Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Butter v. toast

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Butter v. toast

Hi, my second "serious" article... It started out as an UN:Idea as a court battle between butter and toast, I grabbed it and ran amok with the whole thing. Layout is similar to wikipedia law articles, but lack the law template found there. Btw, do check out the links. Sakai4eva 04:42, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

I can go ahead a review this for you. Don't know if I can get to it within 24 hours though since I have to write an actual article for my school paper tomorrow in addition to classes and homework spattered throughout the day along with a whole bunch of other crap I have to put with at VMI. I'd say expect it done within 24-48 hours. --Sir Skinfan13 Talk {< CUN RotM FBotM VFH ΥΣΣ Maj. SK >} 0143 EST 3 February, 2010

Take your time... I don't intend to die young. --Sakai4eva 06:56, February 3, 2010 (UTC)

OK, I've started my review, but it probably won't be done for a while unless I can get to it later tonight after more homework. I'm leaving for a long trip tomorrow to compete in Charleston SC for the VMI NCAA Rifle team this weekend, no promises as to when it will be done, but I'll get to it asap.

--Sir Skinfan13 Talk {< CUN RotM FBotM VFH ΥΣΣ Maj. SK >} 2353 EST 3 Feb 2010

Ok, thanks! MUAX! --Sakai4eva 05:47, February 4, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the honest to goodness review... I was educated in British English, thus the spelling inconsistency for an article based on US, my mistake there. I do admit to the lame jokes. I started with the introduction first (big mistake) but things soon got out of hand when I hunted for materials... --Sakai4eva 23:42, February 4, 2010 (UTC)

Hey, it's my pleasure. I'm looking forward to seeing this when you're done, message me and I'll have a look. Until then, stay cool :) --Sir Skinfan13 Talk {< CUN RotM FBotM VFH ΥΣΣ Maj. SK >} 23:31 EST 4 Feb 2010

Heheh... the re-write might take some time (read; FOREVER), but I'd probably be lying if I said I'd get it done... So how do I move it to my userpage? --Sakai4eva 05:23, February 5, 2010 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and do it for you, I'll create a sandbox page for you to work with. I'll leave the link for you on your talk page. --Sir Skinfan13 Talk {< CUN RotM FBotM VFH ΥΣΣ Maj. SK >} 00:35 EST 6 Feb 2010

