Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Christine O'Donnell
Christine O'Donnell[edit source]
My final article before shipping off to boot camp err... college. It felt good to write a new article after so long. I was amazed to find out there was no article on the topic. 
Pirate Lord__Sonic80 (Yell • Latest literary excretion) __ 05:44, August 23, 2011 (UTC)
| Humour: | 6 | Howdy Sonic80, hope you're well. So what you have you have here is a pretty good start to an article, but at the moment it does still kind of feel like it's just a "start". In terms of humour, there are some great ideas in there, but I don't think they're all as successful as they could be. At times, I feel you're passing on opportunities to make jokes, or simple including filler which doesn't really add to the humour. The great Hype Donald Westonchester once said that if a sentence doesn't contain a joke or set up a joke then it has no place in an Uncyclopedia article. I think the man had a point. Take a look at this line for instance: they didn't like her "for her, as she once put in an interview with Fox News "in your face attitude". This isn't really a joke; it doesn't really do anything, it's just kind of pointless. And the worst part is, it's kind of shoved on the end of what is actually quite a funny joke (the bit about her imaginary friends not liking her). Why did you feel compelled to include the bit about her attitude? Is there something funny about it? If so, go into detail: make us laugh too. If not, then simply cut it, as well as anything else extraneous like this.
A joke that left me thinking "this could be better" was the "what daughter?" one. It was good, but part of me feels that the joke doesn't work so well in writing. It's probably more of a dialogue-based joke. If I picture the scene of the parents saying "what daughter?" I know that it's funny, but reading it here it doesn't really strike me as such. Perhaps it could be reworked? Maybe as a caption for an image so you can use funny visuals to enhance it (parents dropping off baby, parents staring blankly as neighbours question where their daughter went, something like that). In any case, have a think about it. The Wicca section also stands out in a bad way. It seems a bit random to me, but that might be because I don't know much about O'Donnell (did she really practice Wicca?) Such a brief divergence as this will probably always look random however, even if it is mostly true. What I would recommend if you're going to keep it is to introduce it more smoothly; perhaps mention how she was once a witch in the intro, and you should probably expand upon it as well so it isn't so brief. After that, it might not seem so much at odds with everything else. |
| Concept: | 6 | Again, you're hitting on some interesting things, but development is needed. At times I feel the article has no overarching hook which sets it apart from the others. Simply making out that someone is a retard isn't particularly funny (unless you do it, like, really well), and I think you might need a tad more than that. It's all been done before (see George W Bush, and probably many others). The test subject idea is probably the most interesting thing you've got, but you don't play on it much. The intro makes out like that is going to be your key gag, but then you focus mostly just on the retardation, which kind of disappointed me. You could definitely go further with it. One of my favourite jokes was the one where she didn't know what masturbation or adultery meant, but they promised her a Power Puff Girls lunchbox if she talked about them - more like this would be great. What other silly things has she done/said that could be explained away like this? And what other preparations/conclusions would the scientists have made throughout the tests?
The main problem is that right now it all flits about a bit too much and doesn't develop the central theme properly. Good examples of biographical articles are Keanu Reeves, Terry Gilliam and Dave Chapelle, all of which only really have one joke - an exaggerated feature about that person - which they continually refer back to for humour. Being a retard alone isn't funny enough, but the experiment thing could be interesting if you utilised it as well as those other articles. Or found something else. Maybe... that's up to you. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | Your prose is ok, sometimes it get a bit tricky to read because you're cramming too much into one sentence. This one's a good example: "they finally decided that they could no longer have other parents in their gated-in whites-only neighbourhood complaining about "that dumbass O'Donnell kid" at their wine mixers and croquet games". I had to read it again to take it all in. "Could no longer stand" might work better than "no longer have". Just write as clearly and as simply as you can, don't try to be too wordy or clever. Another confusing sentence is ""who loves traditional values and misunderstanding the United States Constitution, and her views complemented that". You should definitely revise that because it's three clauses don't seem to agree with each other. These two examples, and the one I mentioned above about her "in your face attitude", could do with a bit more work from yourself, and you should also carefully check the rest of the article for similar issues. |
| Images: | 5 | The images are ok, except for the witch one, which I didn't really like (it looks poorly made and is not especially funny). Your captions are good too, although the Hulk one could probably be worded clearer. The only other thing I have to say about images is that you could do with more. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6 | Averaged, because I needed another number. |
| Final Score: | 30 | Ok, so a little bit more work and this should be a great article in no time. Try to get a few more jokes in there and develop the core idea a bit more. Apart from that, good work. If there's anything I've said here that you want me to explain better, or if you want my opinion on anything I might have missed, or even if you're just lonely, please let me know on my talky page and I'll try to help. Keep up the good work and I hope the review is ok. |
| Reviewer: | --Black Flamingo 22:46, September 30, 2011 (UTC) | |