Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis[edit source]
New, original article. Requesting pee review.
72.40.35.66 02:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
| Humour: | 5 | Too much of "teh random". There are way too many things that seem to be thrown in with no rhyme or reason. See endnotes. |
| Concept: | 6 | The biological phenomenon of metamorphosis is interesting, and Wikipedia has an article on it. You might have a look at their opening paragraph. |
| Prose and formatting: | 4 | On formatting: Paragraphs! Use them. Huge blocks of prose make the reader sigh unhappily. Also, there are grammatical errors and some very long wandering sentences. See endnotes. |
| Images: | 5 | There are images, but not particularly metamorphic or funny ones. |
| Miscellaneous: | 5 | This piece leaves me feeling ambivalent. |
| Final Score: | 25 | |
| Reviewer: | ----OEJ 18:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC) | |
Endnotes[edit source]
First off, these are my personal subjective opinions -- what I felt as I personally read the article. My personal reaction.
1. Prose and formatting Paragraphs were invented for a reason: to allow the writer to separate different but related concepts or episodes into short blocks of logically-organized prose. A reader confronted with whopping great chunks of unformatted prose like the section on "History of Metamorphosis" is likely to shrug and take a permanent vacation from the article.
Be careful with grammar. "...but to the poor man's demise..." is not the correct way to use the word demise, which simply means death.
Avoid run-on sentences.
- "The foolish Albert Einstein thought he could improve metamorphosis by adding vanilla, but to the poor man's demise, the unstable mixing of the four materials resulted in the creation of cake, killing him and his entire family, whom also happened to be in town."
- Albert Einstein foolishly thought he could improve metamorphosis by adding vanilla to the recipe. But to the poor man's chagrin, the unstable mixture created cake instead. The enraged pastry killed him and, tragically, destroyed his entire family as well.
Three sentences make the sequence more digestible than one long rambling one.
Incidentally, you have a problem: You let the reader assume that the events described are happening in the reader's current timeframe. Then you write that Einstein "had been visiting from the future at that time." Problem: Einstein is dead, and if the time is approximately the current time then he must have been visiting from the past, and not the future. It's illogical.
2. Conceptual Stuff There are too many random things, some of which don't make sense. At one place it is the next-door-neighbor who discovers metamorphosis, at another place it the guy you saw once at the grocery store.
(Both, incidentally, use in-joke links to Uncyc articles instead of referring to "real" people. This is dicey: a reader knows that if you say "James Fatbottie invented metamorphosis" it refers to one specific person, but if you say "your next-door neighbor invented metamorposis" it refers to a whole bunch of people -- the neighbors of everyone who reads the article. It is intrinsically nonsensical, which is only good if you want the article to be nonsense.)
Have a look at this:
- "Due to the mysterious reappearance, and even more mysterious disappearance shortly after, of the Einstein family, the authorities decided to investigate. What they found inside that house were unspeakable horrors that still cause God to weep into the night, while at the same time Satan to dance around the room. These horrors include a paper clip, cake, some tic-tacs, and an anatomical drawing of a diagram of a map to Wal-Mart."
Now, just what mysterious reappearance of the family are you talking about? You said they happened to be in town, but that's not a reappearance. It's just confusing. The items listed are trivial, yes, and in the case of the drawing of a diagram of a map, incomprehensible...but that does not make them funny. Or useful to the article.
Finally, including in-joke links just for the sake of including them is not generally good practice. You may like the articles on Some old lady, that guy you saw at the store one time, and Captain Obvious, but just slapping them into your article willy-nilly weakens it.
Similarly, just assuming that cake is evil without explaining why is really bad form. Again, there is no logic to it. You just say the cake killed Einstein and his family, and that if you accidentally produce cake instead of metamorphosis "you will die". I like cake, 'specially chocky cake. Nothing bad about cake, the reader is inclined to say.
Sorry this review is somewhat negative. As I explained, it is only my personal opinion. I feel that the piece needs a lot of work.
----OEJ 18:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)