Talk:College of Wooster/Archive 1

Archive 1

Rankings in the lede

An unregistered editor is insisting that this article include this material at the end of the first paragraph of this article:

"It is ranked #67 among the nation's top liberal arts colleges, and #85 among the best value schools. according to U.S. News and World Report. In US News' "Best Colleges 2018", for the sixteenth year in a row, Wooster is recognized for its “outstanding” undergraduate research opportunities and its senior capstone program, the I.S. (Independent Study)."

I contend that the information is unnecessary in the lede. The first two rankings, the "#67 among the nation's top liberal arts colleges, and #85 among the best value schools" rankings, are simply not noteworthy enough to mention in the lede. Moreover, it's extremely difficult to argue that one year of rankings from one ranking system is information that is so essential that it's worth including in the lede which should be reserved for the information that is critical for readers to know immediately if they're to understand the subject at all.

The second piece of information may be worth including in the lede but it needs to be rewritten. First, I don't know why there are so many quotation marks in the sentence; it's just bad writing. More importantly, the recognition that the sentence claims has been awarded to the independent study program isn't supported by any citations in the lede and it's barely mentioned in the body of the article (only from 2003!). It does appear that this program is important and somewhat unique so it may merit inclusion in the lede but the sentence that is currently included in the article that our unregistered colleague is edit warring to preserve is so badly written that it does the program no justice. It comes across not as a description of a unique and well-regarded program but as insecure and amateurish boasting. ElKevbo (talk) 22:12, 15 May 2019 (UTC)