Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Archaeology (new review)
Archaeology [edit source]
Needing a new review since the one from four years ago wasn't very thorough or helpful. Looking to have this featured, so let me know what you think it needs to get there. --EMC [TALK] 23:21 Jul 9 2011
Okay --ShabiDOO 13:01, July 12, 2011 (UTC)
| Humour: | 4 | Hi EMC...I assume you are a no nonsense person so I can give it to you straight. Also you seem to be asking for a thorough and helpful review. The article lacks coherence and it lacks development of the material. This review is really a run down of the humour and concept of the article with lots of suggestions. I hope you don't take it as an attack and I hope you find it useful.
As for the humour I found some things funny, though over all I found a lot of the humour fell flat because it was either not developed (a one line joke) or lacked structure (unrelated to the rest of the article, or suffered from the article lacking a concept). Lets do a play by play: Quote: Its okay...but should be expanded or eliminated. Intro: As for nobody cares (which actually, for me at least was pretty funny) is going to be an either love or hate thing. You might find some people see it and go...zheesh, not another nobody cares and stop reading, but I like it. I like the absurd joke in the second sentence. Carbon dating witchcraft...funny in the first sentence, but the rest of it is a little cheesy in my opinion (that of dating). Whats with the chemistry exam thing? Is that relevant to the article? I also find the whole "you don't know what you are talking about" stuff should be cut out (or at the very least modified). If you don't know what you are talking about...why would anyone want to read the rest of the article? Leave it in by all means, but if it is there, I think it should be an integral part of the article. If you would delete it now, nothing would change. If you dont delete it, then the whole article should appear that you know nothing, and it should be for a good and funny reason. Origins: The department of... idea could be funny if you slightly change it. Its hard to think of a good example right now, but perhaps "The department of Propaganda for Archaeology and Archaeology" or something like that (though mines not that much better). I didn't know what dross meant, may be a good place to put a false link. The rest of the first paragraph is at best cute. The next section is much better, the writing style has an energy to it and it is funny. Big sounding words: Oh dear...not a list. Stratigraphy was the one I found funny and fist was cute. The rest are not funny in my opinion and this list should either be populated with outstandingly funny material, or turned into a section about terminology. Or the whole thing could be about Stratigraphy itself as that was funny and is easily expandable. Methods: Digging: The other two being : looking (add the colon). I want to laugh at the obfuscate part, though its a little out of character with the rest of the article. Consider putting in the occasional big stuffy word at funny moments throughout the article and there you will have some more funny bits and this wont seem quite as out of place. The rest of the paragraph is cute but a little confusing. The part about getting laid is cute though not so funny. The rest of the paragraph is confusing. "These are lots of fun" could be expanded and could lead to VERY FUNNY. For example: These big machines are lots of fun and are great tools to get people interested in Archaeology. The British Museum of History has a new program that allows visitors to use the large pick up truck if they promise to memorise the date of one archaeological period. Another group is offered the chance to use sledgehammers or even jack hammers if you will listen to a 5 minute lecture on the history of dust brushes in Greek excavations. The audience is so pumped from the experience their brains don't turn to dust while listening to the lecture. (or something funnier than that). I dont really get the political assassination part. Vases (vauses?): I dont really get exactly what it is that you are trying to say here. Are you making fun of how repetitive the process was here or making fun of how hard it was they had to work or both? Tools: What do you mean by, "no more nails"?, what is a vacuum former?, The skin peeler part has some great potential, but it doesn't seem to be set up ahead of time, its not in a context in which it is particularly funny. The rest is a bit of a mixed bag of cracks. None of which are developed. Statues: The beginning is written fairly well. The idea of super gluing the Colosseum also made me chuckle. Again, this section is a bit of a mixed bag, with no particular development except the first two sentences about Statues which was well written though needs expanding. Architecture: I found the crack about asbestos factories funny, again, the rest, like the anterior paragraphs is a mixed bag with no development. |
| Concept: | 4 | The only idea or concept I can read into your article so far is: "Archaeology is stupid, people who study and do it are boring and everything related to it is pathetic." I guess there is nothing wrong with a concept like this if the whole article is off the wall hilarious, but I find the article really hit and miss in terms of humour. This article really needs some direction. Suggestions: No big ones really come to me however one easy way to add a concept is to pair the main subject of the article with something totally different. What about "gross human rights violation"? In every archaeological excavation, all you really find are expensive buildings by kings and rich people with bowls with food in it, and the corpses of young slaves and serfs who died young with broken bones. With this concept alone you can go all over the place but still have a fixed concept throughout the article. In every section you can point out that this is what archaeologists discover everywhere. Humour can be injected in it in various ways. You can point out how the archaeologists never really notice this (that they are digging up the stones of rich assholes) and tossing out the rocks of slaves (even if that isn't true). You can point out the irony of how many of the excavators are lowly paid slaves themselves (especially in Egypt). You can guess how our own society will be excavated in the future (how will the buildings be discovered, how will people interpret our rich buildings and the slave like bodies in cemeteries?). Ultimately you can do all of this while still keeping a lot of the content you already have in the article.
