Talk:Alberto Gonzales

From Pee Review

Humour:	4.5	the constant repetition of something can often be quite funny. here, i find it to be more on the annoying side. it seems that over 50% of your article consists of some variation of the "does not recall" phrase. i realize that's what you were going for, but there are better ways of going about this (see concept:comments). driving something into the ground can be funny, but i think you overdid it.
Concept:	6	i actually like this concept a lot. topical, etc. my problem is the way you went about it. instead of stating facts, and then saying "though he does not recall this", why not treat gonzales as having one major case of recurring amnesia? this would eliminate the consatnt use of the phrase, and also seem clever and witty. some of the funnier featured articles we have here are done specifically in that style. treat it as a medical case, use real examples, and also sprinkle in random sidenotes, like how he needs someone to give him directions to his own house once a week.
Prose and formatting:	6	grammar, spelling, formatting issues, which i have corrected for you. i gave you a bit of a break on the score because i assume you would have corrected these yourself before a move to the mainspace.
Images:	5	good opening image, throw a caption onto it, or maybe go with {{Template:Infobox_People}}. the second image is pretty good, maybe develop a wittier caption describing how the audience at his testimony was on the edge of their seats. i suggest another image, but it's hard to say of what until you develop your article further.
Miscellaneous:	5.4	averaged
Final Score:	26.9	looking at your final score, i see this article falls into the category of 'inadequate, might be rewrite'. this should not suprise you as the article is not finished. however, i will say that i am optimistic about this one, which i don't say on every review. i hope you find my concept suggestion workable, as i really do think that it could turn this one into a winner. it probably wouldn't hold up too well in mainspace in its current form, but some extending and fleshing out would render it very mainspace-able. maybe more details about his daily life and coping with forgetting things. after doing this, i suggest another opinion via pee review before a move to mainspace (just to be cautious). i hope you find this review informative, and as always, i offer you my services via the Gerryphone, and also the option of ignoring this review altogether. good luck!
Reviewer:	--SirGerrycheeversGunTalk 17:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Humour:	7	Pretty funny, good use of the classic "I do not recall" joke. But I don't see much else here, and that's what troubles me. It's difficult with a concept like this, but if you could work in some other joke then this article would be twice as good. Gonzales tried to play the race card at some point to save his name, claiming that he "had to overcome much adversity to get to where I am today." Perhaps write a little on that journey? Just a suggestion.
Concept:	8	Great concept, it's always tricky to write good articles on political figures. The only reason that it's not higher is because you only took it in the direction that anyone would have gone. Some more originality here would make it much more clever.
Prose and formatting:	8	The formatting is good, and you actually have good footnotes. But your tone kinda changes on the reader as the article goes on, there's a couple unnecessary exclamation points here and there. Nothing too major, I would just work on the tone of the writing.
Images:	8	I love your image of the guy counting how many times he says "I do not recall", I've never seen that one before. But it's the only image other than the one of Gonzales himself. One idea that comes to my mind would be an edited photo of Gonzales shredding the memo that ordered the firing of the attorneys, or perhaps it could be Gonzales in a totally unrelated yet equally incriminating incident.
Miscellaneous:	7.8	I got nothing more for ya. Avg'd using {{Pee}}
Final Score:	38.8	This is a very nice article with one joke. The writing needs just a little bit of tweaking. You're a great writer, so I know this won't be any problem for you. It's right on the edge of being VFH-worthy, it just needs a little something more.
Reviewer:	~Minitrue Sir SysRq! Talk! Sex! =/ GUN • WotM • RotM • AotM • VFH • SK • PEEING • HP • BFF  01:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Humour:	6	I felt humor was somewhat lacking. It got better toward the end, see endnotes.
Concept:	8	Notable political figure. Good subject for comedy and/or satire.
Prose and formatting:	7	Mostly well-written, but could use improvement.
Images:	7	Appropriate images.
Miscellaneous:	7	I like this well enough and hope it succeeds.
Final Score:	35
Reviewer:	----OEJ 00:57, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Endnotes:

The Easy Bit: There are some infelicities in language. One does not go to "speak at a testimony", one is summoned for a hearing or invited to give testimony. Probably "retired his political career" should be "retired from his political career" or "retired from politics" or just plain "retired".

The Hard Bit: Well, as I read the first part I thought, this is almost the plain truth. But as I went along the satirical flavor became more pronounced.

Now, that said, most of the humor seems to be based on the idea that Gonzales does not recall anything about the firing of the attorneys, or about much of anything. That's a good joke, but I wanted other jokes as well. More variety.

I maintain that having a theme or a few major themes in an article is a good thing. But in the piece to hand I would appreciate some departures from the main theme. I guess the upshot is, I wanted more funny. I wanted comical little scenes and some character actors doing bit parts. I might recommend thinking up some "scene-starter" lines and seeing if any of them spark an inspiration for a comic bit. Miss Cracknuckle from the public library in Humble, Texas, approached Gonzales on the steps of the White House. "Young man, you checked out Horton Hears A Who in 1963 and never returned it. You owe the library $52,945.15 in late fees." Police Sergeant Lester Thudd remembers how Gonzales used to steal napkins from the White House cafeteria. Senator Larry Craig taps Gonzales (on the toe) to head up the Idaho Closet Club.

I dunno. Those ideas are pretty bad. But I would have appreciated a wider variety of jokes. Yes, easier said than done...MUCH easier. That's my recommendation, though.

