User talk:Bayjohenderson/Foreign relations of Senegal

Seb's peer review
Hi! Nice work!~

I like that you used so many hyperlinks to refer to other topics, and I am going to use that for our article. I think it is a good way to situate an article within the framework of what has already been done on Wikipedia. Overall, I liked the writing. The topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph are effective in introducing the overall theme of each paragraph, especially in the subsection on Cold War foreign policy. I have, however, some reservations concerning some of the phrasing that could be more concise and straightforward. For instance, I do not think that it is necessary to precise “According to the ECOWAS official website,”. This kind of wording seems closer to what we could write in an academic paper, but, as I understand it, in an encyclopedia you could only write that "Senegal’s affairs within ECOWAS are currently overseen by Madame Aissata Tall Sall, Senegal's Minister of Foreign Affairs", with the reference after.

I think you have already done a tremendous job in finding various sources and sourcing every information you deliver in the text. Furthermore, your sources seem reliable. The only issue I have noticed is in the paragraph about Guinea-Bissau Civil War where you don’t have any reference.

The structure is good too. I think you did a good job reorganizing the source article by adding the “Post-Independence Foreign Relations” section and then putting different subsections within it. It gives more clarity. Moreover, it really highlights the break between pre- and post-independence foreign relations, which I think the original article did not emphasize enough. By the way, this part is the section that I have found the most interesting and I think it could be a good idea to keep expanding on that. The section on ECOWAS could use a little more content, I think, and you might want to add a few sub-sections to make it more readable. Especially, I would be interested in knowing more about the role Senegal has played in it (after learning about what ECOWAS has done for Senegal).

I did not notice any problems with neutrality or unbalanced coverage which is good.

I wish I had more to say, but the article is off to a really good start! Bravo!

SleepDrifter (talk) 03:20, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Bradley's Peer Review
Hey, nice work so far!

I really like your additions of ECOWAS and the Cold War, both are super interesting topics. Speaking of your Cold War section, I'm doing my article on African and South Korean relations so your line about Senegal's first foreign minister really pushing for a different path for Africa is gonna come in handy for my article, thank you for that!

Getting into the critiques, there's not many I have. The most apparent ones to me are adding in some citations for your "Guinea-Bissau Civil War" section, as so far it has none. The last lines of both paragraphs under your "Cold War Foreign Policy" section could use citations too just to be safe.

Beyond adding citations, I think adding to some sections might be beneficial. Your ECOWAS section for example I thought was well written and provided a lot of basic information, but I would be interested in learning more about the relationship between ECOWAS and Senegal. One idea that stuck out to me was when you mentioned that Senegal had 6 seats in the ECOWAS Parliament, I was wondering how that compares to other Member States and how it affects their standing there (Are they a big member? Small? Medium? Do they have to form coalitions, and if so, with who? What does this mean for the policies Senegal wants to pursue through ECOWAS?). Similarly, the ECOWAS EPA with the EU sounds like a huge deal for the economy and foreign relations policy of Senegal, it might be a good idea to spend more time on that to flesh out why ECOWAS did this, if Senegal wanted this policy (or if they were just outvoted), what kinds of tariff powers they lost against the EU through this (and if this is reciprocal with the EU losing some tariff powers against ECOWAS), what percentage of trade is still with EU members (France especially, since you mention later in the article how much trade they originally had with them), etc. And minorly for this section, a start and end (or projected end) date for the Trans-West African Coastal Highway would be appreciated to give a sense of time and scope to the project.

A similar expansion of the Cold War section would be great as well, either by adding completely new info and sub-sections in since the Cold War era is expansive and pervasive for all countries, or expanding on some topic you already have there, like what other nations besides France and Iran they had close/close-ish ties to.

