Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Parallel Parking (2)

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Parallel Parking

I updated it with a new section and 2 new sub-sections that make it more about Parallel parking, and less about the Road Test. ^{Pirate Lord}__Sonic80 (Yell  •  Latest literary excretion) __ 15:48, July 17, 2010 (UTC)

I'll do this one. 24 hours, but probably less. --ChiefjusticeDS 12:12, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Humour:	8	Righto, to start off I thought that your humour was pretty good in general, the article was entertaining enough and has both good and bad parts. The things you do well you have a good grasp of, the things you don't do so well are almost at the level you are obviously aiming for and so just need a quick second look. The very first thing that struck me as I read through your article was that your explanation for who invented parallel parking did not sit as well with me as the rest of the article. My main reason for saying this is not that there are not any good jokes in this section, as there are some excellent ones, my main criticism is that you go from speaking very generally about parallel parking to speaking very specifically about Philadelphia and the difficulties of parking there, my main issue is that this doesn't really explain why Parallel parking has been expanded to be part of the driving test, this is a relatively minor thing but it doesn't make sense when you consider it in the context of the whole article. My recommendation would be that you try and generalise a bit more about it. My second issue was that throughout the article your humour is generally pretty overt and at times this makes the article feel more like a tirade against parallel parking and its inclusion in the driving test. Permit me to expand, consider where you say: " They may find it easier to say "fuck it" and just find a parking lot." while this does communicate the point well enough it doesn't sound like the sort of thing you would here in an encyclopaedia article. This causes the joke to shift from being a response to a challenging situation to a complaint, and it is important that you try to avoid sounding like you are complaining. For a good example of what I mean I would recommend you take a look at this article, take a look at how the author manages to convey a general distaste for a large number of the items described but in most cases does so by subtly demonstrating that a particular practice or event is rather stupid. If we consider the above example where you say "They may find it easier to say "fuck it" and just find a parking lot", by changing this to something like ""Some people found it easier to simply pay half their annual earnings and risk their lives by parking in a filthy cave, which can be optionally dark and populated by the dregs of humanity, otherwise known as a car park." While you may not find this particular example hilarious I hope it makes the point well enough, it demonstrates both that parallel parking an unfortunate necessity for a number of people and subtly shows the lengths to which people will go to in order to avoid parallel parking, you could also suggest that parallel parking was invented to line the pockets of those who run car parks. I would encourage you to investigate ways that you can work this so that a minor change here can add to the impact of other jokes in the article. That is the extent of your humour difficulties. You have an excellent grasp of what you need to do to make your article funny and I have generally struggled to come up with any really major criticisms of your humour itself. My overarching pieces of advice are that you try to avoid sounding like you are ranting and should work on sounding more detached from what you are describing and, if possible, always try and emphasise why something is frustrating or irritating in its own right.
Concept:	5	Ok, your concept is good and you have the right idea for how to execute this one; as evidenced by your humour in general. What is letting you down most of all is your tone which wavers a great deal. Your article begins in the third person tone, which is the same way that wikipedians speak in their articles, the tone is formal and detached and contains few profanities or colloquialisms. The general approach is that an article should have only one tone, yours tends to waver between the two, having a section titled "The Pretentious Asshole theory" doesn't really lend itself to the tone that your article seemed to be striking before then, it stands out a lot and just doesn't seem right with the rest of the article. My advice is that you take a look at this article and pay close attention to the tone. It will be especially challenging for you because of the overt nature of your jokes. I am not recommending the removal of the scenario's as that makes your point well enough. I would just advise some caution be taken when you use profanity or colloquialisms in an article like this. You should also avoid addressing the reader, you don't do this much, but from the start of "The Road Test" section to the end of the article you do seem to be addressing the reader, and I would recommend that you try to speak as though you were simply giving information rather than advice.
Prose and formatting:	7	Your prose are reasonable, I did spy a number of mistakes as I read through so I would really recommend that you first copy and paste the article into a program with a spellchecker and then you proofread carefully, if you aren't too keen on proofreading then you can enlist the aid of someone over at UN:PS or just ask a member on their talk page. Beyond that your formatting isn't too bad, I would however suggest moving your second image so it is between the pretentious image and the final one, there is plenty of space there and the picture itself is not specific to the top of the article; if you move it down the page then you have plenty of space for it and the caption can be changed easily enough. I leave a decision up to you.
Images:	8	Your images are pretty good and all relevant enough. Your captions are also pretty good; I was gratified to see you had clearly put some thought into them. My only advice here would be that you try to tie your images a bit more to your text as they are presently tied to the subject, but have very little relationship with the text they are next to. If you changed the captions to reflect what you have been saying in the text then your images and the jokes related to them have more of an impact. Otherwise you have done pretty well here.
Miscellaneous:	8	My overall grade of the article.
Final Score:	36	I like your article generally and I certainly enjoyed reading it despite the problems I have moaned about above. I realise I have criticised some minor issues a great deal here and would urge you not to be discouraged by this, your article doesn't require major help so I begin to look at the minor issues to try and help you get the article through VFH. If you have any questions or comments for me then you can leave them on my talk page or give me a shout in IRC. Good luck making any changes.
Reviewer:	--ChiefjusticeDS 18:51, August 3, 2010 (UTC)