User talk:Claremaier/sandbox

Hi Clare,

I read through the draft for your article and have some feedback. At first I thought that some of your draft sections were parts from the real article (until I went and saw how empty the current article is).

I think your introduction section was very direct and served as a good general summary for the anthem. Maybe you can add just a line to summarize the colonial influence (that you talk about in later sections) so that the introduction includes a summary of all the contents of the rest of the article.

Though, at times while reading it felt too argumentative or opinionated for a wikipedia article:

"It is therefore no surprise that educated statesmen and figures such as Pastor Rahajason were influenced by French and more broadly European ideas about what makes a good national anthem."- From "Pasteur" (Pastor) Rahajason

I think this part comes off as if you are arguing for a position, rather than providing factual information on the subject. A wikipedia article should be direct and allow the reader to come to their own conclusions. Maybe if this is directly from a source you could cite that writer and add something like "Scholars have noted the European influence on Pastor Rahajason and the national anthem of Madagascar."

The section on Norbert Rabeharisoa ends with a claim that isn't cited and which you write "it is highly likely that he..." This seems out of place on a wikipedia article and again seems like you are being argumentative rather than trying to provide neutral information (it is also uncited). Sort of comes off as guesswork.

I like the "March (format)" and "History of Adoption" sections, but some of their content seems irrelevant to the specifics of this particular article. I mean mainly the parts where you discuss the theory behind national anthems in general (from Cusack). It would seem more relevant on a page for national anthems in general or national anthems and colonial history. Maybe tighten up this section by discussing the anthem of Madagascar more specifically (and just use the general work to supplement the information relevant to Madagascar).

Same thing with the "Brief History of Madagascar" section. It is written well, but some of it seems a bit out of place on a page about the national anthem (rather than the entire country). Maybe you should add a bit more about the history of the anthem itself (though you talk about that a lot in the other sections). I think the last paragraph of this section is more in line with this anthem page ("Although the independence movement in Madagascar can be traced back to the nationalist attacks....").

Other than that, you've added a lot to fill the currently empty page and provided many academic sources. I hope some of this feedback is helpful.

Austin. AustinEmho (talk) 01:33, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Austin,

Thanks for your review of my article. You made some good points and I agree with your discussion of how I sometimes wrote more argumentatively. I made the changes you suggested in order to make it sound more objective and re-focused the background sections (Cusack mostly) more strongly on the anthem itself, using the theory as a starting point. I also added a couple sentences to the introduction to give it more context regarding the second half of the article. Thanks again for your feedback. Claremaier (talk) 02:09, 28 November 2017 (UTC)