Ramanit
Welcome!
editHello, Ramanit, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.
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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:38, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
Ramanit Peer Review
editHello, I'd like to say your draft seems balanced with new information that can support your cause. However, I would like to suggest that when you submit your final draft, shy away from informal ways of writing. Make sure to have a neutral view point without trying to persuade the reader one way or another. Also, I'm sure you understand that police brutality is a touchy subject among the colored community so choose your words very wisely to ensure your addition is concise without offending the audience. Good job, keep it up!ElgeStevens (talk) 01:48, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
Peer Review
editHi,Ramanit. Your topic is a great choice, yet it is very controversial. Make sure that you are staying neutral when writing by staying away from words such as I and we so that you can deliver an unbiased contribution. I would suggest that since this topic is so controversial and a mainstream you should make sure that all of your sources are 100% unbiased and factual. Try to bring more numbers and percentages into the article since it lacks such. Finally, try to speak on the legalities as stated in the introduction. Best of luck in the remainder of your contribution! Vonney25 (talk) 06:57, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
Moved notes page
editHi! I moved the notes on your userpage to User:Ramanit/class notes since it made it a bit difficult for people to tell that you were a student. Please do not move this content live, as notes and content like that isn't considered to be appropriate for live material. Your educator(s) and fellow students will still be able to access content in your userspace, so no worries about them not seeing this.
I also really want to second your classmates' concern that this is an EXTREMELY touchy and controversial topic on Wikipedia. It's so much so that I would actually like to request that you show me the content you want to add to the article before it's posted. I do have some feedback about the things you want to add, which I'll go over individually:
- How is Donald Trump affecting the changes? Donald Trump spoke in front of NYPD and said "get them". Having a "leader" who is agreeing upon acts such as police brutality will only make citizens feels as if it is appropriate to act in such way. If the president will allow such to be done with minimum to no consequences then people will really think it is okay.
- I would not add information about this to the article unless you have a lot of very, very good sources that cover him in relation to police brutality. I'm concerned that this would end up being a bit of an anti-Trump soapbox, which would lead to the content getting very quickly removed from the article. It also feels like something that would be considered original research and opinion driven at this point in time, as I don't know that there are that many good, reliable sources that link him with police brutality. This is the sort of thing that really needs to be sourced with the best possible sourcing such as academic texts and journal articles, which I don't think is really out there just yet. Be careful of news media on this topic as this could be considered to be opinion journalism at this point as well. I can't stress how careful you have to be with this specific addition, as Trump content is pretty much immediately controversial - especially in this scenario.
- What should be done in efforts to decrease incidents? Accountability amongst both parties will be helpful to ensure incidents decrease eventually over time.
- Be careful with how you write something like this, as this question is phrased in an original research fashion. You really need to be very careful about what sourcing you use, how this is written, and what is included here.
- How should police be trained? Police should have to go through more mental training than physical. It does not take much to get through the police academy. If you become a police this allows you to be in the streets at all times with a gun and other fire arms.
- The same applies here - it should be extremely carefully written, sourced, and content should be chosen with care to avoid original research and to avoid it being considered an opinion piece or original research. This is something that may be seen as a bit off-topic to the article since this is so specific. Normally with an article that's about a broader topic, specific content like this tends to be covered in only a sentence or two and then gone into more detail in the main article. I would suggest that any information about training be included in the section on efforts to decrease incidents and even then, only be 1-2 sentences.
- How should police be punished? The policeman are not superior to citizens, therefore if a crime was committed jail time should be served based on the offense.
- What will there consequences be? Police should be punished based off of the situation, just as regular citizens do through the criminal justice system.
- I am lumping these two together since they're sort of the same thing. This is already pretty much in the article under "Legal and institutional controls" and there's not a whole lot that could be expanded here, so I'd recommend not really focusing on this area. The only thing that I'd say could be added is information about what types of sentences the officers typically get and for how long, if there's any general information about this.
- What are some recent cases that can be referred to? Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland. Trayvon was a teenager walking in the neighborhood, who was killed by a police officer. While Sandra was killed in a jail cell. She got pulled over due to not putting on her signal and died in police custody.
- There's already an article about people who were killed by law enforcement and this is linked to in the see also section. I would actually like to request that you not add any cases to the article because this can be seen as original research. For example, someone could argue that Bland's death wasn't necessarily a case of police brutality per se since she wasn't beaten up or tased. Also, Trayvon Martin would not be seen as a case of police brutality by many because he was killed by a civilian, not a police officer - George Zimmerman wanted to be a police office, but never managed to actually make it through training. (And thank goodness he didn't - he'd be a terrible cop.) There are already some cases such as Michael Brown mentioned in the article, so there are already some in there.
- What can citizens to to be proactive about getting in predicaments? Listen to what the police officer has to say, and be respectful and compliant. Many police say they acted the way they did because they felt as if their life was in danger. If the citizens also take accountability for their actions, everyone will be easily held responsible.
- This is something that wouldn't belong in the article because it would be seen as a "how not to get arrested or brutalized" guide. Plus there's also a very strong argument to be made about how some police will brutalize people regardless of what they do. Information about how to be proactive just wouldn't really fit in here, to be honest. It's the type of thing that could be controversial on its own, especially as what would be seen as helpful would be fairly subjective to the person and scenario.
- What prompted all of this to begin? When Barack Obama became president in 2008, is when I believe the negative change begin to happen in America. Never will I blame Obama, but only will I be grateful for him running for office and successfully winning. I am certain that him winning the election only intimidated citizens who have always believed themselves to be superior.
- Police brutality has actually been present in the United States for longer than that, unfortunately. You can see cases of police brutality dating all the way back to the beginning of the country. The Civil Rights Movement is full of cases of police brutality, for example, and that began before he was even born. Plus saying that it started with him would be seen as original research on here.
- How will generations to come be affected or different than now? America has to make the changes where they see fit. The power is in the people and nothing happens by mistake.
- Why should we care? As American citizens we should care about things that affect us and our everyday lives, and the way we live.
- I'm lumping these together as well. This is something that would be seen as more of an opinion and persuasive essay than a Wikipedia article. It's hard to predict what will happen in the future, especially with topics as dynamic and volatile as this one. I would recommend not going into how this will affect the future other than perhaps a mention of things that are happening in the immediate future, like if a state is in the process of passing a law or a group is trying to get a law passed.
I hope this helps! Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:33, 29 November 2017 (UTC)