Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/User:Hiatus Hernia/HowTo:Write Colin Meloy Lyrics

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User:Hiatus Hernia/HowTo:Write Colin Meloy Lyrics[edit source]

My first article. *weeps* I don't believe you need to have heard of Colin Meloy or The Decemberists to understand my article, but you can always go to wikipedia. Hiatus Hernia 15:26, October 29, 2009 (UTC)

This looks great for a first article. I'll get around to reviewing in the next few days if no one else has. —Unführer Guildy Ritter von Guildensternenstein 20:17, October 29, 2009 (UTC)

I changed the intro after putting it up for review, but before anyone reviewed it. I think I might have to streamline the rest of the article it and make the tone more consistent, but that's...so...much...work. Blergh. --~Scriptsiggy.JPG 11:12, 2009 Oct 31

Okay, I will review this soon, I promise. No, really. —Unführer Guildy Ritter von Guildensternenstein 01:10, November 4, 2009 (UTC)
Humour: 7.25 Before I say anything else, just let me say that this is really, really good for a first article. Like, holy crap. I didn't get to the point you're at your first go until my fifth or sixth article. So yeah, kudos. Anyway...

This article is smart and subtle, just the way I like 'em. Here's what I liked:

  • You make really good use of footnotes, though throwing in a few more would probably be a good thing.
  • The indie/hipster jokes you use are also all quite funny, but, again, there could be more of them.
  • Your ironic Bold-CAPS-LOCK-italicizing of the word "subtlety" was laugh-out-loud funny, and still managed to come off as subtle at the same time.

Here's where I think you can improve:

  • More jokes. The ones you have are quite good, but you just need more of them, along the lines of the ones you have now.
  • A lot of this article's humor is dependent upon people be familiar with the subject matter--if people have no idea who Colin Meloy is, they probably won't find this very funny. I would probably have no idea what you were talking about if I didn't listen to the first half of The Hazards of Love this afternoon. Ideally, this shouldn't be the case. Like I suggested above, throw in a few more indie-hipster jokes to make this that much more accessible to those vapid pop-music listeners.
  • This article is quite wordy, but I'll get to that later.
Concept: 7.5 This is a tried and tested concept, so you don't get many originality points, but your execution is quite good. There really isn't much more to say, to be honest, so yeah. Moving right along...
Prose and formatting: 6.75 You write fairly well, so there's not much I can criticize. There were a few typos ("believe" instead of "belief" in the introduction, "to start liking" instead of "starting to like" a little later on, a few more things in this vein throughout the article, etc. Beyond your minor typos (nothing a copy-paste to a word document with spell/grammar check couldn't fix), and maybe a lacking comma or two, your prose is quite solid, though. Formatting, though, is another story:
  • I think Vocabulary, Literary Devices, and Rhyme can be combined into one ==second-level== header called "Literary Devices" (the resulting ===third-level=== headers to be called "Rhyme," "Vocabulary," and "Other Devices," or something)
  • You don't have very many links. Though this may seem like a trifling complaint, this--being a wiki site--is greatly dependent on links. Links, as you know, are important for both comedic purposes, as well as for breaking up the big scary wall of words that most articles would be if not for them. Add a few more, in the clever vein of the ones you already have.

And, finally, my biggest complaint of all:

  • This article is quite wordy. Though being verbose for poetic purposes isn't a bad thing (as I'm sure both you and Colin Meloy know), for comedic purposes it doesn't fly so well. You've basically fallen into the trap I did when I wrote a similar article, in that in many ways this is a kind of exposition first and a comedic piece second, when in fact the opposite should be true. Take your introduction, for instance: you talk about The Decemberists record label and their debatable indie-ness, even though it is only tangentially related to the topic at hand and, regrettably, light on laughs. This should not be the case. While some exposition/playing-of-the-straight-man is good, and, indeed, required, you never want that to overshadow the funny, and it does here. Give this a good editing.
Images: 5.5 None of the images really stood out. Though most of them are relevant to the topic of the article, none of them really grabbed my attention, ya know? Though many articles aren't at all image-based, and, indeed, don't need to be, having good pictures always helps. I really liked the first two images of Colin with his band and his other band, but after that nothing was really great. If I were you, I'd remove the two images unrelated to the topic, and replace them with more Colin Meloy goodness. Perhaps a series of images of Meloy looking introspective, or something--I feel that would be much funnier. Also, as a more general critique, your images should all be a bit bigger, so they stand out more.
Miscellaneous: 7.5 A little above your average. You get bonus points for this being your first article, plus I feel this has a lot of potential a little proofreading and polish could easily bring out.
Final Score: 34.5 I listened to the second half of The Hazards of Love while writing this, and it's quite good.
Reviewer: Unführer Guildy Ritter von Guildensternenstein 21:43, November 4, 2009 (UTC)