User talk:Acadiagirl21/sandbox

Great work adding a citation, Acadiagirl21! As you work towards drafting your contribution, make sure to write your sentences as straightforward as possible (i.e. say exactly what you want to say, as simply as possible). Look at your sentence and see if there is a clearer way to state your point. Think about the pages you read on Wikipedia and the language used - clear, concise, and to the point. Keep up the good work! Gardneca (talk) 18:21, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Hey! Below is my peer review, I'll write my comments in italics since your's is written in bold and the original in normal text:

Marriage

Spartan women seem to have married relatively late in comparison to their counterparts elsewhere in Greece. Spartan women normally married around the ages of eighteen and twenty-years old to Spartan men closely related in age. Spartan men under thirty were not permitted to live with their families, being expected to live communally with other members of their syssitia, and were expected to visit their wives only in secret, at night. Due to the husband's absence, women were expected to run the household largely alone. Unlike in Athens, where state ideology held that men were in charge of the household, Sue Blundell argues that in Sparta it is likely that women's control of the domestic sphere was accepted by the state, and possibly even encouraged.

According to Spartan ideology, the primary role of adult women were to bear and raise healthy children. This focus on childbearing was likely responsible for the emphasis on physical fitness in Spartan women, as it was believed that stronger women would have healthier children. Therefore, this Spartan ideology led to women in Ancient Sparta to have this regime to become more physically fit to bear these strong and healthy offspring. However, before marriage existed a trial period to validate whether the potential couple could have children in the first place. In the event a couple was unsuccessful in creating descendants the options of divorce and remarriage were a customary solution. For Sparta, all activity including marriage was direct with the single purpose of improving their military. Spartan marriages according to James Redfield could also be an arranged marriage based on one's wealth and status. For example, Spartan women that were wealthy and owned land could marry a Spartan man that was high ranking in the military status and wealthy.

Maybe reconsider the word choice when you say this regime and explain what they did to become physically stronger. The wording confuses me slightly because I feel as if I should already know what the regime is. For the last sentence of the paragraph, you discuss James Redfield's view of marriage. I suggest adding a direct quote from him, otherwise, the sentence carries a sense of bias. Another possibility could be to reword the sentence to remove any personal opinion and keep it purely fact.

The evidence for the role of kyrioi (male guardians) in arranging Spartan women's marriages is not decisive, though Cartledge believes that like their Athenian (and unlike their Gortynian) counterparts, it was the responsibility of the kyrios to arrange a Spartan woman's marriage. On the night of the wedding, On the night of the wedding, the bride would have her hair cut short and be dressed in a man's cloak and sandals. The bride appeared dressed like a man or a young boy to be perceived as less threatening to their husband to ease them into the transition of having this sexual relationship with a woman instead of an older man, before being left alone in a darkened room, where they would be visited and ritually captured by their new husband.

The sentence is a little unclear to who is eased into the transition, maybe explain the sexual relationship between boys and their older guardians.

The idea of this consummation arrangement after marriage was to keep the husband and wife separate from each other for only a certain amount of time to keep this desire alive within them to create strong Spartan children. Only when the Spartan women produced an offspring were the husband and wife were able to see each other during the day. Once Spartan women provided healthy offspring they were the main caretakers of the child, while their husbands lived their life in the military with their fellow men.

The wording is confusing at the beginning of the sentence, taking out the word "this" may solve the syntax issue. Also, consider changing the word "were" to "became" after "offspring they..." to make the sentence flow clearer.

There is some evidence in ancient sources that the Spartans practiced polyandry. Herodotus says that the bigamy of Anaxandridas II, who married a second wife because his first had not been able to produce an heir, was un-Spartan, but Polybius wrote that it was common at his time, and a time-honoured practice. Plural marriage commenced between the early 4th century BCE and the late 5th century BCE. This plural marriage in Ancient Sparta was one of the solutions to the crisis of the decreasing population.

