Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Only For a True Uncyclopedia Fan
Only for a True Uncyclopedia Fan[edit]
Hey. I'm not so interested in telling me if it's good or bad, all I really need is if there is anything I could add or do to this article to make it better, because it's been tagged as an ICU for being too short. Other than that, say whatever you want, but please don't be too harsh, I'm just a n00b.
Some Idiot 06:57, June 17, 2010 (UTC)
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Fear Not! John Lydon is here to Pee all over you! If he hasn't reviewed it |
Let's do this --—John Lydon 12:29, June 17, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 3 | I know you said you weren’t interested in whether I thought the article was good or bad, only ways to expand it, but it’s impossible to review something without saying what works and what doesn’t. I also can’t give suggestions on what you can do to make the article better without explaining the highs and lows of the article. For now, ignore the scores and focus on the advice. My goal here is to help you crank out the best possible article you can.
There is some really good humor mixed in this article. Unfortunately it all gets lost by the complete chaos of the article. Your biggest hurdle for whipping this article into shape is the layout. It jumps around, starts and stops, doesn’t flow at all, and all of this combined only serves to confuse the reader and overshadow all of the funny stuff. The first thing I would suggest for you is to look at a few of the Featured Articles. This one is a good example to use because it is written in the sort of informal, chatty style that I think you were shooting for. Notice how the author of this article stayed focused on the topic at hand and had a clear plan for how he wanted the article to spell out his idea. Don’t be afraid to borrow ideas from other articles in order to make yours better. I’m not adivsing you to outright plagerise anyone, but you can certainly use some of the better articles as inspiration for your own. The next step I would suggest taking is to really take some time to consider exactly want you want to say about your topic. Right now you basically have 5 or 6 sections that are completely unrelated to each other. While each section has some good humor mixed in, the utter randomness of it all makes it difficult for any reader to follow. Take some time to figure out what your punchline is. In the example article given above, the author clearly is poking fun at musicians who run out to L.A. to chase their dreams. You need to come up with exactly what the target of your humor is going to be. I get the impression that your attempting to poke fun at Uncyclopedia readers in general, which is fine. The problem lies in the fact that I had to read through the article 6 or 7 times before I could make a guess as to what your subject was. The reader needs to know exactly what your lampooning in order to get the humor in it. As your article sits now, it’s like walking into a joke and only catching the punchline. Without knowing the subject, its just not that funny. After you’ve chosen a clear topic, start expanding. Try to think of specific generalizations you can make about Uncyclopedia readers that would be humorous. Maybe most Uncyclopedia readers have the attention span of a gnat. Maybe they all live in their parents basement playing WOW 24/7. Anything you can think of, run with it. From there, you have have a pretty solid base to build on. Just flesh the whole concept out. If you have trouble getting your ideas together like I do, the HTBFANJS is an excellent resource. It gives some great tips and ideas for conveying whats in your head onto the screen. |
| Concept: | 4 | This is a little tricky for me to judge because I’m not sure what your topic is exactly. So I decided to just go with my impression of the article being about Uncyclopedia readers, which isn’t a bad topic. It hasn’t been done to death that I’m aware of, and everyone can certainly relate to it. Those are the hallmarks of a good concept for an article. I would suggest really focusing on spelling out your concept clearly. Just doing that will probably give you several different ideas for expanding the article. Try to think about what information about an Uncyclopedia reader the average person would expect to see if this were Wikipedia. For instance, do they have any distinct characteristics? Maybe all Uncyclopedia readers weigh over 500 lbs because they don’t get outside and exercise. Maybe the traits aren’t physical but mental. Perhaps they all are condescending pricks who gave terrible pee reviews. At any rate, try to assemble an image of the stereotypical Uncyclopedia user for the reader. That’s where everything will tie together. Don’t concern yourself so much with length at this point. If you do, the whole article will convey the fact that stuff was put in there just for the sake of length. Instead try to build a solid base that’s humorous. Once that’s complete, go back through and look for places to expand. |
| Prose and formatting: | 2 | I thought the way you wrote the article from the point of view of having a conversation with the reader was well done and a good choice. Unfortunately, that’s the only positive I can come up with for the layout. Like I said before, this article is just way too random. In order for it to work, I think you may have to pick and choose what you think really works and blow the rest of it up. Don’t be afraid to look at the featured articles to see how they’re laid out. Use it as a mold for your own article. Once you have a solid format, don’t forget to link key words. A “dead” article will get ICU’d pretty quickly around these parts. If you’re unsure how to link words or what words to link, the folks over at the Proofreading Service are masters at all things link related. They can also help with grammer and spelling needs.
After you’ve got all that taken care of, don’t forget to categorize the article. Again, the Proofreading Service can assist with such a task if your not sure how to do it. |
| Images: | 5 | Nothing too terrible here. The last image, the one with the bridge, was pretty good. You seem to have a knack for writing captions which is the biggest hurdle for any image. If I had to give some advice on this part of your article (which I do, because they’re watching us) I would say to make sure that your pictures relate to the topic at hand. While your images don’t really relate, you tie them in well with the captions. Another thing is the last image. Sure, it fits, but it looks to me like filler. It doesn’t serve any real purpose other than taking up a little more space. I would advise staying away from tricks like that. If I can pick up on it, then I’m certain just about any reader is going to be able to do the same in about half the time. |
| Miscellaneous: | 3.5 | Averaged score |
| Final Score: | 17.5 | Just to reiterate, because I don’t get to use that word very often, focus on determining what your topic is, and driving it home to the reader. Take some time to look at some of the featured work and see how they do it. I think there is an idea in here and I think you definitely show the potential to be able to do something good with it. I think the only real missing piece here is a solid format. If you can put that in place, this could turn out as a very solid article. |
| Reviewer: | --—John Lydon 14:29, June 17, 2010 (UTC) | |