User:Jem8953/sandbox

Article evaluation:

In the article I read about Irish Language, most of the information seemed relevant. However, a few things were distracting. Certain parts were very bland and the summary was very long and repeated the information in the rest of the article. It was predominantly neutral in exploring the language as a whole, they portray both sides of symbolic irish language versus practical use. It does not remain neutral when emphasizing the church's role in the decline of the language. The rhetoric feels very pushy. It also feels judgemental about the government's irish language policy. They did not show both sides of the church's role or the governments.

It is a very lengthy article and tends to repeat certain topics a lot when there is no need to. The census data was very up to date, citing data from last year. The citations work and support the article, but there is a little debate in the Talks section as to whether or not the duelingo app is credible enough to be mentioned in the article. One source was also questioned in the Talks page about having 2 conflicting facts from the same article, which was later fixed. Some commenters in the Talks section agreed about the repetition of information throughout the article.

Possible contributions to article:

Why does learning english instead of irish have a particular economic value for women?

Add opposite viewpoints to make it more neutral.

Sources:

Tinsley, Teresa, and Kathryn Board, comps. Languages for the Future. Rep. N.p.: British Council, n.d. Print.

McCormick, Christopher. "Countries with Better English Have Better Economies." Harvard Business Review. N.p., 07 Aug. 2014. Web. 11 July 2017. <https://hbr.org/2013/11/countries-with-better-english-have-better-economies>.

Alvarez, Jose Aldemar, V. Critical Views on Teaching and Learning English around the Globe: Qualitative Research Approaches. Charlotte: Information Age, 2016. Print.

Improving an existing article:

What's missing from the current article:

• A neutral point of view
• Certain facts that could help elaborate on the transition from irish to english
• The church’s point of view on why irish was discourages
• The government's point of view and hopes for the irish language policy
• The government's actual policy and how it was implemented
• Any updated census or relevant data to make the article more accurate
• Elaborate on the phonology, syntax, and morphology sections using relevant things from the textbook and from class
• Update current geographical data about irish language and speakers

Article draft/edits

Summary Edits:

Irish (Gaeilge), also referred to as Gaelic or Irish Gaelic,^{[not in citation given]} is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is spoken as a first language by a small minority of Irish people, and as a second language by a larger group of non-native speakers. Irish enjoys constitutional status as the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland, and is an officially recognized minority language in Northern Ireland. It is also among the official languages of the European Union. The public body Foras na Gaeilge is responsible for the promotion of the language throughout the island of Ireland. Irish was the predominant language of the Irish people for most of their recorded history, and they brought it with them to other regions, notably Scotland and the Isle of Man, where Middle Irish gave rise to Scottish Gaelic and Manx respectively. It has the oldest vernacular literature in Western Europe.

*** I think a small explanation of the Irish language as a whole and where it originates from is the best way to have the lead.

Peer Review Comments

Hi Jem8953, I'll be doing your peer review! Here are some comments:

Your evaluation of the article's faults I think is spot-on, the biggest problems are repetition and periodic lapses in neutrality of tone. Right off the bat the overview section is too long. I think that the first two paragraphs are good for an overview, then perhaps the fourth paragraph providing census information as well. I would suggest deleting the third paragraph altogether, as it offers less general information that is already covered extensively in the history section. Having a paragraph like that in the overview also sets up a somewhat biased tone for the article right from the start; this socio-politico-historical information about the suppression and decline of the language is certainly important, but it should be treated in its own section and not in the overview. The last three paragraphs of the overview should also probably be deleted or moved, they are awkwardly placed and somewhat biased in tone, as well as lacking in important content and proper citation.

Citation is mostly good throughout the article, although at least the 'European Parliament' and 'Outside Ireland' sections contain some points that should be cited. There are also a few instances of sentences beginning with "It has been argued that...," or "Some claim that..." without any citation. These sorts of general remarks are very sketchy and tend to compromise the authority of the fact stated as well as the neutrality of the article's voice.

Without a larger discussion of the relationship between the Irish language and the Catholic church the large block quote from Tom Garvin seems out of place and somewhat misleading. If this topic had its own section presenting opposing positions the quote would be very reasonable; as it stands, however, including the block quote overrepresents one side of a debate without even voicing the other side. I think your ideas about representing more truthfully both the church's and the government's attitude towards the Irish language are exactly what is needed in this section.

