User:Bhousey7785/sandbox

Final Contributions to "Western Culture" Article

my contributions are in bold

Religion (existing section within the article)

Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Western Christian culture, and many of the population of the Western hemisphere could broadly be described as cultural Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity as the link that created a unified European identity. The Encyclopedia of Religion and the Law in America states that, in Europe, the church and state had an incredibly close relationship in order to maintain political and religious dominion over the people of an area.

As in other areas, the Jewish diaspora and Judaism exist in the Western world. Non-European groups, and Jews in particular, have been subjected to intense racism, ethnic and religious hatred, xenophobia, discrimination, and persecution in the West. This has included pogroms, forced conversion, displacement, segregation and ghettos, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and other forms of violence and prejudice. According to the Encyclopedia of Global Religions, Jewish people within Europe and the Middle East have had extensive influences on trade, poetry, philosophy, literature, and customs. Because of their historically harsh treatment and need to frequently migrate, Jewish people acted as transporters of knowledge, bringing common European ideas to the predominantly Muslim Middle East. The Encyclopedia of Global Religions also states that the tolerance and attitudes towards Jews within European states acted as a way of determining the open mindedness of that state. Despite some nations being tolerant towards Jewish populations, historical records show that many Jews wished to be seen as a religious sect and not an ethnically separate population. The Encyclopedia of Judaism specifically states that British Jews sought to do this by being seen first as British citizens and second as followers of Judaism.

Terminology (existing section within the article)

The Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture states that defining a "cultural area" is incredibly subjective and challenging. According to scholars Jenkins and Karnos, culture can be defined as "an orientation for a person’s way of feeling, thinking, and being in the world." According to National Geographic, the inclusion of Greek and Roman art, literature, and history has been a pillar of Western Culture. The West as a geographical area is unclear and undefined. More often a country's ideology is what will be used to categorize it as a Western society. There is some disagreement about what nations should or should not be included in the category and at what times. Many parts of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire are considered Western today but were considered Eastern in the past. However, in the past it was also the Eastern Roman Empire that had many features now seen as "Western," preserving Roman law, which was first codified by Justinian in the east, as well as the traditions of scholarship around Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid that were later introduced to Italy during the Renaissance by Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople. Thus, the culture identified with East and West itself interchanges with time and place (from the ancient world to the modern). Geographically, the "West" of today would include Europe (especially the states that collectively form the European Union) together with extra-European territories belonging to the English-speaking world, the Hispanidad, the Lusosphere; and the Francophonie in the wider context. However, being European is not a guarantee of being categorized as "Western." Despite being a majority Christian nation, having historical and economic ties to Western Europe, and deriving law from "Western" systems, historian and professor Paul du Quenoy maintains that Russia is not truly a "Western" state. He states that Russia's Orthodox Christianity is more closely related to the religions of the East, and the historical despotic rule parallels that of Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture more than Greek and Roman.Since the context is highly biased and context-dependent, there is no agreed definition what the "West" is.

It is difficult to determine which individuals fit into which category and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary.^{[page needed]} Globalism has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all modern cultures are, to some extent, influenced by aspects of Western culture. Stereotyped views of "the West" have been labeled Occidentalism, paralleling Orientalism—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of "the East".

As Europeans discovered the wider world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly been considered the Orient ("the East") became the Near East as the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time in the 19th century.Thus the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the Far East while the troubles surrounding the decline of the Ottoman Empiresimultaneously occurred in the Near East. The term Middle East in the mid-19th century included the territory east of the Ottoman Empire, but West of China—Greater Persia and Greater India—is now used synonymously with "Near East" in most languages.

The Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture maintains that "Western Culture" has used principles based on "freedom" and "democracy" to subjugate other cultures to colonial rule and even destroying some cultures. Eurocentrism, an idea based on the existence of a "Western Culture" is defined by The Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture as "the conviction that Europe is an inevitable and necessary global reference point as it is the cultural, political and economic centre of the world." European powers frequently used religion, specifically Christianity, to justify hostilities towards domestic and foreign groups.

Peer Review Feedback on Draft One

What feedback did you receive on the article talk page from your peer reviewers?

