User talk:Camsara99/sandboxsparta2
Overall, Cam, this draft is a great starting point! Good job! You are on-track the whole time during your writing, and nothing seems to be out of place. The tone is neutral, although I would pay a bit more attention when you use adjectives such as “boastful.” You are also not featuring one viewpoint over another and have demonstrated a significant amount of research. You are not convincing me of one opinion or another, which is exactly the point of writing for Wikipedia. From here, I would suggest you increase the depth of your research, and when you do have more information, consider re-organizing your “celebrations” section. One thing I would also like to learn more about is the history of this festival. I see that this information is included in the lead section for now. I would consider making it a separate section because I think this content is important enough to stand on its own. You could also even expand your research on the festival’s history so you have better-balanced content throughout the entire page. I would also suggest you look more into the secondary literature. It is equally important to finding current scholarly debates and disagreements on a subject matter. While it is not up to us this time to formulate an opinion, we should strive to include the latest academic opinions, even those that are conflicting, in our Wikipedia pages. I would also add a one-line reference for each of the ancient authors you have cited, and I would certainly hyperlink their names to their respective Wikipedia pages. As Classics students, we may be very familiar with the different biases that each ancient author has, but the general audience may not. I think then it is up to us to point these out. For your lead section, I find it to be quite decent overall. However, after reading your entire updated page, I am under the impression that this festival was more about singing and dancing and transitioning to adulthood. I believe it may be a good idea to emphasize further that this was a public religious festival in the lead section as well. You may perhaps consider rewording the lead section to reflect the main points better. Please see my more detailed section-by-section review in the Word document. IamEmpressDowager (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
Instructor Feedback on Peer Review/Draft 1
Camsara99 good work on your first draft. Your reviewer has provided you with a ton of helpful and constructive feedback, so the first thing you should do is work through their comments carefully and incorporate their suggestions. I agree with all of their observations, from strengthening the lead (which I'm sure was your plan for the second draft), to adding more recent bibliography and citing the ancient sources directly, to recommendations to improving your writing (direct statements, avoid passive voice, etc.). You do a really good job of reorganizing the page into more manageable sections. In addition to your peer's helpful comments, I suggest removing some of the unnecessary info in the etymology section, as well as your reference to the etymology section (always assume Wikipedia readers are skimming, or reading sections in isolation - it's more helpful to repeat this info). You've done a good amount on your page for the first draft, but because there is still so much about this page that can be improved, I worry about your ability to successfully improve three separate pages. I don't want to discourage you if you feel passionate about the other topics, but one phenomenal page is much preferred over three good pages. Something to think about. For your next round, keep adding new scholarship, arguments, primary sources, tease out the evidence and really specify the contemporary circumstances in which our ancient sources are writing. Keep up the hard work! Grade: A+
IamEmpressDowager this is an excellent and extremely thorough peer review! You've clearly spent a lot of time going through each sentence and paragraph, and you provide your peer with helpful suggestions for structure, content, and copyediting. Great work, and thank you for your insightful comments and dedicated attention to your fellow classmate's page! Grade: A+