Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/UnNews:US surge in Afghanistan may be followed by more strategy alterations, warm fuzzy feeling
UnNews:US surge in Afghanistan may be followed by more strategy alterations, warm fuzzy feeling[edit source]
Well, I hope you enjoy it. I'm really here for a better title that truly captures the idea.
Nikau 11:52, January 13, 2010 (UTC)
I'll take this one in the next 24 hours. --ChiefjusticeDS 21:20, January 15, 2010 (UTC) I'll have to push this one back to another time, I've been asked to do a different article, I'll still get this done if you don't mind waiting. --ChiefjusticeDS 21:44, January 15, 2010 (UTC)
- OK, I'll try to have this one done tonight. --ChiefjusticeDS 17:53, January 18, 2010 (UTC)
- Isn't going to happen, many many problems have arisen, it is still on my list of things to do and I can guarantee it by the end of Wednesday, but if anyone else fancies this one before then feel free. --ChiefjusticeDS 20:26, January 18, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 7 | Right, I enjoyed the humour for the most part and there are a couple of genuinely amusing parts of the article. I did, however, notice a couple of problems which I recommend you sort out before you do anything else with this one. The first thing I noticed was that the joke that you ground the entire article in, the premise, if you will is not very clear. With an UnNews this is particularly important, consider the opening to a normal news article, the very first thing that you will see is some information about what is happening and where it is happening, this is as clear as possible, for example, something like "Alderaan, the capital planet of the Alderaan system, has been destroyed at the loss of thousands of lives in an act of aggression by the Galactic Empire. The destruction comes after the plans to the space station were stolen by Rebel Spies two weeks ago". With the above, despite it being a well known part of the plot of Star Wars, you know what is going on before the story launches into analysis, the reason for the story is stated, it is mixed with facts and it then gives a reason. It could then move into analysis and give quotes etc. The problem I found with your article is that the preamble is quite confused and I was still unsure as to what was going on when you launched into the report by the general. From what I could gather the idea is that the US forces in Afghanistan should be replaced by a small group of action movie stereotypes? Perhaps I am being incredibly thick, something which is not altogether unheard of, but this did not seem clear enough. You are definitely on the right lines with it and seem to know what you are doing, this is partly because of some grammar difficulties but I would recommend that you do your best to make the preamble a bit more readable, as it is undoubtedly the most important part of the article. The best way to do this would be to sit with a real news article and to try to style your article in the same way, don't change the joke, but rather the way it reads.
The other criticism I found was that the quote is very long, this is not a serious problem but you are unlikely to come across such a long quote in a real news article, I would suggest that you try having the quote last for the length of two small paragraphs, as it is a much less effective way of making jokes over time than the narrators voice is. In line with extending the use of the narrator's voice, try making the quote more concise and then having the narrator explain the rest of it. Remember while it is important to copy some aspects of real news for your humour it is also important to do some parts differently, saying things like "The general's report continued for about 8 more pages, but it seemed to have gotten to the point, so we didn't read anymore". Now while that may not be the zenith of humour I hope it gets the point across, you should try to have the narrator have a character, they can be sarcastic, lazy or anything else, just be subtle with it. My recommendation would be to experiment with different ways of using the quote. The material within the quote is amusing enough but it really needs to be a bit more concise. However, the decision here is completely yours, if you are particularly fond of the quote as it is then leave it and work round it. As I said, I am pleased with the material you have here, I would just like to see it put into a form that means you make the most of the UnNews feel as I think this would have much more of an effect on the reader. |
| Concept: | 9 | I like the concept and I think your execution is near spot on. The problem, and sorry if I sound like a scratched record, is that there are too many quotes in the article. Now there is nothing wrong with using quotes as the medium to get a joke across to a reader, it is just my feeling that they should not outnumber the prose, I would have difficulty identifying one point in particular to remove from your article with a quote so my recommendation would be that you tried to see if you could make a couple of the same points without quoting, this is not essential, but to me seems desirable, I think that the narrator's prose should be a bit more than glue to hold the quotes together. As I have already said, this decision is yours to make. Otherwise no complaints from me on this section. |
| Prose and formatting: | 6 | OK, I felt that this was your weakest section, the prose are OK, but the grammar is not. I cannot state how invaluable proofreading is when you are writing, the problem for you is that during the preamble it is quite difficult to ascertain what you are talking about because of the missing punctuation. You should also make sure typos don't slip into your work, for example "White House" is two separate words. If you don't want to proofread your own work the the proofreading service is available to you. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of proofreading carefully. Beyond that your formatting is pretty good and the text is broken up nicely, some of the captions are quite long and you might want to think about making them a bit more concise. |
| Images: | 8 | The images are good, the problem is your captions, try to relate them a but more to the article, I can see you are making some attempt to do this, but would recommend that you try to make the links to the article a bit more obvious. Remember that your captions are just as important as the image, so they are definitely worth spending some time on. |
| Miscellaneous: | 7 | My overall grade of the article. |
| Final Score: | 37 | I liked your article and I think that with a bit more work it will be excellent. Where your article is really having problems is that the presentation is leaving a lot to be desired, so if you can direct the majority of your effort towards that first and then sort any other problems afterwards then you will sort everything I have mentioned much faster. If you have any questions or comments for me then let me know on my talk page. Good luck making any changes. |
| Reviewer: | --ChiefjusticeDS 10:17, January 19, 2010 (UTC) | |