Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/The Government Guide to Killing Yourself
The Government Guide to Killing Yourself[edit source]
Advice on expansion or new sections would be much appreciated. Thanks. --Matfen 15:46, February 11, 2010 (UTC)
- I'm in here now. 24 hours. --ChiefjusticeDS 17:12, February 11, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 6 | The humour in this one isn't too bad, there were some very sly jokes that really drew me into the article, however, coupled with these good points there were a couple of noticeable problems that I would recommend you take some time to reconsider. The first and most obvious problem that struck me is that the article is very listy, yes there are some prose to be seen in between the main items on the list, but this rarely expands to over 4 lines of text. The problem here is that lists are very predictable, and it is difficult to work any measure of surprise or humour variation into them, this doesn't make lists a bad thing but rather encourages readers to switch off to an article. Now your article has some good jokes mixed into the list taking digs at British politics (more on this later) but my feeling was that while these are original the list of suicide methods isn't. Perhaps I have been spending too long on Uncyclopedia, but when you have articles like this and this the ideas have all been done before, in some form or another, so my recommendation to you is not that you try something else. My recommendation is that you should strive to find something to set your article apart from these, the title gives you some real scope to be innovative with this one and I wouldn't pass the idea up. What sprung immediately to my mind was that you may wish to include something that encourages the idea that this is a government proposal rather than a written guide, for example you could have the necessity for such a list and the projected public reaction to it, perhaps you could even include fictional examples of "campaigns" for the idea, where people come along to give suicide a go to see if it is for them. Since you seem to have a fair grasp of British politics then I would encourage you to exploit this knowledge, a lot of humour could be extracted from going through Government proceedings with this idea without anyone saying that it is an idea for mass-suicide, you can use your ideas from the existing text to do this, just putting it into a more workable and readable for. As you can probably tell I would really encourage you to work with this idea of it being a "Government plan". If you want to know whether you are on the right lines with this then a good idea is to try and see whether you could remove the word "Government" from the title and have the article still make sense.
If you think that the above is a little far fetched then my advice would be that you try to pad out some of your prose, maybe list some cons to the ideas, or perhaps even add some quotes from the families of people who have killed themselves, who are now much happier, just use everything you know about the way the government spins things to make them seem more appealing to the public, remember that the guide needs to sound like it is selling the idea, if it sounds like it is just walking you through the steps then the article will lose much of its impact; this again comes back to the idea that you need to use the originality that the government idea lends your article to keep your jokes funny. Now I will move away from comments about how to better present the humour and focus on the humour you have already for a moment. The jokes are pretty good, as I said, but be careful about delving too deeply into British politics, remember that the article should be accessible to all and making jokes about the current election in this country will have less of an effect on a proud son of the states, I'm not saying you should remove them but rather that you should be aware of the limitations it places on you. The best way to mitigate this you already do a pleasing amount, I like the way you treat suicide as a minor event that is a perfectly permissible way to help the country and would recommend that you try to keep this humour in as much as you can. As I hope I have gotten across the problem isn't that you are making bad jokes, it is that you aren't using all the potential available to this article to do it, if you can come up with a better way to present your jokes to readers, that hasn't been done to death (ha ha), then the article would be scoring far higher and would hold the readers attention much better. |
| Concept: | 6 | OK, as I may have implied already I like the concept for this one, I think it is a new original way to take on this subject but you need to carry that across to the text, as currently you aren't extracting the full potential from it. I managed to talk enough about the potential for the concept's application in the previous section, as it overlaps with your humour quite a bit, so I won't belabour the point any further here. The main thing that is hurting you here is your tone, which is all over the place in the middle of the article, it isn't a massive problem but equally it should not be ignored, especially when you are writing to a high standard, as I feel you are. You say in your preamble that the guide has been written by Gordon Brown, but then continue to refer to him in the third person once the guide has been started, when I read I assumed it started with the heading "Reasons why suicide is a positive option" and thus was expecting the first person tone to switch to come from Gordon Brown's point of view, and thus was somewhat confused when you said:
"The Brown-man knows how you feel on this one. That's how he knows that the best way to get someone's attention is to leave a love-note behind shortly before killing yourself." My confusion was only increased when the article obviously began to come from Gordon Brown's point of view later in the section, and then for the entirety of the second half of the article. My recommendation is that you go back and establish who is supposed to be speaking in each part, you should read the article carefully and make sure that this comes across in the prose. |
| Prose and formatting: | 8 | Much better on this one, the lack of full prose in the majority of the article does hurt you a bit here, and is certainly something I would recommend you try and improve on when you make changes, this will come naturally if you are doing concept work and you should only really become concerned, in my view, if you finish changing your humour and still have more than one single line section. Your spelling and grammar is good and I only noticed a couple of errors as I read through, I will not inflict my proofreading speech on you as you know the importance already. The image formatting is good too, and I was impressed and pleased to see you sensibly fitting the images into the sections they pertained to, some good work there. Overall on this one you have a couple of minor issues to look at, but you would most likely fix these anyway if you choose to have a second look at the way to present the concept. |
| Images: | 8 | Image choice is good, though you may wish to have a word with someone who is skilled in the ways of photo-shop to make you a better first image as it could be a bit better. Beyond that your images are generally appropriate, though you need to watch your captions, you confuse the tone beneath the second image of Gordon Brown and this needs your attention too. Remember that your captions are just as important as the image itself and that you should not forget to alter them if you do decide to change the humour massively, personally I think they could easily be transplanted into the new improved version of the article with no changes made to them at all (bar those mentioned above) as they are pretty good. |
| Miscellaneous: | 7 | My overall grade of the article. |
| Final Score: | 35 | An article that leaks potential from every orifice and you should work to use all of it, you exploit it to an extent, and where you do this your article shines, but such success is always underpinned by disappointment that you didn't do it a bit more. My best advice is that you spend some time thinking about what I have said and your article, you should also ask around for some other opinions on your work, friends/colleagues/pets/other Uncyclopedians are all excellent for this sort of thing, try to decide where you want the article to go and go there with it, since it is your article, my comments are here to direct and advise where necessary. I am happy to answer any questions or listen to any comments you may have for me regarding my review, the article or anything else you happen to think of on my talk page. Good luck making any changes. |
| Reviewer: | --ChiefjusticeDS 13:35, February 12, 2010 (UTC) | |