User:Aleksander Ramirez/French colonial empire/Cwn24 Peer Review

General info

 * Whose work are you reviewing?

(Aleksander Ramirez)


 * Link to draft you're reviewing
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aleksander%20Ramirez/French_colonial_empire?veaction=edit&preload=Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org_draft_template
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists)
 * French colonial empire

Evaluate the drafted changes
Here is my peer review:

Lead: I think you should update the lead to reflect the content that you have added about Africa because the existing lead barely mentions it and does not connect with any of the information that you are writing about. Additionally, the lead is overly detailed so you could move some of that more specific information into different sections of the article.

Content: I would recommend giving somewhat more of a timeline between initial colonization and presence and the end of the French Wars of Religion. Sidebar about the ship wrecked in the Maldives not relevant. One of the final paragraphs, “Initial french colonial expansion remained at a low level of development as the French his primary goal was to establish itself firmly in west Africa, and on the Congo” feels off in terms of the order that you present the information. The last two paragraphs of the section also feel like that should be placed above all the material on Africa and closer to the material on India. I think you could talk a lot more about the impact of French colonization on Africa and what types of governments they established, how strict their rule was, how much they interacted with the people, what type of infrastructure they may have installed, etc.

Tone and balance: At one point you say, “ French penetration was slow and production was not very important.” I think both you could use a better word than penetration and also to claim that it was not very important which is more of a qualitative statement with no information backing it up. Overall a mostly neutral tone.

Sources and references: When you are talking about French expansion inland you don’t have a source for the second half of the paragraph and you probably should. The second paragraph in the Africa and Asia section has no citations. Overall I think your sources seem diverse and reliable.

Organization: You use the word “emanate” early on but I think you could probably use a simpler word. I would go through and add a lot more comma’s and double check all grammar. I would remove the parenthesis around peanuts and either refer to them as peanuts or use commas to break off the or peanuts. You say “At St. Louis” and instead I think it should be “In St. Louis.” However, I think you should take out the commas when you say, “now, modern day, Senegal and Sudan.” Similarly for the next sentence with commas around “oriented production.” This sentence, “As the French moved out of their initial colony in St. Louis established other initial colonies throughout the 18th and early 18th centuries at Millicourie on the Guinea Coast and Assinié at grand Bassam on the ivory coast” has multiple gramatival errors. I know less about the extent of French intervention in Africa but I feel like both Africa and Asia can deserve their own headings and that the content should be broken up because it is not overly connected and there is a lot to say about Africa. Overall I think the section could be organized to more accurately the timeline and correlations of the material because it feels a little jumpy.

Overall: Your overall topic is definitely relevant to the course but I think there is a lot for more that you can say. The French had many different colonies that go unmentioned and complex decolonization processes that I think should be mentioned.