User talk:Brittanylwatson/sandbox3

Hello! I am going to do edits and give my feedback on a paragraph by paragraph basis so it's easier to follow. :)

Paragraph One [Original]: '''The identification of incantations and rituals can be deriving from the indigenous, Hindu, or Islamic origins. For a long time animism and dinamism were widely practiced in Maritime Southeast Asia and people tended to associate almost anything with the spiritual world including nature. Old Indonesian civilization believed in the idea that well-being and success of humans was dependent on the spirits which inhabited the environment. The spirits are considered powerful entities that spread throughout the environment and are identified as being either good or evil.'''

1. The identification of incantations and rituals can be deriving from the indigenous, Hindu, or Islamic origins: this sentence just kind of stuck out on its own, I wasn't sure how it connected with the sentence after it. Maybe add a transition sentence to connect the two, or move this sentence after? Also typo: 'deriving' --> derived. :)

2. Old Indonesian civilization: This feels kind of vague. Is there a specific name for it? Or do you mean people in all of Indonesia in general? I think Indonesia didn't become a united entity until the 1900s (ignore me if I'm wrong), so this kind of stuck out to me too. For this I would also add 'People of' in the front, since it is the people of the civilisation that had these beliefs.

'''Paragraph One [My Edits]: '''The identification of incantations and rituals can be derived from indigenous, Hindu, or Islamic origins. For a long time animism and dinamism were widely practiced in Maritime Southeast Asia, and people associated many things with the spiritual world including nature. People of old Indonesian civilization believed that the well-being and success of humans depended on the spirits that inhabited the environment. These spirits were considered powerful entities and were identified as being either good or evil.

In my edits, I basically took out a bunch of words that weren't necessarily needed to get the idea of the sentence across, or words that were redundant. It'll make the paragraph as a whole more succinct and clean. ^-^

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Paragraph Two [Original]: '''The nature spirits control the elements of nature and inhabit the sea, sky, land, rivers, hills, and forests. The guardian spirits are closely related to the nature spirits are spirits specific to certain hills and streams and are believed to be residents of that single location. Both the nature and guardian spirits are considered to be neutral. The process of determining whether a spirit is good or evil depends on the interaction between the human, spirit, and environment. The spirits natural intentions are to preserve the well-being of a community. Based off the interaction of the spirit and human, the spirits fall into two categories. The positive interaction invokes the benevolent spirits which are treated similar to pets and help the owners with their endeavors. The negative interaction invokes the malevolent spirits which cause diseases. Negative associations commonly occur when the spirits are disturbed from their home. In that case, one's health would decline and they may become very ill. A pawang would have to identify the spirit, address the issue, and correct the wrong doing so that the person who became ill can heal and return to proper health. Based on the severity of harm done from the malevolent spirits, the pawang can either peaceful negotiate with the spirits or exorcize them. To conduct an exorcism, the pawang may need to perform a seance to cleanse evil influence off a person, object, or place. This includes purification and neutralization processes.'''

1. This is a huge paragraph and makes it a little intimidating to read, I would recommend trying to cut it down into 2-3 paragraphs as deemed fit. You could make another paragraph starting with the sentence 'Based off the interaction of the spirit and human...'.

2. Actually I don't think you need the first part at all really about the nature and guardian spirits, you could just delete that part and start your paragraph off with 'Based off the interaction of the spirit and human...' sentence. I say this because Hantu Air is a negative spirit, thus readers really only need information about negative spirits and how they are categorised.

3. Since the last sentence of Paragraph One already says spirits are identified as either good or evil, you can change the 'Based off the...' sentence to reflect that. I put an example down below.

4. When you say that benevolent spirits are treated as pets and they help owners -- does this mean human beings can own these spirits? I was a little confused by the wording here.

5. I would say just go through the sentence again and read it out loud and get rid of any words you think are not needed so the paragraph can be as concise as possible.

'''Paragraph Two [My Edits]: '''Whether or not a spirit will be good or evil is determined by the interaction of the spirit and the human. Positive interactions invoke benevolent spirits that are treated similar to pets, and they help the owners with their endeavors. Negative interactions invoke malevolent spirits which that can cause diseases.

'''Negative associations commonly occur when the spirits are disturbed from their home. In that case, a person's health would decline and they may become very ill. A pawang would have to identify the spirit, address the issue, and correct the wrong doing so that the ill person can heal and return to proper health. Based on the severity of harm done from the malevolent spirits, the pawang can either peacefully negotiate with the spirits or exorcize them. To conduct an exorcism, the pawang may need to perform a seance to cleanse evil influence off a person, object, or place. This includes purification and neutralization processes.  - Gonna jump to the next section on Contemporary Customs'''. I'm actually a little confused about the inclusion of this section in the original Wikipedia page. Your edits definitely filled it out more and added more detail that made it more well rounded, but I guess I don't really see how they are related to Hantu Air???

Hantu Air are evil spirits that pray on living things, particularly near watery areas. So is the Semah Pantai ceremony saying that you can ask these spirits for guidance, despite the fact that they are evil? If that is the case, I think you should add a little sentence or two to state that. Basically something to connect it back to Hantu Air because so far my impression is that they are evil, and in one of the paragraphs it was stated that only good spirits care for the well being of humans. So that is why I don't understand how this ceremony can be used with Hantu Air since they are evil.

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I really liked your edits tbh, I was looking at the original article and it didn't have much on it. So your new details added an abundance of information that is useful. I think overall my recommendation would be to just make your sentences as concise as possible, and break up your content into smaller paragraphs if you see that you are getting big walls of text. :)

TeaGirl004 (talk) 08:52, 15 April 2019 (UTC)


 * TeaGirl004 this peer review is incredibly thoughtful and detailed, thank you so much for taking the time to carefully provide the author with clear directions forward. Brittanylwatson you have a lot to work with here, and you are fortunate to have received one of the most comprehensive peer reviews. I'd work hard to improve your draft based on your peer reviewer's suggestions, and then going forward I'd like you to find additional sources for your article (since the citation you have is reliable, but out-of-date); I think you should go to the library and see if they can point you in the direction of some more recent bibliography. Also, it might be a good idea to provide additional geographic information about this region of the world and the local iterations of this myth. So far you've done a really great job expanding the existing article and I can't wait to see what your final product looks like! Gardneca (talk) 23:59, 21 April 2019 (UTC)