User talk:Jill Gu/sandbox
- Some links might be useful:
- Everyone here spoke sign language : hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard
- The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199759293.001.0001/acprof-9780199759293-chapter-006 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jill Gu (talk • contribs) 04:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Molly's peer review
[edit]Overall, this is great! I can tell you put a lot of thought into your writing and covering the different aspects of deafness and its affect on life on the island. I've made a few suggestions below for you to review as you are editing your work!
- The term "inbreeding" can carry pejorative or dehumanizing connotations when applied to people. I would suggest a change from "attributed to local inbreeding" to something like "owing to the island's small population and resultant lack of genetic diversity." The best word I found was actually "consanguinous marriage" but that didn't seem appropriate to Wikipedia's writing style.
- "The Deafness on the island affected both females and males in an approximately same way." This could be clearer. Do you mean they were affected in similar numbers/proportionately? It also feels medical to talk about Deafness "affecting" somebody (seems close to "afflict", although that could be my own bias.
- "Mixed marriages between deaf and hearing spouses comprised 65% of all deaf marriages on the island in the late 19th century, higher than the mainland average of 20%." This was difficult for me to parse at first glance because of the dangling participle. Could be solved with something like "a higher rate than...". If you wanted, the sentence could also be simplified to something like "65% of deaf Vineyarders married hearing spouses, as compared to the rate of 20% deaf-hearing marriage on the mainland.", to make it more accessible to a wider range of reading levels.
- "The sign language used by Vineyarders is called Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL), it is different from American Sign Language (ASL)." is a comma splice. A few possible solutions: change the comma to a period, change the comma to a semicolon, or revise to something like "The island's native sign language, Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL), is distinct from American Sign Language."
- "However, they must have had a huge influence on the development of each other." This seems too vague for Wikipedia, especially "must have had", which implies assumption rather than research. "They" is also technically an unclear referent. I might suggest something along the lines of "However, owing to the two language's geographical proximity, it is unlikely MVSL developed in complete isolation from ASL." or whatever it is that that source can actually support.
- "And MVSL was commonly used by hearing residents as well as deaf ones until the middle of the 20th century.[6] This allowed deaf residents to integrate into society smoothly." The first "And" can be easily removed without affecting meaning to create a more formal register. I would also suggest a move from the passive to active voice in the first sentence for clarity and ease of reading. The second sentence here also seems to inadvertently take a more distant, medicalized perspective of Deafness and sort of credits hearing residents with Deaf residents' integration (and again I'll reiterate my own possible bias with seeing that), but maybe it could be more neutral with "The availability of a common language meant that there was little distinction between deaf and hearing islanders." or something of that sort.
- Your second paragraph might also, if you wanted, be rearranged to what I think would be a more logical order. Starting with the existence of MVSL, then that it was shared between Deaf and hearing, then all of what you have about integration and Deaf people fully participating in island life, then that the language is distinct from ASL (or possibly move that around elsewhere in the paragraph, that seems to be the most flexible bit).
- "However, jobs in tourism were not as deaf-friendly as fishing and farming had been. Consequently, as intermarriage and further migration joined the people of Martha's Vineyard to the mainland, the island community more and more resembled the wider community there." I don't fully follow the link between the inaccessibility of tourism jobs and an increase in migration and Vineyarder-mainlander intermarriage, although I can guess. This could be made more explicit, maybe by indicating that deaf Vineyarders left in search of work, or whatever it is the research backs up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ms3630 (talk • contribs) 20:50, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Peer Review
[edit]"The sign language used by Vineyarders is called Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL), it is different from American Sign Language (ASL)." Grammar issue; you have a couple options: either replace the comma with a semicolon, or change the word "it" to "which" or "and" or similar.
"However, they must have had a huge influence on the development of each other." The wording of this sentence makes it seem like you're speculating, which is not good form in a wiki article. If this is known to be true, just remove "they must have". If this is something researchers supposed/speculated, say "researchers believe they likely had...", or something to that effect.
"And MVSL was commonly used by hearing residents as well as deaf ones until the middle of the 20th century." Grammar: remove "And" opening the sentence.
Great topic, and great additions! Laineyh (talk) 01:26, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Elena Toppo's Peer Review
[edit]I edited the article already in wikipedia instead of on your sandbox. This looks great, it is clear you have put a large amount of work into making the statistics clear.
A few edits to keep in mind:
"The island's deaf heritage cannot be traced to one common ancestor..." you might want to create a clear distinction between "D" Deaf and "d" deaf. I would would suggest evaluating whether this sentence is pertaining to the larger community that celebrates Deaf culture or the medical viewpoint.
"The sign language used by Vineyarders is called Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL), it is different from American Sign Language "(ASL). However, they must have had a huge influence on the development of each other. [5]." I would suggest expanding on how Martha's Vineyard was developed within the region and a little more detail in how it differs from sign language.
"Consequently, as intermarriage and further migration joined the people of Martha's Vineyard to the mainland, the island community more and more resembled the wider community there.[7]" It is hard to differentiate what you mean by the "wider community there" I suggest saying something along the lines of "As Deaf and Hearing people started to intermarry and Martha's Vineyard became influenced by tourism from the main, the blend of culture started to resemble that of the mainland" or something along those lines.
Peer Review
[edit]Suggestions for Hereditary Deafness and Sign Language section:
-percentage comparisons are illustrative and effective! :)
-For alignment and to create an affirmative statement, consider rewording the related sentence in the article to read: ...cannot be traced to one common ancestor; however, documentation indicates that the first deaf immigrants to inhabit Martha's Vineyard originally lived in the Weald...
-'smoothly' suggests an opinion, consider ...this allowed deaf and hearing residents the opportunity to communicate and to interact with each other using a common language
-for greater clarity consider ...as intermarriage and further migration joined the people of Martha's Vineyard to the mainland, the island community itself began to more closely resemble the demographics of the mainland...
-Perhaps follow that sentence up with: ...and soon the population of deaf people living on the Vineyard decreased significantly...
Note: I am repeating this here as I originally posted it on the talk page of the Martha's Vineyard article Jullian Drews (talk) 17:22, 19 April 2018 (UTC)