Talk:Timothy Tow

Publication list

I agree that it needs to be pruned. I looked him up on Worldcat, but I don't know if those results (sorted by "relevance") are ordered in any particular way. The top seven are:

1. Has God a plan for your life?
2. Son of a mother's vow
3. Theology for every Christian
4. The story of my Bible-Presbyterian faith
5. Disciples of McIntire
6. Prophets of fire and water
7. William C. Burns 1815-1868 : grandfather of Bible-Presbyterians

The top cited results on Google Scholar are

1. John Sung my teacher
2. The Asian Awakening
3. The Law of Moses & of Jesus
4. A Theology for Every Christian
5. William C. Burns 1815-1868: Grandfather of Bible-Presbyterians

The two "Theology for every Christian" books seem to be the same, by the way? Are they merely different editions? StAnselm (talk) 04:25, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Just curious, is there a rule in Wiki that says the full list cannot be displayed? Or is it a heuristic to display only the more famous works? In any case, that is an interesting search you did there. Although I don't think Google's citation counts are accurate, it seems to be pretty close to predicting the popularity of the books. The 2 are similar but the 2007 theology book would be a better one. Perhaps you can put Google's 5 under publications and Son of a mother's vow (his autobiography) as further reading. Bpc.sg (talk) 08:28, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

• Including a complete list of somebody's works is usually only done if the person is so important, that anything he ever wrote is considered notable (for example: Nobel Prize for Literature winners, Einstein, Darwin, etc). Tow is not in this category. Hence, for all other biographies, we include a selection of the most important works. To make a selection, we need some independent criteria (i.e., something better than "I think these are the most important"). That can be the number of libraries holding a copy of a book (rarely done and Worldcat is often unreliable) or, more often, the numbers of citations to a book (as determined by using a citation index, often GScholar or GBooks for convenience). Including an autobiography under "further reading" is absolutely appropriate. --Randykitty (talk) 08:49, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Looks good now. Well done to all of us. StAnselm (talk) 19:01, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks User:StAnselm and Randykitty for the advice! Bpc.sg (talk) 23:40, 22 September 2015 (UTC)