The article is quite long and repeats itself a great deal, but it seems like both you and other Wikipedia members have recognized this. The morphology, phonology, and syntax sections are short, but each contain links to longer articles, so I think their length is appropriate for an overview article.

I think you're on the right track and have a lot of good ideas for improving the article!

Best of luck with the edits!

Jack

Fantinij (talk) 02:14, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Jem8953,

I also noticed the repetition of information in the article. I found it very distracting and it interrupted the flow of the article. I do believe the information is relevant but needs to be included as such. For example, in the “Current Status: Republic of Ireland” section of [[Irish Language]] the author included the following: “In 1938, the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), Douglas Hyde, was inaugurated as the first President of Ireland. The record of his delivering his inaugural Declaration of Office in Roscommon Irish remains almost the only surviving remnant of anyone speaking in that dialect.” Roscommon is not discussed until later in the article in the “Dialects” section. Perhaps this would be a better place to inform the reader that Hyde’s inauguration speech is possibly the last record of Roscommon in use. As you said in your article evaluation, most of the information is in fact relevant. I think some facts may just need to be reorganized to convey this relevance.

Like any article, this article has a few grammatical errors throughout that cause distraction to the reader but these are easy fixes. A harder fix might be the scattered moments of bias in the article. I agree with you that the discussion surrounding the Church’s impact on the Irish Language seems very biased against the Church. It seems to me that much of that paragraph is uncited and opinionated sentences. The “evidence” given to support these ideas, I don’t believe, is a neutral source. And the article does not specify who Tom Garvin is or what authority he has to make such claims. This might could be a place where new sources could be found to bring new sets of information (both in and not in favor of the Church) to improve the article. The viewpoint that the Catholic Church helped cause the decline of the Irish Language is greatly overrepresented in the article. Language such as, “Assessing the 

overlooked role of the Catholic church in the decline of Irish” does not sound encyclopedic. 

In terms of citations, I tested Citations 1, 21, 42, 53, 74, 95 to see if the links worked and if the information corresponded with that cited in the article:

Citation 1-Link works, the figures cited in the article can be found in the article. Personally, I cannot seem to find the locations that are given in the article in the cited source but I think it can be understood that the “census” that is referred to in the source is the Irish census.

Citation 21-Link works, source is not in English so I cannot verify that the information corresponds to that in the article.

Citation 42-Link works but once on the website I cannot download the full source that is cited in the article. Cannot verify that the information in the source is that used in the article.

Citation 53-Link works and the article correctly uses information from the source.

Citation 74-This citation does not have a link but rather gives page numbers to a book/ article/journal.

Citation 95-Link works and the information in the source corresponds with the information and reference given in the article.

As mentioned above, the Tom Garvin quote seems biased and this bias is not noted. Most of the other sources are reliable sources. Sources include censuses, books, journal articles, and seemingly neutral news sites.There are also many citations without links, however, and it is hard to tell what kind of sources these truly are. The sources you included in your biography sound interesting and I’m sure they have beneficial information for the article. The data given in the Harvard Business Review article is extremely relevant for a discussion about the significance and impact of languages.

Like you, I also thought the information given in the article was up to date. The most current and available census information is used and many of the other sources are from 2000 or later. I think there are places in the article that could be further developed, as always, but I especially liked your idea about WHY learning English was more useful for women. This topic might be hard to include without falling into a “research” essay but is relevant. Currently, the article merely touches on the idea. Exploring why Irish proved to be less usable than English for women might open some interesting doors as to why the language became unpopular amongst more and more people. At the same time you could also explore the benefits to supporting the language modern day. With the work that seems to be happening to revive the language you might even find some information to expand the “Use” and “Phonology” sections which are underdeveloped compared to the rest of the article. 

I look forward to seeing the final product!

Ashley PaceAshleyhpace (talk) 21:35, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Ashley and Jack,

Thank you for your detailed and helpful peer reviews. I am currently looking at condensing the summary portion into 2-3 paragraphs of relevant information. I definitly agree with Jack that the first two paragraphs and the 4th have the most useful information too keep. As you said Ashley, it is hard to remove the biased tone but I am trying to remove some of the un-cited claims or find sources that can support them. I am also trying to add in information that would balance out the biased portions of the article. Thank you for your help so far, I encourage any further suggestions!