Humour:	2.5	I'm sorry for the low humor grade, but this article deserves it. I have a feeling that this review is going to come off as quite negative, but I sincerely hope you don't take it personally and look to this simply as constructive criticism rather than a stiff rebuking. That said, I'll give you my initial impressions and then go through section by section with what I thought was funny and what worked alongside what simply wasn't funny and what didn't work. I think the score should show you that I felt much more in here didn't work and needs revising, but take heart! This article is very salvageable. Initial Impressions The title made me chuckle. The opening bit grabbed my attention and enticed me to read further. The opening section is pretty short though. I thought that your execution of the underlying joke in the article began to tapper off in consistency and quality fast though. My initial impression is that you started off well enough but you eventually slid into using cliches and bad humor, and it definitely felt forced, and quite frankly hard to read, towards the end. My initial impression was that if you had stuck with the concept and kept it consistent throughout, this article would have been a 6 to a 7.5. Section by Section Introduction This is probably the best or second best part of your article honestly. The link to gibberish from the court docket numbers was pretty much the only part of the article that made me chuckle. What really doesn't work for you here is your syntax and grammar issues right off the bat. I tell you this in the humor section because it significantly detracts from the humor of the section, if not the entire article, when you have multiple issues with grammar in the first few sentences. I'll address your other issues with syntax and grammar in the prose section latter on. Your opening blurb is a quick summary of the entire article that serves as an introduction, it isn't simply the first part of your article. You have to use the opening section carefully and wisely in order to draw the reader in. What you have here to start is good enough minus the grammar issues, but it is too short. You need to lengthen it to one or two full paragraphs. some Wikipedia articles even have multiple paragraphs for the introduction section. I'm not saying you need to do this, but you should include more material. The second issue with your introduction is that you lay out a good idea, but your article does not stick to what you set out in your introduction, or at least it seems that way as the reader progresses. I guess my overall advice for your opening is to lengthen it by making it a short layout of the entire idea of the article without giving too much away and to proofread it. edit: after going through the article a third time, It occurred to me that you do not mention anywhere the decision in terms of votes, as in a 5-4 or 6-3 decision or what have you. Mention it at some point in the introduction bit and again in more depth in the decision section. Introduction, History and Preface This section starts off alright, but quickly runs into problems. The first thing that stands out to me is when you say, "since the dawn of man and bread" which really doesn't make sense or flow well. Bread was not invented at the dawn of man and you gain no humor by adding this. I would simply say something like, "Since the invention of bread long ago, butter has been..." Also, the 1910's weren't so scandalous, the 1920's however are well know to be a loose decade, which helps to really make the 1910's stick out as an odd choice because of their proximity. I'd change it to the 1920's. Your therefore conclusion doe not make sense either, why would stale toast= good? The whole joke would work just as well without that one portion of the "equation". I have mixed feelings about this section. I think the underlying idea is good, but your execution is poor. It is also rather short for an introduction a history and a preface. FaxFacts and Arguments of the Case first off, doing the strike-through of "fax" and replacing it with facts is just stupid, there's no joke behind it. Get rid of it, or find a joke about a fax or a fax machine to put into the text (which would make more sense but still be stupid. I say get rid of it). As for the content itself, this is probably your best section. While the sexual references and blue links are rather obvious, they work and it's funny. A problem you have though is that you link sexual innuendo twice. you need to decide which one, "spreading herself" or "experiment" you like best (personally I think spread herself is funnier and less obvious. If you catch the reader off guard, it tends to be funnier. experiment is just too obvious). either way, you need to get rid of one of the links. Your images here as part of the exhibits are the best part of the article imo, but more on that in the appropriate section. I really don't get the point of the recipe. basically, you have a good start here in this section, but I feel that the recipe is really the start of the large downhill fall this article takes. This section needs a stronger conclusion and probably more filler as well. Decision and Judgement "Judgement" is spelled judgment for the record. It really doesn't bode well when a header is misspelled. This section is definitely the point at which this article takes a drastic turn towards insanely stupid and not funny. The score of 2.5 is basically for everything I have reviewed so far. If I had to grade the humor of everything from this section on, it would be a 0.5 to a 1, in all honesty. You have too many memes and cliches and the content is just stupid and not funny. Your conclusion that the justices reach is nonsensical, it would make much more sense and be funnier if the judges found no moral problems (overlooking the fact that the SCOTUS is supposed to be an impartial institution) with the actions of toast, but found serious breach of contract issues. I have to admit, reviewing this last half is going to be difficult: I really can't see much that you can salvage at this point, both in content and ideas. Your supreme court justice quotes and names are simply horrendous. they're not even remotely subtle. Plus you make really bad use of strikethrough again. This section needs a lobotomy. keep the concept, but start over from scratch. Fallout, Aftermath and Response This is by far the worst section of this article. If I had to grade the humor of this section alone, it would flat out be a 0. I'll address parts of it, but quite simply this section either needs to go, or get completely redone from scratch. this: "In the aftermath of the case, Butter initially filed for separation from Toast for the mandatory period of two years. However, after six days, Toast declared he could not live without Butter. Driven by his emotional plea, other prominent citizens began commenting on the situation. The entire world was divided into two warring factions, Pro-Toast and Pro-Butter. The battle between Butter and Toast escalated outside of the courtroom into the world, bringing about the downfall of the world economy and the enactment of the most famous laws regarding