I really liked this addition, and you could definitely expand upon the crisis of the decreasing population to give the reader some more context!

Along with plural marriage, older men seem to have allowed younger, more fit men, to impregnate their wives since the older men may no longer be able to produce offspring and will need future Spartan heirs to carry on their family heritage. Other unmarried or childless men might even request another man’s wife to bear his children if she had previously been a strong child bearer. Furthermore, Spartan wives can also be given to another man to bear children when their first husband has produced enough offspring. This idea of plural marriages fits with this Spartan social system of equality among the Spartan men to have multiple wives to share with for the good of their society in order to produce many healthy children. Polyandry marriage allowed for Spartan men and women to have the best possible chance of producing the healthiest offspring.

Above you have "plural marriage" and you're consistent with this singularity of the word marriage, until the second last line where you make marriage plural. I would suggest changing the last one to maintain consistency. I suggest removing the word "also" from the third line as well, with your use of furthermore to begin the sentence, it seems as if the same thing is being added in addition twice.

Education

Spartan boys were educated in the agoge from the age of seven, at least for some periods of Spartan history, and it seems that whenever the state arranged for the education of boys, it also institutionalised the education of girls. Unlike their male counterparts, however, Spartan girls would have been raised at home with their mothers while they were being educated. There is evidence for some form of official educational programme for girls as early as the archaic period, and this system seems to have been discontinued in the Hellenistic period. The extent to which education for girls was restored under the reforms of Cleomenes III is unclear, but it may have become voluntary rather than compulsory. State-supervised education for girls was once again restored in the Roman period, the agoge, which was again abolished in 188 BC.

The education of Spartan women is not easily found information because there are more sources about Spartan boys education than girls. However, sources have found some forms of education of Spartan women through certain activities such as dancing, music, singing, and poetry. However, there has been information about education for Spartan girls through certain activities known as mousike that was composed of dancing, music, singing, and poetry.  The mousike was viewed by Sparta as a religious activity for Helen and Artemis. Another form of education for Spartan girls was dancing which was beneficial to one’s physical activity such as the Bibasis. The Bibasis was a Laconian dance that awarded prizes to young men and women with the greatest number of buttock kicks and leaps. Spartan girls also were educated by being raised in the household environment with their mothers.

This is a strong addition to the page, I only suggest looking at some of your syntaxes. When spoken out loud some of the sentences sound over-complicated, a suggestion for the first line is: "Information about the education of Spartan women is hard to find as there are more surviving sources about the education of Spartan boys." Overall I liked how you go onto explain the different activities that women participated in, in detail.

Choral dancing was another activity that was related to educating Spartan girls. These choral dances consisted of dancing and singing, and competition between Spartan girls. This choral dance competition consisted of each Spartan girl being grouped based on their age and bonds of friendship. At the top of the Choral dance groups there was an older girl (chorēgos) that would be leading the group of younger ones. The groups of Spartan girls were also trained by a professional poet. Additionally, choral dances were considered a representation of the transition of young Spartan girls into Spartan wives by the dancing, singing and poetry through the various public events. Furthermore, choral dancing instilled values, important gender roles and responsibilities in young Spartan girls. These forms of education in Spartan girls also allowed socialization with men and preparation of young Spartan girls into Spartan wives.

I like this addition to the page, would definitely be interested in learning more about which values the dances instilled and which gender roles they taught the girls.

Literacy in Sparta, was a skill limited to the elite. However, there was evidence from the Classical period that some women could read. For instance, anecdotes about Sparta are preserved which feature mothers writing letters to their sons who were away. Spartan women also seemed to have learned to play musical instruments, as shown in surviving statuettes.

I suggest looking at your tense in the paper, in the sentences above you say "there was evidence", it was unclear to me whether this was meant to be past tense. If the evidence was destroy/ no longer exists maybe consider mentioning that, but if it does exist then consider changing "were" to "is".

