Talk:Car-free movement

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What is complex here regarding this Wikipedia article[change source]

Can someone please tell me why this page was marked as complex? What words should be replaced or made simple?

The following words are complex and should be changed: consist, broad, informal, emergent, individuals, beliefs, dominant, reduced, eliminated, prior, compact
The following should be linked, explained, or changed: social activists/social activism, urban planners/urban planning
Other than that, there are phrases that could be said more simply. For example, "streets filled with human activity" could be changed to "busy streets". --Auntof6 (talk) 20:12, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I got the most complex taken out and replaced with simple text. Also did some rewording. Angela Maureen (talk) 21:05, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Got word prior revised to before. Angela Maureen (talk) 04:25, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, that's some good work. Here are some notes:

  • The article should start by saying what the movement is about. It currently starts by saying who is involved. Change the text around so that the group's purpose is in the first sentence.
  • You replaced the word "broad" with the word "wide". They mean the same thing when you're talking about physical things, but this isn't physical, it's figurative. I would just remove it.
  • Instead of "share views saying", try just "think". Doesn't that seem simpler?
  • You replace "compact" with "small or mid-sized". That isn't really what was meant by "compact". In this case, compact means that things in the cities/towns were close together. The reason that is mentioned is to show that when things were close together, there wasn't as much need to use vehicles.

Take care of those, and/or let me know if you have more questions. After these are taken care of, there will probably still be a couple of other things, but I'd like to see how these changes come out before bringing them up. You're doing good work! --Auntof6 (talk) 05:26, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Got wide removed and changed beginning sentence around like you said. The group's purpose is closer to first sentence. Took out small or mid sized to simply say that cities and towns were not in as much need for vehicles. How is that? Angela Maureen (talk) 05:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it looks like most or all of the individual complex words have been taken care of. What is needed now is to make the article read well and to have it make sense. Here are my comments about that:

  • The first sentence ("The car-free movement...") just barely makes sense, and it needs some work. Instead of just replacing the individual complex words, think about what it is talking about, and try to say it in your own words. Also, the word "who" should be "which" -- "who" is used for people, not movements.
  • As for the second sentence (the one that starts "These include"), what is "these" referring to? To use the word "these" here, you have to have talked about to a group of something before that, and I don't see anything like that. The only groups of things mentioned were cars and places, and neither of those would include groups of people.
  • In the sentence that starts "Before 20th century": it should say "Before the 20th century". Also, "not in need for" isn't good English -- think about what the sentence is talking about and try to say it in your own words.
  • The sentence that starts with "The areas usually had": this sentence was in the original article as a little more information about cities and towns being compact. When you took out the part about being compact, you took out the part that made this sentence meaningful. Either put back the part that was taken out (with simpler wording), or remove this sentence, too.
  • In the sentence that starts "Some governments have encouraged support for": have the governments encouraged support for those activities, or have they encouraged the actual activities? Those aren't the same thing.
  • In the last sentence, it isn't clear what the word "for" means: can you explain that?

If you take care of all that, I'll look at it again to see if any new issues get introduced.

It looks to me like a lot of the individual complex words were replaced or even just removed without thinking about what the sentences were saying, and without looking at the article as a whole. When you simplify text, you have to understand what the whole thing is saying. You can't always just take care of individual words and get an article that reads well and makes sense.

Let me know what questions you have now. --Auntof6 (talk) 00:07, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Did some more rewording. Any additional issues/problems? Angela Maureen (talk) 11:43, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Angela, please indent your replies.

I think we have the complex words taken care of well enough. Now we get to what might be the hardest part: making the text make sense, read well, and be correct English. Look at the first sentence: "The car-free movement is a movement that wants places in which use of cars is cut down or entirely taken out." This sentence is about just one thing, which is good, but it's a little long. Think about what it is saying and see if you can think of a way to say it with fewer words. One specific thing (but not the only thing) is the phrase "entirely taken out". That phrase should be changed because it isn't the language that should be used for this kind of thing. Think about what it means, and try to say it in a simpler way.

In the second paragraph, the relationship between the ideas in the first two sentences has gotten lost. The point in the enwiki article was that people didn't need cars as much when things were closer together. Those sentences were a lead-in to talking about the time when cars started being used more. However, you didn't include that part, so you need to make a better point with the information you did keep, or else just remove it.

Is this helping you any? I know you've said that you have learning disabilities, but if you aren't learning from this then I'm not sure we should continue. Let me know what you think. --Auntof6 (talk) 06:36, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]