Talk:Sociolinguistics/Ebonics

There is a small issue...

You really did a great job, as the work is really organised and not racist in any way, but there is a small issue: while in Verbal markers it says that BEEN specifies the recent past, in Marking the past it says that it refers to remote past. What does it really refer to?

rdn34 19:24, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Great job

One of the things that first caught my eye about your chapter was the organization; I think that you did an excellent job laying out your information in a fashion that was easy to read and followed the standard wikiversity layout. I also love your use of figures and examples. As someone who is new to the study of Ebonics, the visual presentation really helped clarify some aspects of the subject. In regards to the subject headings, if you could perhaps find a way to link some of the subheadings (i.e. slang, general word and phrases, etc...) back to the content box it may make the navigation of the chapter a little easier. That way if someone wanted to just read about a specific subject they could click the outline link as opposed to having to search for it in the chapter. Also, don’t forget to link your citations to your references.

At one point in both the introduction and components of ebonics you refer to the origin of the of the word “ebonics.” I think that it may only be necessary to mention it once as it becomes a little redundant. Perhaps include the name origin in the section where it would work as the best transition to your topic (maybe use it right before the phonology section?)?

The section on slang is very informative, but a little difficult to parse at first. It may be beneficial to integrate the examples into the paragraph, or refer to them in a different way [ex: The following examples illustrate the way in which individuals describe an enjoyable event, place, person or thing, (example 1) and the way one is greeted (example 2)]. You could even turn the example names in the paragraph into links to the examples that follow, just to show that they are in fact connected. Otherwise, great job!

When discussing verbal markers, you at one point say “(see Appendix A).” I think that creating a link onto that “(See Appendix A)” might be very helpful to get the reader to the information quicker.

You seem to do an excellent job at presenting the information without placing any interpretation on the subject material. This is not only fantastic but also highly important for the chapter because I know that Dr. Newman wanted us to report the facts on the topic and not our opinions. With a topic such as Ebonics it would be very easy to instill some sort of personal analysis on the subject, but you report the information in a very concise and easy to read manner.

I would try if at all possible to not cite the textbook in your wikiversity chapter, as I know that Dr. Newman specified that he wanted us to use other sources. One thing that I found very useful when looking up my own references was to see which studies Jay referenced, and look them up through psycinfo. Once I looked up those studies I examined their reference sections to see what kind of sources those studies used and which ones were most common within the literature. The ones that were most apparent in the literature tended to be some of the more influential and important studies on the subject. I’m not quite sure that the literature is like on your topic, but it might be worth a shot just to be on the safe side. That being said, I think that you make good use of your references.

Samantha Arseneau 23:21, 18 February 2011 (UTC)