As it stands now, there are tons of ideas, and only a few of them are really developed. While all of them have very strong potential to have the humour brought out, very little of it is, in fact brought out to a joke with more than one step. For instance: In statues, you cover the the idea of being elaborate, in art in civilisation throughout three sentences and develop the idea. It gets funnier each step of the way (though could definitely continue longer). While the European law section "which says many excavations cannot take place for environmental reasons" is barely developed at all, you simply mention a few places that we can deduce are not environmentally friendly for a few reasons. This is a great opportunity to expand. For instance: "However, international law states the excavation cannot take place on areas deemed unfit for environmental reasons. Who decides which place is deemed fit for investigation makes all of the difference. If it was made up of a committee of Politicians, they would probably give into every political interest and no where would be deemed for excavation as everyone has some interest in keeping land in tact. If historians where the ones to choose, the would probably allow anywhere to be excavated, including their own grandmothers 19th century cottage being torn down, if they thought some old pix axe just might be found. If it was up to the Irish, most people would try to sabotage their neighbours by claiming there were important relics under their houses, forcing their enemies to relocate, while the British would try to stop all excavations in Ireland, worried that their tools of colonial repression would be unearthed inflaming more anti British sentiment , making the Queens next visit to Ireland even more controversial." Now this is just an example, and its probably best not to play the stero-type card on these things, but by expanding the ideas (and there are lots of great ideas for expansion and funny moments that can become hilarious) you can fill out the article with your more inspired ideas and cut out the stuff that are simply one liner gags. In any case, I seriously suggest choosing some kind of concept (it doesnt have to be the whole rich vs. slave concept, it can even be simple that archaeology is a made up science that has something funny or sinister behind it, or it can be something as you say, in which no one knows what they are doing, but you should give a reason why...why is it so stupid, why do only stupid people do it etc...) and you should also seriously expand your ideas over paragraphs or even sections. |
| Prose and formatting: | 4 | I like what you did in the Statues section, if your writing style and development is consistently as high as that then the article will be well written and funny. I dont have much more to say about the article here except you write in many different styles throughout the article (one line gags, well developed paragraphs, lists, a paragraph all over the place) and the article suffers from that lack of consistency. If you write with different styles, there should probably be a good and clear reason to do so. |
| Images: | 4 | I like the second image, I assume that it is some awful statue with a smiley face panted on it? It would be a good idea to chop that and make that much more clear (if it is in fact a horrible statue with a blue happy face painted on it) then paint the smiley face on it better. Im not so sure about the first picture. There should be at least one more image...such as of an excavation, or browse the images of excavations, you may find an old hash pipe, or bizarre looking tool that you can do a ridiculous interpretation about claiming that it was used to do something that it is clearly not capable of doing. I don't find the captions particularly funny. Perhaps with the second image you could say "This elaborate statue shows that even early civilisations had an incredible sense of contrast in making a sculpture perfectly formed to abstractly represent the human body while painting a strategically minimalist facial features onto the sculture" or something like that. |
| Miscellaneous: | 10 | Ten points because the article is BURSTING with ideas and potential. |
| Final Score: | 26 | As Ive said before, the article has many good ideas, the seeds which can be easily developed (longer, clever, funny) and these ideas also need to be given direction (some over all idea or concept: the current concept "archaeology is stupid" is probably not the best one to go with). I really suggest taking time considering an over all idea or concept, grafting that onto the article and expanding your ideas and making those painful cuts we all have to do when writing. Seeing your article history, obviously you can. Let me know if you didnt understand anything here, want me to elaborate on anything or if you want me to introduce you to my grandmother. |
| Reviewer: | --ShabiDOO 16:13, July 13, 2011 (UTC) | |