User talk:Gabby223/Colonial Disease in Hawai'i

The lead is both concise and detailed and appropriately preludes the sections of the article, not adding any extra or unnecessary information. The introductory sentence also properly sets up the rest of the section as well as the article as a whole. It also well outlines the sub sections that will be evaluated in the essay, but a sentence could be added to link back to the "modern health risks" of the diseases. Additionally, the line "the affect that the introduction of colonizers and their diseases had on Native Hawaiians will always be felt for the domino effect of destruction it caused." seems to not take on a neutral tone but looks on the colonizers derogatorily.

The content is relevant to the topic; however, there are a few areas in which the sections can be expanded. Additionally, because a couple of the sections need elaboration, some of the information is repetitive - as in, mentioned in above sections and not expanded upon. Particularly, the section on the First Landfall can be added upon heavily, with details that talk more about the sexual relationships of James Cook, how many people he may have transmitted disease upon, and so forth. There may also be at least a quick preview on why Cook and his crew came to Hawaii in the first place.

As for the Second Landfall, there could be an explanation added as to why Cook returned to the island. What were their interactions with the Natives like? How did the Natives perceive Cook and his men? Did they rely on the Europeans for a cure? Also, is there any research pointing to specific accounts of how the Natives accused Cook? " The sentence "At this point, Cook knew that his men were passing these illnesses to the local population, however he decided not to do anything about it," should be "...population; however, he..." There should also be more elaboration on how and why Cook was killed by the Natives. Additionally, from what primary account is this coming from? Who wrote these events down for people to discover later? Directly finding and relaying this source can allow the reader to better understand both the viewpoints and documentation of the Natives and their encounters with the diseases and Europeans.

In the "implication" section, the use of the word "ridiculous" seems to be biased towards the Natives. Also "While this did not necessarily lead to infertility as much, it caused much higher rates of miscarriages and lower rates of childhood survival." could be reworded. The implications of the diseases seem to demonstrate only numbers. Perhaps there could be additional facts referring to how the population decline and death rates related to sexually transmitted diseases and infertility affected the Natives' social life.

The section regarding colonial diseases in the 1800's and the political implications is well researched and detailed, establishes a neutral tone, and appropriately relating it back to how it impacted the Natives.

"Population Regrowth" dictates both general and specific data that is trustworthy. However, this entire section could be looked over for grammatical errors. Also, the phrase "in the grand scheme of things" could be taken away.

Check the article for the overuse of the word "many."

All the sources are backed up by good and reliable citations and references. The sources are by a wide spectrum of government data and other authors that take on a neutral tone. This neutral tone is passed on in the article itself, with no viewpoints that are overrepresented or underrepresented. The sections are well dispersed and broken down into subsections when necessary - there are several grammatical errors that can be easily fixed.\ Gloriasiyoungkoo (talk) 21:22, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Peer Review
Hi Gabby!

Overall, this is an excellent article. It gives an in-depth analysis of colonial diseases in Hawai'i as well as their important historical contexts. The information is up-to-date and the article is structured in a way that is easy-to-read and creates good flow. Your lead section includes a topic sentence that describes that content of your paper, a brief description of your article's major sections, and does not include unrelated information. I think it would be good if you also included a brief sentence or phrase regarding COVID-19 and its disproportionate impact on Native Hawaiians, as it is a section of your article.

The content and sources used are neutral, as is the tone employed throughout the Wikipedia article. I think you do a really good job describing events and processes in a way that credible and academic. My one suggestion here would be a minor edit in your opening paragraph of the "First Diseases" section. In this section, the phrase "we know" and "what we know" are used. I think it would be more effective here if you stated "it is known" and "what is known" to remain a neutral tone (that said, I totally understand why you are speaking in terms of a collective as you could be speaking from a personally-informed place as a Native Hawaiian!).

Since this is a new article, I also reviewed the new article criteria alongside your article. This article meets Wikipedia's Notability requirements, as it is supported by more than two secondary sources independent of this subject. Your article also does a good job of linking to other articles so that it becomes more discoverable.

Your sources are properly formatted, current, and reflect a breadth of research. I clicked through a few of your links and they all lead to webpages without error.

Lastly, I found your article to be very interesting and I learned a lot of new information regarding colonial diseases in Hawai'i, such as the leper colony of Kalaupapa. Writing about traumatic events that your ancestors struggled through cannot be easy, and I could see it being potentially challenging to depict these events in a way that is "neutral" and "unbiased" under Wikipedia's criteria. That said, you still managed to do an excellent job maintaining a neutral tone when recounting these events! Many academic historical accounts of widespread disease in Hawai'i are written through the eyes of outsiders/haole/colonizers and already biased in nature. Thank you so much for taking the time to write this article, which incorporates critical perspectives from Kanaka Māoli! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stringam (talk • contribs) 07:59, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Peer review and suggestions…
As other reviewers have mentioned, there is a lot of well-researched information in this article, and you've put a lot of great work into it. My suggestions for changes come into blocks: rethinking the lead to make it more encyclopedic and less a synthesis, and separating out the contemporary health material. While it's certainly a plausible opinion to argue that colonial influence led deleterious health outcomes in the contemporary era as well as initial colonization, this strikes me as a point of view that needs to be attributed rather than the organizing structure for an encyclopedic article. (That is, "Today, influences of these first colonizers are present in modern diseases such as the presence of chronic illness in Hawaiians and the COVID-19 pandemic" needs to be attributed as someone's opinion.)


 * Title: I think the title is strong, though the d should be lower case. Naming the agents that caused the disease influx ("colonial") is appropriate. Parallel articles are called Native American disease and epidemics and Influx of disease in the Caribbean. If you split the "modern disease" section as suggested below, I would recommend Colonial epidemic disease in Hawai'i so that the mechanism of disease is clearer.


 * Lead section: The opening half of the lead works well (I've split it into two paragraphs, which I think is clearer). The phenomenon of "virgin populations" could be shortened and a link inserted to virgin soil epidemic. Follow up on the list of diseases by explaining that many of these diseases caused the deaths of significant portions of the population, that is by summarizing your "Colonial Disease in the 1800's" section. The population impact should be stated in the final paragraph in terms of absolute population as well as percentages since the precolonial population size is widely disputed. Remove the adverbs in "the population of Native Hawaiians has slowly begun to return" and instead state the current Hawaiian-ancestry population. Keep the complications regarding full and part Native Hawaiian populations out of the lead, but explain them clearly below.


 * Precolonial population: The most complete list of estimates seems to be summarized here.


 * Modern disease: I recommend moving all of this to Native Hawaiians (which was expanded and edited by a classmate this semester). If and when Health of Native Americans in the United States is created (there's a split discussion at Talk:Native_American_disease_and_epidemics), it could alternatively go there. Strip out the heading "modern disease" and incorporate it all there. You might also add a one-to-three sentence summary of the epidemic material at the top and link to this article.


 * Population regrowth: Future estimates are POV statements that need to be attributed rather than framed as "it is expected."


 * Minor issues: Subheads should be capitalized like sentences, not like titles.

Hope this is all helpful. Your article is already strong.--Carwil (talk) 03:36, 24 November 2020 (UTC)