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

Entry: The Roman Invasion of Britain - A22747935
Author: Bob Stafford. ACE - Keeper of The Treacle Shadow - Support the Beeblecasters @ A29805636 - U3151547

Please reviev and advise

Hi Bob - sorry it's taken a while to get to this.

Great entry...... but

The first footnote is fantastically complicated - especially if you aren't already familiar with the subject. I think you should take this out of the footnote and add an extra paragraph.

I'd make Political, Timing and opportunity, and Financial and Trade into sub-headers.

"If you'd like to take a picture of the fascinating witches who put the scintillating stiches in the britches of the boys who powder on the noses of the faces of the ladies..." (Sorry - I don't know what happened there.)

I think that you mean presence not presents of an independant Britain. (Unless you're implying bribery) and it was causing fears (You've got mixed tenses in the sentence.)

This phrase "There was also an abundance of agricultural land in Britain and the expanding Empire was in need of a reliable source of supply. The island of Britain would provide a reliable and plentiful supply of various food crops." should be made into a single sentence - "There was also an abundance of agricultural land in Britain which would provide a reliable and plentiful supply of various food crops for the expanding empire.

"The Roman Governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, and a force of 10,000 men defeated Boudicca and her army of 80,000 in this area in 60 AD."

Which area ? I think you've edited the paragraph and need to rephrase it as "In 60AD the Roman Governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, and a force of 10,000 men defeated Boudicca and her army of 80,000. The scattered....etc.

Sorry - w**k - I'll have to carry on later.

Thanks McKay all done please comment.

Is that a comment on the size of the entry

Nope. I remember reading this ages ago in EGWW, must get around to reading it again. Has it changed much?

I hope so I have added more detail and think it is better and I hope you (and others) agree.

But I need feed back at this stage.

Hi Bob. A few suggestions from me:

The first paragraph has a number of repeated words in it, which make the reading a little awkward, and a punctuation error. Could I suggest it might read better as:



Paragraph 2: <>
The conquest took the Romans just 41 years, 43-84 AD, and they stayed 326 years.

Para 3: <>
The reasons for the invasion are varied but can be summed up under three headings: politics, timing and opportunity, and finally finance and trade.

Hope this helps

Hi h5ringer

Good suggestions thank you, yes it helps and it looks beter

All ideas adopted

Thank you

Also some typos:

The scattere*d* traces of the burial mounds
Footnote 4: -> known
one space needed after 'The', one space too many after 'force'
Footnote 11: Te > The; Govenour -> Governor; thair > their
Gloustershire > Gloucestershire
breifley > briefly
terretory > territory
queen Boudica > Queen Boudica
British foces > British forces
Govenor > Governor
Calidonia > Caledonia (several)

Could you check your spelling of Roman names and placenames for accuracy and consistency - I spotted which should be Verulanium

Sorry h5ringer, it's definitely Verulamium.

How right you are Elentari

*sticks head in stupid bucket*

My, what a piece of work! You've an awfull lot of information in this article,m Bob, but in my opinion it needs some work to be ready for publication.

1. You need a better introduction. You should start by talking about this invasion, not the previous two. Then you can mention in a second paragraph that there were two previous unsuccessfull attempts.

2. After the two-paragraph introduction, you need a heading "Reasons for the InvasioN" at the appropriate point.

3. There is a lot of list-based content in your article. This isn't really appropriate to h2g2. Look for example at your section on tribes that were unconquered. You have four entries, each with an identical sentence "Not conquered or annexed, no King recorded". You could just as easily combine all these into one sentence; it would be just as informative and would be easier to read.

There are other places that improvements could be made. The most important thing is that you yourself read the article from start to finish without jumping from section to section, and see what you have written. You wil see that it flows well in some places and sounds awkward in others. These are the places you have to work on.

I shall attend to this and report when done

I have done some work of the body of he text is it looking less listy.

I will do the introduction later.

Comments please on work so far.

This is starting to get into the right shape, Bob. It still needs some re-organisation:

The section describing the actual invasion has the wrong title. It is called "The Indigenous Tribes Of Mainland Britain In Order Of Conquest or Annexation". It should be called "The Progress of the Invasion" or something like that.

The first two paragraphs of the section "The Legions that conquered Britain" are not about the legions. They are about the invasion and the resistance. They shold be moved to the section "The Progress of the Invasion".

The main sections within the piece about the progress of the invasion should use subheaders to divide it up rather than lines in bold.

You say that "the Roman historian Dio Cassius wrote the only account of the crossing in his Roman History , and this has led to some confusion" but you say that he writes clearly that there were three landing places. Where's the confusion?

You also say "It has long been assumed that the landings were at:". This suggests that we now know something different. Is this the case or do we still believe that the Romans landed in those three places?

The whole "Legions that conquered Britain" section could be shortened considerably, as it rather long and dull at the moment. It doesn't grab the attention of the reader. You could make it a quick summary of where the legions had served before, and which ones had campaigned together. As it stands, this information is mixed up, repeated, repeated again, and mixed in with descriptions of where in Britain the legions ended up, when we haven't yet reached the description of the invasion itself. Remove any references to the legions in Britain from this section, since you give these details in the "Invasion" section.



Now on to typing errors and spelling mistakes. I assume you know how to use the Internet Explorer Find command to find these, so I won't list exactly where they occur.

Rpman should be Roman

Is it Caratacus or Caractacus? You use both spellings. Find out which is right, and then use "Find" to track down all the wrong ones and change them.

43 AD,invasion ... change the comma to a space

Hi Ewyn

Thats a lot of suggestions it might take a day or to I shall report as soon as I have sorted it out.


Thanks for the effort

Ok done that apart from the legion history.

I feel that the history needs to be there some where either in another part of the text or as footntes.

Ideas please...

Your Guide Entry has just been picked from Peer Review by one of our Scouts, and is now heading off into the Editorial Process, which ends with publication in the Edited Guide. We've therefore moved this Review Conversation out of Peer Review and to the entry itself.

If you'd like to know what happens now, check out the page on 'What Happens after your Entry has been Recommended?' at EditedGuide-Process. We hope this explains everything.

Thanks for contributing to the Edited Guide!