Athletics

Athletics was also a form of education, but was viewed as an important sport in Spartan society for men and women to produce healthy offspring. Sparta was known for allowing women to become more physically active to produce strong and vigorous children. The types of athletics that Spartan females participated in were similar to male athletics involving running and strength.

This is a good lead-in sentence to the section!

There a limited amounts of information about athletics for Spartan women compared to Spartan men. However, there are information of Spartan women to become physically active to produce strong and vigorous children. The types of athletics that Spartan females participated in because of Lycurgus were like male athletics involving running and strength. More specifically, the Spartan exercise regimen for girls was designed to make them "every bit as fit as their brothers", though unlike their brothers they did not actually train for combat. Girls learned to ride, and votive offerings have been discovered depicting Spartan women on horseback.

Slight grammar mishap in the opening line, you "a" where there should be a "is" or "are". Also maybe consider adding the word "known" after information, just to clarify the sentence. The second line as the same sort of mishap, a suggestion is: "However, there is proof of Spartan women becoming physically active..."

Other exercise for Spartan women included running, wrestling, throwing the discus and javelin, and "trials of strength". It is possible that Spartan girls exercised naked, and Archaic Spartan art certainly portrays naked girls, unlike the art of other areas of Greece. Girls might have competed in gymnopaedia, the Spartan festival of naked youths. They also competed in running races for various festivals, of which the most prestigious was the Heraean Games.Spartan women did not have to train their bodies to be actively fit once they became married. The clothing of Spartan women for athletics consisted of short tunics (chitōniskoi) and bare shoulders and arms. Basically there was very little clothing that Spartan girls wore. Spartan women did not have to train their bodies to be actively fit once they became married. Even though married Spartan women were not allowed to participate in athletics once married, they could still take part in one event which was horse racing.  

My only suggestion for this part is to change the word "basically", as it doesn't really fit the tone of the page.

I really enjoyed your additions to the page, I think you add some insightful details such as the women's education with dance, and the concept of plural marriage. One thing that may help your paper, even more, is to go through and find important words so you can link them to their own Wikipedia pages! That way the reader can learn more about the topics you're introducing. You definitely fill in some major holes in the page and you are unbias on what you're presenting to the reader. You also have some great lead in and closing lines that help sum up the sections.

References:

You tend to draw from the same few sources, but considering the diversity of the sources already added with the original page, I think it becomes a nice balance. However, many of your paragraphs end without a citation, making it a little confusing which source it came from. In addition to this, the very last paragraph of the Athletics section, you have two citations right next to each other, this makes it very confusing to find out which information came from which sources. I wasn't sure if this once just an accident, and that when you added your own sentence you pushed back a citation without realizing. This does happen above in the page too ( it was in normal text so it must be leftover from someone else's editing) BeckAnn B (talk) 02:44, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

Instructor Feedback

Thank you for your review, BeckAnn B, it is comprehensive, considerate, and thorough. Absolutely fantastic job, well done!

Acadiagirl21 You've been given one of the best peer reviews, with excellent suggestions regarding sentence-structure, presentation, references, and content. You added a lot of content to your page, giving your peer reviewer a lot to work with, so good work; this is a model for how this assignment should be done. Going forward, please incorporate all the changes your peer reviewer suggested and, once you are done with that, keep adding content to the page with the above considerations in mind. Please let me know if you have any questions, and reply to this comment when you have seen it with your plans and goals for improvement over the next month. Don't forget to tag me and sign with 4 tildes (~)! Gardneca (talk) 11:52, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Thank you BeckAnn B for the thoughtful comments and suggestions. I really appreciate the feedback. At Gardneca I will incorporate all these changes that my peer reviewer suggested. Once I have completed this task I will keep adding more content to the page while keeping in mind the comments above. These are my plans and goals for improvement over the next month.Acadiagirl21 (talk) 22:42, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Sounds great, Acadiagirl21, I'm really looking forward to seeing your final product! Gardneca (talk) 16:57, 11 November 2019 (UTC)