Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/USA Women's Rhythmic Gymnastic Team Disqualified

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UnNews:USA_Women's_Rhythmic_Gymnastic_Team_Disqualified

Smuggler 09:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

The Rt Hon W Gladstone, MP, GOM is currently discharging the contents of his bladder in the vicinity of this particular contribution. You are cordially advised to stand well back, as decades of consorting with courtesans has left his aim somewhat lacking in containment!

Humour:	5	OK so... what have we here? Third (I think) in a series of news reports all making roughly the same joke - that the US are so stupid they don't know what the sports are. Fencing - I sort of got; water polo was a bit vague until I saw the picture of the horse. And so now we come on to rhythmic gymnastics. Now firstly, let me identify, for those that don't know, what rhythmic gymnastics actually is. See in the Olympics you have two types of gymnastics (well three, but trampolining isn't a proper sport) - artistic and rhytmic. Artistic, well, we can all appreciate that - honed muscles, petite ladies (mmmm Shawn Johnson Stop it Gladstone, she's only 16!), daring and dangerous routines. Rhythmic gymanstics is, uh, women dancing around a mat with balls. Or ribbons. Or hoops. So to date, I think the funniest thing anyone has ever said about rhythmic gymnastics is, "I know, let's make it an Olympic Sport" which, incidentally, was in 1984 at a games hosted by, uhh, the stupid yanks who are the subjects of the piece. Now then, humour score. I've marked it 5, which is supposed to be sort of a bit below average. I didn't find it particularly funny for a few of reasons. One, because jokes tend to lose their impact at the third reading, and the same is true of these articles. Two, because it is largely repeated from previous articles - specially the quotes in the middle section. Three, and for me most annoyingly, because it's ridden with badly done clichés: Stupid Americans don't know what the sport actually *is* - have to say, this is at least partly due to the repetition of the joke. American TV anchors shout loudly to voice their disgust (I'm assuming that's what Travis Tidbats is, without reading other reports to remind myself) but say nothing comprehensible. American Jocks stand around saying "Dude" and "Bro" all the time (used to great effect once in about 1974). Now to be fair, I should try and give some suggestions as to how to improve it. Primarily, I would combine the three articles as one - have the second and third as "breaking news" or something. This would get away from the problem of a repeated joke, as it would be one article for one joke.
Concept:	6	Not a lot else to say. The original concept, as a one-off article, while not terribly subtle in its humour had some merit and if done well would work as a stand alone article - I'd have concentrated on the fencing one, since that's two completely different things (rhythmic gymnastics is still basically dancing, while polo and water polo are both sports, whereas fencing and fencing have very little in common). However, the link between gyrating like a slapper and rhythmic gymnastics is probably the weakest of the three, and I think it reads as though another one in the series was sought and this was the best that you could come up with. You could as easily have done something slightly different - had them take Dan Wheldon because they mixed up diving and driving, or have the shooting team pulling out after they refused to give up their right to bear arms when travelling between venues.
Prose and formatting:	5	Spelling, Grammar etc Not terribly strong - there's a lot I have issue with. The first sentence is just a fragment, which I assume is intended to sound like someting a news anchor would read. I don't like the use of capital eltters to emphasise words - not something you'd see in a normal printed news article, so looks out of place in this. Indeed, t'etiquette of tinterweb uually states that caps = shouting, which in this case isn't particularly helpful. And punctuation - various (though as much requests as rules): Stick to one exclamation mark please - they're far more effective at conveying their message if they'e used sparingly and singly. When you're quoting people, use a comma rather than a semicolon before the quote: One Chinese Olympic Official is quoted as saying, "These chicks... Try and get your apostrophes right. There's only two situations you should use them; when you're replacing letters (as in "you're"), or when you're talking about something that belongs to someone. You never use it for plurals - including in for abbreviations like ATMs; you wouldn't refer to "Automated Teller Machine's", so ATM's would be wrong by extension. Prose Again, it's awkward. As with the other two articles before it, it took me a while to get the message - which means that when people read it the joke will fall a bit flat. 90% delivery or something. Anyway. As I say in the case of most UnNews articles I review - have a bit of a look at how newspaper articles are structured. Basically, you break it down into thirds - first third, everyone reads, so that's where the basic facts go. Second third is where 2/3 of people read, so that has a bit more detail explaining the story, but no in huge detail. The last section only 1/3 of people read, so that's where you put the more detailed information, clarification etc. It's a really useful way to look at it, because it helps you to plan what you're going to write - my most recent article tries (whether successfully or not) to achieve that sort of structure.
Images:	6	You've packed them in, which is OK. I think they're a bit obvious - there's five pictures which are all basically the same, all saying basically the same thing - an article should be illustrated with something which enhances the article (that's not to suggest that semi-naked laydees doesn't fulfil that, just not in the newspaper fashion. It's why The Sun is such bobbins). I think it primarily wants one picture of the team... ## BREAKING NEWS ## BREAKING NEWS ## BREAKING NEWS## OK, so I've been writing this review for almost an hour, and it's literally just dawned on me that its all about ladies with drumsticks. OK then...
Miscellaneous:	5.5	Average of above.
Final Score:	27.5	Not really much more to add than what I've already said. And while I say things like plan it and stuff, I'm as guilty as the next man for starting writing something without planning it at all - but it's still worth doing. Good luck and keep writing.
Reviewer:	Rt Hon W E Gladstone MP GOM | Converse | 00:19, 21 August 2008 (UTC)