h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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Hello and thanks for reviewing my humble page. You will find the next page to review at: http://www.h2g2.com/P169193 Called Comic heroes, But hey, what's the rush? Before you move on why not read what others have said, you may be able to add further comment and join in the discussions.

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Guy

A nice page, I liked it a lot. But as a Yank I was unsure at first about who Gromit was! I got it later, but I was floundering for a little while. Isn't this the same stuff they used to make "Gumby" in America??
No grammar or spelling flaws.

I'd like to see you expain who Gromit is earlier in the text somehow (I know, that's not the most helpful thing I've ever heard eighter!) but other that this minor flaw a good one!
7 out of 10!
Nice job!

Like it a lot - how about a link to the morph section on my page for stop motion animation films! well done. It gets an 8

Well put together Guy but not knowing any of the programmes, nor having any recent experience with the product, I am at a bit of a loss to constructively critique it. If Ginger likes it, so do I. 8

Well known crawler Loony exits the forum.

I liked the article but found the structure a bit quirky. Maybe if the claymation stuff had a heading of its own it would be clearer.
Nce stuff nonetheless.

;^)#

Hmm, yes, I think I was having one of my more eccentric days. MNid you, I always write like I talk, so it's a fair reflection of the vogonality of the writer

'Morph appeared on Vision On, a programme hosted by Tony Hart and Pat Keysell, whose other notable achievements included being the first mainstream British TV programme with signing alongside the speech segments'

Ok, maybe this is just me but -

From the above section I can see Morph appeared on Vision On - Ok
However, the structure of the sentence is kind of hard to follow. Was it the programme that had those notable achievements, or was it Tony Hart and Pay Keysell? Perhaps you could use some hyphens "-" to seperate the programme hosts.

In addition, there's something about the structure of the rest of the sentence, it's too long or there are too many sylables. Perhaps something like 'included simultaneous transmission of sign language with speech' would be easier to read.

Apart from that, no worries! It's an article that needs submitting as its' subject matter is something that most adults will certainly identify with.

7/10

Ah, Wallace and Gromit! You just have to love the squishy stuff!
I enjoyed the page very much, good info!

Some good stuff in here - I liked the recipe(s) and the background on Aardman. As the rest of the world is less familiar with Morph than Wallace & Gromit you may want to write a bit less about the former and a bit more abour the latter. The article duplicates some of the info in the link to Morph that you put in it. If necessary a sub-ed can ask for extra info to be added to an already existing article so as to concentrate information on one subject in as few places as possible (ideally one unique entry.)

It is best to avoid writing in the first person within the Guide wherever possible, however, although there are ways round it..
e.g. "The author of this article believes that.."
I have done it myself in the psat, but now I'm avoiding it because I now see in my mind's eye someone arriving at the article having done a search on something they need info on. They won't know who I am so the 'I' may confuse them as the rest of the Official Guide Entries are 99.9% third-person with a smattering of 'you' (2nd person) stuff which is just there to avoid use of the word 'one' as in 'One may believe...' which makes everyone think of the Queen (Gawd bless her - lend us some money Maam...)
It's like the 'national pride' thing you mention - does the Guide have a nation? Surely the internet is the only nation we have in common
If you could re-write without the first person and put quote marks around the names of TV programmes then I think you've got a good chance of getting it accepted and the recipe for plasticene is something strangely useful (may not kill you to put metric equivalents in too!).
-TWF

BTW on the subject of Claymation. Does anyone remember something called 'Red and Blue' about 2 claymation characters who could change into anything. They were perpetually attacking each other to the accompaniment of a weird Spanish/Italian(?) dialogue? Dunno if it predates Morph but it was very odd indeed

Red & Blue are still one of my favourite TV shows - still gets repeated here in Oz too


;^)#

The article is well written and funny, but incredibly confusing. I think it this is because of the heavy referential content. People who know nothing about this subject will not know who Gromit or Tony Hart or any of those people are. I suggest you either eliminate some of those references, or give better descriptions of who they are and what their impact is. As it is, I'll give you a 6.

Look again, guys, and note any improvement / degradation.

JzGyk?

Well done, 'tis much more logical now - provided you like the concept of footnotes.

Nice to see your open to constructive criticism, and don't take it personally you son of a *

Slightly specific, and I do wonder if someone outside of the UK will know who most of the main references are. However, with a little more expanation this will not be a problem. As far as content goes, this is a good article - humourous, researched, and it includes info about Nick Park, and I've always been partial to his work. If the article has a failing, it's that there's some very sloppy english in places. The Morph section borders on the unreadable, and there is a lot of "word repetition" in sentences.

As it stands I'll give it a 6.5. Sort out the english, and add a bit more info about Tony Hart et al and I'd up that to an 8.

It's getting better. The tendency to turn brown when no-one's looking bit will make no sense to anyone who doesn't know Morph, so they would have to click the link to understand. Guide entries should make sense in their own right without having to go off somewhere else, so the joke doesn't really work. You could maybe get away with it by sticking it in a footnote after the Morph reference, but you may be best off talking about Wallace & Gromit before (or instead of) Morph as only us old Brit gits know about Vision On and Tony Hart. Which is kind of saying what the review before this one said

On another note - your two links to 'Ardmann' and 'Ardmann Animations' point to the h2g2 frontpage. Last time I checked the frontpage of the site, it didn't have an awful lot of information about them

Keep hacking it. You'll sort it out.
Lots of luck,
TWF

I dispute this. One of the fundamental properties of plasticene is that you start out with fifteen lovely colours, and within minutes you have one large lump of brown. Whatever colours you start with, you still end up with brown. It works with Play-Doh too. Oh, and this universal truth is demonstrated by its inclusion in an Ant and Bee book

In that case I take it all back. I thought it was just a Morph reference. 'Scuse my ignorance, I never dabbled with plasticene as a kid. I was too busy sticking my fingers together with glue AKA trying to build model aeroplanes

Hey, if I thought it was perfect I wouldn't have entered it in the Fun Run

I think footnotes are the only way of filling in the gaps on things like Vision On without (a) tortured syntax or (b) boring the three Hikers who *did* see Vision On. If you have a better idea, let's hear it

'S OK.

I did the aeroplane thing, too. But I still have a soft spot for plasticene (well, soft if you leave it on the radiator overnight, anyway).

Well, hey, they fail you in engineering school if you write intelligible English - I thought you knew that?