Talk:Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Project focused on improving this article

Hi page-watchers,

Since last fall, Wiki Education has teamed up with the National Archives and Records Administration to run courses helping independent and professional researchers and archivists to contribute to Wikipedia articles about women's suffrage in the US. This month, seven people who have already been through the introductory course are reconvening for an Advanced course, taking a deeper dive into content development processes. To be specific, we will be working to apply Good Article criteria to this article.

Our process, running for four weeks, will go something like this: (1) evaluation of current content and sources, research, and planning; (2) build out the article, emphasizing breadth of coverage based on reliable sources; (3) adding depth, with increased attention on style, organization, and quality of writing; (4) continue to polish, assess images. In other words, we'll see where things stand, come up with a plan informed by research, write for breadth, then go back to polish.

We will be using two pages in my userspace: a source collection page and a page for coordination and planning. These are in my userspace to avoid overwhelming this talk page, and for ease of short-term collaboration in ways that wouldn't be typical of talk page formatting/content. Input is, of course welcome, and we will be posting notices on WikiProject, etc. talk pages in the third week. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:18, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Tone/wording issues

There are several parts of this article that have certain issues regarding wording or tone:

• "the Nineteenth Amendment did little to improve the lives of...". (This wording is used twice in the article.) This is ambiguous and non-neutral. Perhaps it should say something like "the Nineteenth Amendment did not enfranchise...", assuming that's what it means? (Is that what it means?)
• In the "African-American woman suffrage efforts" section:
  • "...intersecting issues of race, gender, and class...". I don't know how to read this sentence. Is "intersecting" a verb here, with women as the subject? I think this could use some rewording.
  • "While white women sought the vote to gain equality with their husbands and brothers, black women sought the vote as a means of survival as well." Problematic in several ways. Does "their husbands and brothers" mean anything more specific than the clearer "men"/"white men"? What does it mean by "means of survival"?
  • "advocated for their rights at both the local and national levels", "their rights" is ambiguous. Did they advocate for African-American women's suffrage? Or a broader set of rights?
  • "failed African-American women" - seems like editorializing.
• "continued to oppose giving women—especially African-American women—the vote". The "especially" bit confuses me. I would think this might refer to specific proposals among the five votes regarding African-American women's suffrage that were rejected by larger margins, but it looks like all five votes were on the same amendment. The extra text seems out of place.
• "A proposal brought before the House in January 1918 passed with only one vote to spare". I'm unsure of what exactly this means. If it means, that it passed by one vote, it should say as much. "the proposal fell two votes short of passage" could also be rephrased, perhaps ("was rejected by two votes"?).
• "After passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, women still faced political limitations, struggling to serve on juries, run successfully for elective offices, and acquire full equality in the eyes of the law". This could use some rewording for clarity. What does "struggling" mean here? Were women not permitted to serve on juries? Is it talking about continuing political campaigns, or a lack of legal rights?
• "African-Americans continued to be denied their voting rights"... This could use more neutral phrasing.
• (Also, is it appropriate to have a reference to an opinion piece (Ref 32)?)

--Yair rand (talk) 06:53, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the close read @Yair rand:! I've addressed about 75% of these issues; it'll take a bit of time to address the others. Appreciate your quick response! BonnieEllenBurns (talk) 17:40, 6 June 2019 (UTC)BonnieEllenBurns

These issues have been addressed. Thanks! BonnieEllenBurns (talk) 17:19, 7 June 2019 (UTC)