Toast." is simply ridiculous. too much hyperbole, especially at the end when you say it brought about the downfall of the world economy. I can see potential here to tie in a recession, you know, one of the real ones that happened in the US, to this decision. If you want to keep this concept, you need to seriously retool this. I would attack it from a more encyclopedic angle. Have the anxiety of the separation of toast and butter be more focused from a 3rd person perspective, i.e. how the world's economy or the uS economy is in recession because of the fall in stock of land-o-lakes and wonder bread or something. Parody-driven humor stems from the mocking of reality, not the invention of complete fiction. I understand that this article is fiction, but realize that satirical fiction always gets its jollies from poking fun at reality. You have too many quotes, cliches, and memes. get rid of them, start over. Black & Blue Monday, and Socio-politico-economic Implications now here is where there is promising concept, but your execution is bad. You basically claim that un-buttered toast a) created a world-wide depression and b) defeated the communist east. I hope that sentence resonates with you on how dumb that is. there's a wonderful opportunity here to simply focus on one of the 80's recessions and how they were solved when it was determined that butter and toast must be together. seriously though, you need to drop all of these cliches and memes, they really hurt the article, especially the nazi and russian stuff, it really isn't funny. US Senate Response this section has potential but the execution and syntax is all off. Reagan's speech is a good parody, but there are various syntax errors that make reading it not very smooth. Reagan also used the royal "we" instead of I, which really is more confusing than funny. the last bit about I can;t believe its not butter needs to be reedited so that it makes more sense. it makes no sense to say that for the first time ever the house unanimously passed the bill. The house passes legislation unanimously almost every day. furthermore, the section is entitled the US Senate Response. you should simply change the heading to US Congress, which implies both the house and senate. In order for it to be a historic unanimous vote,, you could say that for the first time ever, the bill was written, debated and passed by Congress within a 24 hour period. that would be more historic than an everyday occurrence. not a fan of the ghee link, for the same reasons above that it's just dumb and not funny. the Stephen Hawking bit is over the top and unnecessary. It also has the added bonus of not being funny. Summary This article needs a lot of work. Again, please don't be discouraged. I wouldn't have reviewed this for you if I didn't think there was something salvageable here. I think that if you significantly edit this piece to give it a more serious tone, this concept has a lot of potential to be funny.
Concept:	5	The concept is fairly original, but you execute the concept poorly. I really think that if you take this idea, a court case between butter and toast, and spin it in a more serious satirical nature (satirizing American government, the SCOTUS, or even just American culture) would be a good direction to take this. What you have right now basically boils down to a court case between butter and toast started over claims of contract breach and infidelity that somehow ended up in the supreme court. the decision sparks outrage amongst a whole host of fictional characters and internet memes and somehow crashes the world economy and at the same time ends the reign of communism in the east. This prompts Reagan to try and have legislation passed forcing toast to be buttered. That's how it reads to me and this is an average conception of the idea of a court case between butter and toast at best. Doing what I said above, I believe, can help rescue this article and make it pretty good. I think a more serious tone and a more satirical take would boast this score to a 7 or an 8.
Prose and formatting:	4.5	You follow a basic encyclopedic format for the most part. You have significant spelling, grammar, and syntax issues. I pointed out a few in the humor section. I would copy and paste the whole article into MS word and run spell check. It should pick up most of your spelling issues. Ask someone to proofread this for you. You can also print it out and read it: it is a lot easier to proofread your own work on print rather than on screen. trust me, you will catch a lot more errors this way. the section in the middle with all of the unrelated pictures and the quotes really hurt your score here. without that section, this article would have been a 6-7.5
Images:	3.5	I was severely torn with this one. Your exhibits section with the 8 pictures of various toast and condiments was perfectly fitted for the article. I really liked this part, along with the smiley face toast. The captions were good also. The "they were so happy is the best caption in the article, along with the old fashioned toaster as BDSM equipment. that's where the good ended. I feel after having looked through the article multiple times that the bad images and captions far outweigh the good and that's the reason for the low score. If you didn't have those 8 pictures I mentioned in the article I would have seriously given you a 1 or a 2 for the score, for the following reasons: your images are extremely generic and I've seen most of them in other articles. they are incredibly memeish (if that's a word lol) the majority of your captions are unimaginative for example, the white toaster linking to racism. cliched, not funny The stricken out text on the supreme court seal picture. etc the pictures of the "justices" is juvenile. so are the names of the justices and the captions. Bilbo baggins? common dude... Nazis? Christianity? the caption on the senates seal stephen hawking is another unnecessary addition.
Miscellaneous:	2	in it's current state, this article did not entertain me. by the half-way point it was a forced reading for the sake of the review. I would have clicked away to a different page by the time it got the the decision section. based solely on entertainment value this article gets a 2.
Final Score:	17.5	I really only mean to give honest constructive criticism. I don't been to simply beat you down here, but to show you quite frankly where this article could be improved. Like I've said multiple times, I believe you can improve this and salvage it. This could be a featured article some day, but it's going to take some massive revisions. I really look forward to seeing how you decide to make this funnier, I'm not kidding about that :) I would love to read a funny, and satirical article about a court case involving butter and toast. I suggest having a look at HTBFANJS, it really does have some great advice. please feel free to blast me a new asshole at my talk page or to discuss this review or anything about the article. Sorry about the wait too, thus is the life of an ROTC student living within a military dictatorship.
Reviewer:	--Sir Skinfan13 Talk {< CUN RotM FBotM VFH ΥΣΣ Maj. SK >} 15:09 EST 4 February, 2010