Good luck with this piece --

----OEJ 00:58, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Humour:	5.5	avg of each section Intro [5] Why are you talking about him checking out a book? You skipped around a bit, too. Look at how many times it jumps: "1960, 2007, 1960, 1963". That's kinda confusing. Instead of introducing a random librarian to us, you should just introduce him. Don't be afraid, just introduce him to us. Along with that, introduce the "I Don't Recall" theme to us, too. Attorney General [6] The meat of the article is kinda dry, actually. I know who Alberto Gonzalez is, and you explained the situation pretty well. I can't really think of what to add here, and now I'm just wondering why you brought up the overdue library book from 1960 (or whenever) in the introduction... Mr. Gonzalez is not the most exciting person in the news right now. Bid for President [5] Hmmm. Just short and bland. Not bad, just not interesting. I don't know what I would add here either! Footnotes [6] Some footnotes are good, but some are just clumsy. For example, Footnote #4 is awkward. You could shorten most of these and still get your point across while at the same time making it more of a one liner and not an explanation.
Concept:	6	Writing an article about a real person is a good idea. However, it's not like he's that interesting to begin with. This article will be an uphill battle, and if (when) you reach the top of the mountain, he may be out of the news completely! Therefore, getting this featured will be difficult.
Prose and formatting:	8	I think you did okay here.
Images:	9	I liked the pictures (and their captions) especially.
Miscellaneous:	7.1	{{Pee|5.5|6|8|9}}
Final Score:	35.6	I think I would get rid of the "bid for president" section (as I can't really see that going anywhere), and trim the footnotes section, while streamlining the introduction. This is a lot like There except you'll have to slip the "ambiguousness" in under the radar! That's a complicated task in itself, let alone trying to make this boring guy funny. This is an average/above-average article in my opinion, but there's some work to go. Hope I helped, AE! Keep on truckin'! (Ring my bell!)
Reviewer:	Le Cejak • <-> Jan 11 (19:30)

Humour:	6	Opening - 7 Clever opening, short sharp and builds up to something good. Early Life - 5 No real jokes and a bit dry. Well written but lacking. The book thing; was it really necessary? Maybe it could make some people laugh but I missed the humor. NEVER EVER EVER USE LOLOL unless really necessary! Use the illegal immigrants part more, build on that. Career - 6.5 "During the testimony, he accepted full responsibility and acknowledged "mistakes were made", but did not recall shredding a memo ordering the firings. Days later, he claimed he did not recall accepting full responsibility and blamed the Democrats." That was a classic line and there were a few of them but starting with "Nothing happened" is a bad place to start. The last little bit was lame. Bid for Presidency - 5.5 Too short. It had one joke which wasn't very funny. Needed expanding
Concept:	6	Didn't really go anywhere.
Prose and formatting:	7	Decent.
Images:	7.5	The images were good but just a bit better than average.
Miscellaneous:	6.5	av'd
Final Score:	33	see below
Reviewer:	--DJ Irreverent 05:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

You are a good writer I can see that but this article just lacked direction.

What it needs is a theme and an objective.

The theme needs to be something engaging like; written in the style he talks, talking up the subject matter, a rant (It may work), an idea which is way out from what everyone expects, that kind of thing. You have some good writing here but you need to steer it towards a central idea. Don't go off on tangents unless you really need to for the article.

One idea I had while reading was, incorporating your ideas into some really "high up" satire. Pretend Gonzales works down at your local grocery store as some illegal immigrant. You can use the ideas in this, such as the I can not recall thing, like so -

Once I asked him where the ketchup was, he just replied in a heavy Mexican accent "Ketchup? I do not recall the existence of a ket yup?" But I found it just down the aisle...

Just my 2 cents.

Anyway. It is a good article, but to survive VFH it needs an overall theme IMO--DJ Irreverent 05:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

From Pee

Alberto Gonzales

I forgot about this for a few weeks, but then I read Sergei Rachmaninoff today and that provided me inspiration to take this into a completley different direction than it was before. Suggestions?--Æ 00:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

||

Humour:	6	From my viewpoint, that 6 means that, while your article was not stupid, it was not too particularly funny. The “I don’t recall” line was funny once, amusing the second time, tolerated the third time, and then I felt oddly compelled to rip the wiring out of my computer for the fourth time. The footnotes were what saved this article from a 5 (Not funny at all, and not stupid at all). My recommendation to get this up to an 8+ would be to go over HTBFANJS once again. Remember this, a joke is never as funny the second time around.
Concept:	6	Writing a biography about some guy is never too particularly easy, and there are an insane amount of biographies out there. This concept, although not unique, did give you a bit of room to play with. I want you to take another moment to think when you continue writing this article, and ask yourself, where did I begin to write like Every Other Biography?
Prose and formatting:	7	A few spelling errors were scattered around this article, and some grammatical errors to spice it up. “had ‘’too’’ accept the invitation” is one example, as was one example. Some parts also sounded a bit awkward, “run for the White House was so quick.” Just doesn’t sound right from my point of view. Read your article, out loud, to a friend who is not looking at the screen, and have him tell you what went wrong. If he has even a small education, he will catch a few errors.
Images:	7	I was glad to see that you spread your images out, and that they were relevant to the article in all situations. The images looked, for the most part, like what would be found on Wikipedia, including the one with him “When he isn’t smoking dope” The exception to my statement was definitally the picture of the audience members holding up the “I don’t recall”. Try throwing in an image of Gonzales doing something irrelevant, and throw in a funny caption.
Miscellaneous:	6.5	Averaged as per pee review guidelines
Final Score:	32.5	Your homework to fix this article is straightforward, Read HTBFANJS, take a look at a few featured bibliographies, spice up the pictures, read your article to a friend, and….. PROFIT! =D
Reviewer:	Warm regards, Javascap 12:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)