of a
week.  It will hopefully be posted in the near future.  Would you have a CV I could consult for
the bio's writing?  Also, since this usually doesn't appear on the CV, but we often include it in
the bio, would you reply saying where and when you were born, and where you grew up?  Finally, is
there a portrait of you we might use for the site?

Thanks in advance,
 
J.Q. Writer
Assistant Editor, Scholarpedia
JQ.Writer@scholarpedia.org

Alternative letter that may be useful.

Dear Dr. XXX,
Thank you again for contributing "XXX" to Scholarpedia. As an Assistant Editor of Scholarpedia, I am contacting 
you on behalf of Dr. Eugene M. Izhikevich regarding the following matter:
Scholarpedia has a weekly Featured Author column on its main page. http://www.scholarpedia.org/
You were selected to be one of the featured authors. As you can see on the main page, it consists of a short 
biography (significant positions, awards and honors, and field of research) with a picture.
If you agree with the general idea, there is some information that I need to write the column. Actually, I found 
most of it on your academic webpage except for:
- a photo of good resolution
- your date and place of birth
Approval of the biography by the featured author is an important part of the process. When I'm finished with writing the draft 
, I'll send you an email. You will then be able to read the draft directly on your userpage and make corrections if necessary.

Writing style

Perhaps we should try and ensure that the author profiles are written so that they do not intrinsically need to be updated? Obviously we want to talk about an author's current work, but perhaps we should avoid mentioning things that will soon go out of date? Trottier 19:01, 5 February 2008 (EST)

For our reference, here are two good online style guides that are worth consulting.

• The Economist Style Guide
• The Elements of Style

Format of the biography

Previously, the column consisted in three paragraphs:

1. Birth date and place, education, (notable) past and present employment.
2. Major awards, if any.
3. Major results and publications.

The column ends with links to Scholarpedia articles by that author, and a link to the previous featured author. Browse through previous authors to see some samples.

Prepare the column directly in the author's userpage. Then, email the author and ask for a fresh photo and to check the validity of the biography. Some authors reply with a delay of a week, so preparations should start weeks before the author is scheduled to appear on the Main Page. Ideally, there should be biographies prepared for at least a few future featured authors (i.e., for at least a few weeks ahead).

Workflow

The draft of a biography follows five stages:

1. Compile information on author from online sources. --  (x----) 

2. Email author saying that we will be writing a featured author column/profile on him/her, ask him/her if they object, 
and if not to provide missing information (city of birth, e.g.) and a photo we can use.  --  (xx---)   

3. First draft by the writing Assistant Editor (w.AE) directly in the author's userpage. --  (xxx--) 

4. Project leader and w.AE agree on a final version; check by project leader. --  (xxxx-) 

5. Check by author. --  (xxxxx)  

The last stage is submitting as revision to main page [Editor-in-Chief must approve here in any case].

Plan

The date for the weekly releases is monday. Feel free to change the order.

/Current  Robert W. McCarley  

Progress

The idea is to have a fair picture of the general progress. Ideally, we should stay at least a month ahead.