Most of my feedback centered around grammatical mistakes. This is where peer review helps because having a fresh set of eyes read your drafts guarantees that most errors will be caught. My only changes were adding a comma in between two phrases and italicizing the titles of the encyclopedias I referenced in my signal phrases. Other than that, my reviewers said I had a clear and concise language and my additions were helpful to the overall quality of the article.

Based on this feedback, how will you revise the new content you drafted?

I will correct the error that were flagged by my peer reviewers. I am also going to read back through my drafts before making them live to ensure that I have not missed any errors and that nothing could be edited to improve the quality of the drafts.

Draft One of Contributions to Wikipedia article on Western Culture

my contributions are in bold

Religion (existing section within the article)

Western culture, throughout most of its history, has been nearly equivalent to Western Christian culture, and many of the population of the Western hemisphere could broadly be described as cultural Christians. The notion of "Europe" and the "Western World" has been intimately connected with the concept of "Christianity and Christendom"; many even attribute Christianity as the link that created a unified European identity. The Encyclopedia of Religion and the Law in America states that, in Europe, the church and state had a incredibly close relationship in order to maintain political and religious dominion over the people of an area.

As in other areas, the Jewish diaspora and Judaism exist in the Western world. Non-European groups, and Jews in particular, have been subjected to intense racism, ethnic and religious hatred, xenophobia, discrimination, and persecution in the West. This has included pogroms, forced conversion, displacement, segregation and ghettos, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and other forms of violence and prejudice. According to the Encyclopedia of Global Religions, Jewish people within Europe and the Middle East have had extensive influences on trade, poetry, philosophy, literature, and customs. Because of their historically harsh treatment and need to frequently migrate, Jewish people acted as transporters of knowledge, bringing common European ideas to the predominantly Muslim Middle East. The Encyclopedia of Global Religions also states that the tolerance and attitudes towards Jews within European states acted as a way of determining the open mindedness of that state. Despite some nations being tolerant towards Jewish populations, historical records show that many Jews wished to be seen as a religious sect and not an ethnically separate population. The Encyclopedia of Judaism specifically states that British Jews sought to do this by being seen first as British citizens and second as followers of Judaism.

Terminology (existing section within the article)

The Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture states that defining a "cultural area" is incredibly subjective and challenging. According to scholars Jenkins and Karnos, culture can be defined as "an orientation for a person’s way of feeling, thinking, and being in the world." According to National Geographic, the inclusion of Greek and Roman art, literature, and history has been pillar of Western Culture. The West as a geographical area is unclear and undefined. More often a country's ideology is what will be used to categorize it as a Western society. There is some disagreement about what nations should or should not be included in the category and at what times. Many parts of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire are considered Western today but were considered Eastern in the past. However, in the past it was also the Eastern Roman Empire that had many features now seen as "Western," preserving Roman law, which was first codified by Justinian in the east, as well as the traditions of scholarship around Plato, Aristotle, and Euclid that were later introduced to Italy during the Renaissance by Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople. Thus, the culture identified with East and West itself interchanges with time and place (from the ancient world to the modern). Geographically, the "West" of today would include Europe (especially the states that collectively form the European Union) together with extra-European territories belonging to the English-speaking world, the Hispanidad, the Lusosphere; and the Francophonie in the wider context. However, being European is not a guarantee of being categorized as "Western." Despite being a majority Christian nation, having historical and economic ties to Western Europe, and deriving law from "Western" systems, historian and professor Paul du Quenoy maintains that Russia is not truly a "Western" state. He states that Russia's Orthodox Christianity is more closely related to the religions of the East, and the historical despotic rule parallels that of Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture more than Greek and Roman.Since the context is highly biased and context-dependent, there is no agreed definition what the "West" is.

It is difficult to determine which individuals fit into which category and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary.^{[page needed]} Globalism has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all modern cultures are, to some extent, influenced by aspects of Western culture. Stereotyped views of "the West" have been labeled Occidentalism, paralleling Orientalism—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of "the East".

As Europeans discovered the wider world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly been considered the Orient ("the East") became the Near East as the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time in the 19th century.Thus the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the Far East while the troubles surrounding the decline of the Ottoman Empiresimultaneously occurred in the Near East. The term Middle East in the mid-19th century included the territory east of the Ottoman Empire, but West of China—Greater Persia and Greater India—is now used synonymously with "Near East" in most languages.

The Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture maintains that "Western Culture" has used principles based in "freedom" and "democracy" to subjugate other cultures to colonial rule and even destroying some cultures. Eurocentrism, an idea based on the existence of a "Western Culture" is defined by The Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture as "the conviction that Europe is an inevitable and necessary global reference point as it is the cultural, political and economic centre of the world." European powers frequently used religion, specifically Christianity, to justify hostilities towards domestic and foreign groups.

Bibliography of sources for editing Western Culture article

Works Cited

Brinkley, Douglas, Patricia S. Daniels, and Stephen G. Hyslop. "The Classical Tradition." National Geographic Almanac of World History. Washington, DC, USA: National Geographic Society, 2014. Web.

Curling, Deone, Roy Moodley, and Yo Jackson. "Culture." Encyclopedia of Multicultural Psychology.Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications, 2006. Web.

Gregory, Derek, and Derek Gregory. "Occidentalism." The Dictionary of Human Geography. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 2009. Web.

Harrison, Gualtiero, et al. "Eurocentrism." Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity & Culture. London, UK: Sage UK, 2003. Web.

Miller, Stephen. "Britain, Practice of Judaism In." Encyclopaedia of Judaism. Eds. Alan Avery-Peck, William Scott Green, and Jacob Neusner. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005. Web.

Ogilvie Hölzer, Kristen, and Eugene F. Provenzo. "Cultural Literacy." Encyclopedia of the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications, 2009. Web.

Peleg, Samuel, et al. "Judaism." Encyclopedia of Global Religions. Thousand Oaks, CA, USA: Sage Publications, 2011. Web.

"Relationship of Religion & State in the Western World." Encyclopedia of Religion and the Law in America. Ed. Grey House Publishing,. Amenia, NY, USA: Grey House Publishing, 2009. Web.

"Russia as Part of the West: Is Russia Part of the West?" History in Dispute. Ed. Paul du Quenoy. 17 Vol. Detroit, MI: St. James Press, 2004. 222-227. Twentieth-Century European Social and Political Movements: Second Series Gale eBooks; Gale. Web.

Comparison of The Handmaid's Tale and Fun Home

1. 1. The Handmaid’s Tale, in general, suffers from from more unsourced statements and greater errors in structure and organization.
   2. The phrase, “A particular quote from The Handmaid's Tale sums this up: "The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds. Gilead is within you" (HT 5.2). This describes that there is no way around the societal bounds of women in this new state of government.” is not sourced and provides an objective interpretation of the book. Further, this phrase uses the book as a source and should therefore be located in the plot section not the setting section.  
   3. This could be sourced and therefore given credibility with the reference of https://crossref-it.info/textguide/the-handmaids-tale/31/2166 because this article discusses the various societal restricitons on women that are present in the novel.

Fun Home Evaluation

Content

The Fun Home article has relevant and sourced content. The citation list is particularly long for such a short article, indicating proper and reliable research. While it is mentioned in the Lead, the article could contain more information on the background and inspiration for the book. No content gaps seem to be in the article. The Lead does seem to be too lengthy especially on the inclusion of its awards and critical reception.

Tone

The tone is neutral and appropriate. Given the sensitive topics discussed in the book and the article, it is important that the tone is respectful but also informative and clear. There does not seem to be any biases within the article.

Sources

There is an extensive list of sources that indicates the article has had reliable and proper research. One problem with the sources is the age of specific ones. Some have sources that date back to 2007 when the book was published. An update of the sources would help the article avoid any validity coming into question.

Talk

The Talk page centers around the correction of non functioning links. There is also some discussion of the controversies surrounding the book. In all, the talk page is friendly and beneficial to the article.

The Handmaid's Tale Evaluation

Content

Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Yes

Is there anything that distracted you? The structure of the article does not flow and seems disjointed.

Is any information out of date? No

Is anything missing that could be added? No I think it would benefit the article to actually take some things out or at least reorganize them.

Identify content gaps. No content gaps.

What else could be improved? Structure is confusing especially the "setting" sub-heading. The information that follows it does not seem to have anything to do with setting but more along the lines of themes.

Review the lead section. Does it follow Wikipedia’s guidelines to provide basic information and summarizes the entire article? Yes the Lead effectively introduces the topic and gives basic facts.

