Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Fruitopia (3rd Time's the Charm?)

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Fruitopia

Edited it a bit per Gerry's requests.You know what the music means... Our time is up. 18:37, 8 July 2009 (UTC) User:POTR/Template:PEEing

Prose and   Formatting: The writing style, spelling, grammar, layout and overall appearance.	8.5	I'm trying to be really critical here on this section, so here we go. Writing style: The writing style here works and to an extent, and it doesn't work. It comes across as a 13 year old fan of Fruitopia who has had years of exposure to HFCS and a distinct lack of Ritalin. In that aspect it works well. By the same token I have difficulty taking the writings of a 13 year-old Fruitopia junkie seriously. (One point on here, in the text you allude the the fact that the narrator was one in 1994 - which makes them 16 now. I'd edit this to say Of course I don't remember it, I wasn't even born! which gives a little more enigmatic narrator.) Spelling: I came across no spelling errors (US English), except those that are part of the writing style, and allowable exaggeration (for instance sniiiff). Grammar: Again no major errors, excepting those things that are part of the writing style. (For instance Hey man, remember Fruitopia? should technically be Hey, man, do you remember Fruitopia?, but the second simply wouldn't sound right.) There's a couple of minor things: Space missing in Translation:The; Damn. should be an exclamation; Those kind of things. Layout: Keeping in mind I said I would be extremely critical - I'd suggest changing the reflist to be <small> and probably have it at the end of each of the chapter, rather than having a separate section for it. I'd also be tempted to do the __NOTOC__ as well as this is fairly short and doesn't need it. And I'd probably drop the heading down to a level 3 heading. Overall appearance: I'll come back to this slightly with the images as well, as I have a mild issue with the way that they are set up, but otherwise there's no significant issues.
Concept: How good an idea is behind the article?	7.5	I've marked you down on this as I don't think that I would ever voluntarily choose to go and visit a site about Fruitopia, be it a parody or otherwise. But the viewing the topic through the eyes of a student in a Spanish class is well done, and something that I wasn't expecting. The only problem is of course that once you understand the concept, there's not that much further you can go with it. Yes, you've created a comic narrative, but this is crying out at some stage for a straight guy to go along with it. Potentially he's reading a Wikipedia article on Fruitopia or something of that nature, but just having a second voice in there to break it up slightly. After all, part of the humour in this comes in that he's talking about a serious (using the term loosely) thing but in a comic way.
Humour: How funny is it? Why is it funny? How can it be funnier?	8	It was funny, but it wasn't extremely funny, if you understand the distinction there. Don't misunderstand me here though - it was very well written and I'm impressed with the overall voice, but it's a step below where I would like it to be. The other thing that hit me is the usage of the Spanish throughout. I mentioned before what I would like to see done with the footnotes; Pretty much I would like to see them become subtitles. But the flicking back and forth I had to do robbed that area of some of the humour that I should have had. Alternatively have the phrases done in such a way that they make sense in context without definition, or translate as part of the narrative itself. So that "...to me, ¡tu tuviste una vida despilfarrada! See, if we ..." becomes "...to me, ¡tu tuviste una vida despilfarrada! That's spanish for "You had a life that was wasted!" See, if we ..."
Images: How are the images? Are they relevant, with good quality and formatting?	8	I want to see one more image in here, and I'd like to see them all right justified. For the fourth image I would just like to see something that relates back to the setting, whether it be this image here of the stern School Marm, or a child head down outside the Principals office, or the door to the Principals office standing slightly open, nothing more than the door with a plate on it and maybe the view of a desk behind to give it a slightly ominous fate worse than death feeling. Either that or something else relating to Snapple and the caption beneath it showing the contempt for it. Either that or trim out enough to just shorten the article by 2 or 3 lines. Removing the TOC or the footnote header or something will probably be enough, but my ideal ration of images:text is for each time that I have to hit page down to get to the bottom of the article (screen resolution 1000 X 800 roughly), I'd like to see an image. I have to hit page down a fourth time just to get that final line of the translation in there. In regards to the right justification for images, it actually makes the text flow a little better. It may be pedantic but I have always preferred to see the left side of the text all aligned on the one vertical axis, as moving the axis to the right slightly just means that you have to make minor changes to the way that you read, and breaks the narrative flow. Having the images on the right hand side, however doesn't appear to have the same detrimental effect of the flow of the narrative, and your eye seems to hit the end of the line of text and go straight back to where the next line starts. Again, it's a minor thing, but if you think about it most text you read is left justified, some fully justified (for instance newsprint) but very few things you come across will be right justified narrative. In case you missed it, the last two paragraphs had the same two "white space" images on the side. The first had them both to the left, the second had them both to the right.
Miscellaneous: The article's overall quality - that indefinable something.	10	This is a brilliantly executed piece and the work you've put into it is fantastic. The writing style is spot on and even without a description of the narrator I have an image of them within my head. The points I've raised as criticism above are all pedantic little things, with the exception of humour.
Final Score: How much can it be improved and what are the most important areas to work on.	42	And I'm going to admit something here now. I first read this article in order to do a review on it three days ago. I haven't done it until now as my overall opinion is that although I don;t think this has quite hit the mark I would like, I don't know what it would need to take it to the next level. I have given you everything that I could see that would improve this, and it may be that just doing the few things here that I've mentioned might be enough.
Reviewer:	Pup t 04:03, 23/07/2009