Talk:Thomas Marcus Decatur Ward

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Brandon DeMarco The lead was good and gave a good picture of Ward's life. The article is structured pretty well as a whole but sometimes the sentence structure is a little wonky. Maybe read it out loud to find the best places to put breaks. I feel that you provided fairly balanced coverage of Ward's life and did a good job of citing your sources. I think your sources are reliable for the purposes of this article. Josh Hector

-Orginizaion of the article is set up really well.

-Go back and reread your article.

-The article is well balanced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hectorjo451 (talk • contribs) 23:17, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Feedback by Prof. Smith: Hi Quincy, I think that you have the building blocks of a very informational and helpful essay here. You can perfect this with some polishing and additional documentation. Here are my specific comments about how to improve the article.

- The lead could be improved to emphasize Ward's notability more. I would put the "original trailblazer of African Methodism" comment in the lead and emphasize that he is important as a central leader of African American religious activity in nineteenth-century America. I would move the material about his famous uncle down to the "Childhood and Early Life" section. The lead should really focus on his biggest accomplishments and significance.

- Be sure to provide citations for all of your statements. The last few sentences of the "Leadership in the AME Church" section really need documentation indicating where you found this information. The "Accomplishments" section also needs additional citations.

- The "Accomplishments" section needs to be rewritten in complete sentences. I suspect that you were just trying to get the information down in writing for now and that you fully intend to rewrite this section.

-Ward's death in Jacksonville, Florida, indicates another part of the story that you're not really covering in your article. After the Civil War, Ward went back East to serve as a bishop and religious organizer for the AME Church among newly freed African Americans in the South. This book, on Google Books, has a lot of helpful information on his career in California and afterwards: https://books.google.com/books?id=ETQQAQAAIAAJ&dq=history%20of%20ame%20church&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=ward&f=false — Preceding unsigned comment added by StaceySmithOSU (talk • contribs) 06:23, 1 December 2018 (UTC)