The article contains most of the proper structure that Wikipedia advises for books, however, it does not contain an analysis section or a background section. I think an analysis may be present in the article but the structure is too jumbled to have a clearly marked analysis section.

Evaluating tone

Is the article neutral? Yes.

Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? The article has a neutral connotation of the book however it is critical to the various subjects of the book. This is no surprise because most would have a negative stance towards the abusive plot lines.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? No all viewpoints are represented. However, this does cause the article to overwhelming and convoluted. Some viewpoints are stated that do not have sources. This allows them to be interpreted as opinions and not valid statements about the book.

Evaluating sources

Check a few citations. Do the links work? Yes

Does the source support the claims in the article? Yes.

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Yes.

Where does the information come from? Mostly literary analyses and critical reviews of the novel.

Are these neutral sources? Yes.

If biased, is that bias noted? For example, does the writer use signal phrases to clearly identify the source of the information? The author properly uses signal phrases.

Could have more sources.

Checking the talk page

Now take a look at how others are talking about this article on the talk page.

What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? Talk page consists of comments that question the validity and inclusion of certain topics.

How is the article rated? C Class of High importance

Is it a part of any WikiProjects? Yes: Novels, Philosophy, and Women Writers.

How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? I think Wikipedia has an appropriate grasp on the topic and properly categorizes it into projects that deal with the novel. However, I think they could put it under some sort of project classification that deals with exploitation and dystopian theory.

Supplementary Information

Points from Rule that could be added in the background and expounded upon "Atwood's dedication of The Handmaid's Tale to Miller suggests the novel contributes to, and even intervenes in, the field of Ameri- can studies that he helped found by conducting a study of power on and through a distinctly American landscape. Atwood describes The Handmaid's Tale as a "throwback" to Miller (Handmaid's 318), and she draws upon Miller's scholarship on early American society to form a backdrop for her own illumination of the imperialism that has haunted the US from its inception."

Points that could be added in reception from Merriam and expounded upon: "Atwood attempts to offer an archetypal account of female exploitation, but the stand-in for this universal experience is Offred, a White, college-educated American. Offred would seem an unlikely victim, but at no point in the text does Atwood acknowledge that sexism in America has, generally, been modulated by forms of race and class oppression, nor does she acknowledge the parallels between her own story and the experience of Black slavery. Because these historically-specific oppressions are removed from their broader context, the Tale drifts from speculative fiction, which is anchored in reality, into conceptually suspect and politically hazardous fantasy."

"Cultural Genocide" Evaluation

Content

Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Yes

Is there anything that distracted you? No

Is any information out of date? No

Is anything missing that could be added? The article includes examples of cultural genocide but I think it would be helpful if it could point out ways in which it is carried out

Identify content gaps. No content gaps.

What else could be improved? Nothing drastic, maybe organization.

Review the lead section. Does it follow Wikipedia’s guidelines to provide basic information and summarizes the entire article? Yes the Lead effectively introduces the topic and gives basic facts.

Evaluating tone

Is the article neutral? Yes. The topic is a morbid one and it would be

Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? The article has a negative connotation of cultural genocide however I do not think anyone will contest this.

Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? The topic is a morbid one and it would be hard to find anyone that supports Cultural Genocide, thus the needed viewpoints are represented.

Evaluating sources

Check a few citations. Do the links work? Most do however one said I was not allowed to view that page. (http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/madrid1933-english.htm)

Does the source support the claims in the article? Yes.

Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Yes.

Where does the information come from? Mostly international ethics websites and authors who focus on ethnology.

Are these neutral sources? Yes.

If biased, is that bias noted? For example, does the writer use signal phrases to clearly identify the source of the information? The author properly uses signal phrases.

Checking the talk page

Now take a look at how others are talking about this article on the talk page.

What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic? Most comments are centered around proper ways to provide information within the Wikipedia guidelines.

How is the article rated? Start Class of Mid importance

Is it a part of any WikiProjects? Yes: Sociology, Human Rights, Discrimination, Endangered Languages, and Indigenous People of North America.

How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class? I think Wikipedia has an appropriate grasp on the topic and properly categorizes it into projects that deal with the oppression and marginalization of cultures and people groups. However, I think they could put it under some sort of project classification that deals with colonization and exploitation.