To conclude, I think your style, structure, and perspective balancing in this article are really good overall. I agree with the other reviewers' comment above for some places that it could be tweaked, but overall I think you have a solid start. Keep it up! Bradley Silvernail (talk) 00:55, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

[Jeonghyeon's] peer review
Hello, Nice work! Your topic of foreign relations of Senegal has been very attractive to me. I appreciate your hard work, especially referring to various sources to strengthen and broaden your information. Overall, I think you have a solid start. In particular, the part about ECOWAS was very impressive in terms of accessing new information that I don't know. I also thought it would be helpful to refer to some African national organizations, such as the ECOWAS, and African Union, while writing the relationship between Korea and Africa. Surely your article will be of great help to my one.

To peer review in more detail, I would like to know more about ECOWAS and other African organizations of which Senegal is a member. Senegal has a historical background that it was a French colony, and I know that Senegal has close ties with former French colonial countries and Arab countries since most of Senegal's people believe in Islam. This historical and cultural background definitely has a significant part in Senegal's foreign diplomacy. I think that it would be great to add the "Francophonie," "African Union," and "Organisation of Islamic Cooperation" in your article since it primarily impacts Senegal's diplomacy.

You added the part about foreign relations after Senegal's independence. And I am pretty sure that you will update data after 1989 and complete this section. I would like to know Senegal's latest foreign policy and what difficulties it is facing. After your Cold War part, mentioning China's aggressive one-belt policy would be a great comparison for readers. Due to Senegal's geopolitical location in west Africa, the Chinese government strategically approach Senegal's diplomacy.

All in all, you have a strong writing style and an exciting topic with a very organized structure. I hope my peer review has helped you to a solid start. Great work, and thank you for your hard work! Jeonghyeon9623 (talk) 22:18, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Meg's Peer Review
I think the contributions you have written so far are great! ECOWAS seems like an important organization to discuss in more depth than what is included in the original article. I also liked learning about foreign relations in Senegal during the Cold War, which is an important part of recent history, especially in many African countries. It looks like you have a good mix of sources (academic and news) and overall your tone stays neutral.

I’m writing my article about Agriculture in The Gambia, so I am interested to learn about ECOWAS involvement in The Gambia. I also want to now research whether the bridge built to connect with The Gambia has had any impact on agriculture or agricultural trade in The Gambia! You have given me some more to research for my article, which I’m really grateful about! In the ECOWAS section, I think the second paragraph where you discuss the Trans-West African Coastline Highway is really successful. You clearly explain the contributions to infrastructure and transportation provided through ECOWAS and you explain why these contributions are important. In the Guinea-Bissau Civil War section, it could be helpful to provide the year as well as the outcome of the war. This could help readers both have more context for the conflict and understand the impact of Senegal’s involvement.

I think the Cold War section is a great contribution to the Post-Independence Foreign Relations section (and I like that you renamed the section as well so it would make more sense to add more to it). My main suggestion for this section would be to add a bit more at the end about the outcome of, or fallout from, the Cold War in Senegal. You could also talk about the larger impacts of Senegal’s relationship with Iran – this is a really interesting paragraph that, if expanded a bit, I think could benefit from having it’s own subheading.

In both the ECOWAS and the Cold War sections, there are some sentences that should probably be cited but currently are not (i.e. the first sentence of the second paragraph in the ECOWAS section and the last sentence of the Cold War section).

In terms of the rest of the article that already existed before your contributions, I have a few thoughts on things you could work on to update/improve it as well. The entire Lead section needs sources, so I think it would help the page if you could either find sources to backup the claims already there, or rewrite the lead section using your own sources. In the same vein of editing the lead section, there isn’t much context for who President Léopold Senghor is or when he was president, so I think it could be helpful to have a bit more of a general introductory sentence/paragraph before getting into specifics (i.e. explaining who colonized Senegal and when Senegal gained independence).

I also think that it would be worth proof-reading for grammar and checking for sentences in need of citations for the entire pre-existing article since there are some areas in need of editing. You could help the page a lot by updating some of the writing to make it more clear and adding more sources to backup the claims made in the article.

I think you’ve done an awesome job so far and I’m really excited to read your final article!--MegStern (talk) 06:05, 4 April 2022 (UTC)