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

Entry: Southborough Town Kent - A3756413
Author: mutant-mushroom - U1356574

There seems to be a big gap in the guide in regard to Southborugh Kent, perhaps this information will be of help.

Wow, mutant-mushroom, you've certainly done a lot for someone who's only been here four days! I'm sure someone's said it already, but anyway, welcome to Peer Review!

This looks like a very good start to an entry that actually follows the Writing-Guidelines -- hooray!

Anyhow, I had a couple points:
Please try to use complete sentences all the time. For example, "Southborough Library - Yew Tree Road." is not only not a complete sentence, it doesn't offer detail - what is the library like? what sort of books can you find there? is it a good place to just sit and read? Try something like (filling in information as necessary): "The Southborough Library on Yew Tree Road, located ... offers an excellent selection of reading material on everything from ... to .... In addition..."

Instead of jumping straight into the headers, we like Edited Entries to have at least a short introduction that will ease the reader into the main body of the text, as it were. This in your case could include information about where Southborough Town is located (yes, I know, Kent, but it can't hurt to say that again, and anyway, many of our participants are not from England and would not be able to immediately realise where Kent is).

This is a much smaller thing, but your title ought to have a comma in it somewhere. "Southborough, Kent" is the construction that immediately comes to mind: is it really called "Southborough Town"?

All in all, though, let me say that I'm impressed. This is an *excellent* entry coming from a newbie! Keep up the good work, and please ask me or another Scout or Sub-editor if you have any questions!

Hi Echomikeromeo,

Thanks for your detailed response I have altered my entry following your suggestions, would be grateful if you have any further advice.

Mutant Mushroom

My concern, mushroom, is that you still have got a lot of fragments - incomplete sentences. A sentence has got to have a subject and a verb, so "In the county of Kent, England..." would not be a sentence. What is located in the county of Kent, England? Southborough. That needs to be in there. "Southborough is located in the county of Kent, England" would be a better sentence. Could you please try to make sure all your information isn't just bulleted points: that each sentence has a subject and a verb?

Echo

Hi MM

Have you made the changes suggested by emr?

Emmily

Hi MM - as everyone says, an excellent start. What I really love about h2g2 is that we have the opportunity for our entries not to just tell you the history of a town that you could get from a guidebook, but give a flavour of what a place is actually *like*.

A couple of years ago, we set up a place to encourage people to write exactly the kind of entry that you've written, and if you'd like to join us over at A1286886, you'd be more than welcome. Also, we got together a bit of advice for people writing this kind of entry for h2g2 for the first time, which is in the Map Room at A1286921. Could be worth a look, you never know, it might give you an idea of something else you can add.

There are a couple of minor suggestions I've got for your entry to start with - firstly, the best standard-classification way of having the title is to put the country on the end (as we do have a worldwide audience) so I'd go for either Southborough, Kent, England or Southborough, Kent, UK

Second, I'd recommend ditching the 'location' subheader and combining the paragraphs above and below it into one single one. Obviously one can go too far and start by explaining that England is a country in the UK in the continent of Europe on the planet Earth etc etc, but do bear in mind that someone accessing the Guide from, say, Oven Chips, Missouri, USA might have no idea where Kent is. If you say something like Kent is in South-East England between London and the sea, then you might be giving them a geographical reference they can understand and get hold of.

The only other thing I'd say for now is that you could perhaps try to make the tone of the entry a little more conversational, it's a little bit 'dry' at the moment. Again, better to have gone that way than to have written a feeble pastiche of Douglas Adams' writing style as many do, but you might like to lively it up just a little bit.

Have a think about what makes Southborough unique, or if there really isn't *anything* then think why not... think if you met a visitor to the town and had to tell them one thing they should buy or eat or drink before they leave, one pub or restaurant or shop they should go in, or just one place they should go to get the best from Southborough, what would it be?

Some good places to look to get an idea of similar entries that have been accepted for the Edited Guide are A3851165, JulesK's entry on Thrapston which has recently been accepted, and also A2309654 on Blofied in Norfolk and A1043128 on South Woodham Ferrers in Essex.

Hope some of that helps!



Cheers,
Number Six

Bouncy bouncy bouncy entry up the author's convo list...

Has the author unsubscribed?

Looks that way. Should someone (i.e. me) post a message to his space?

Yup.

Right, message done. I essentially told them to get over here if they wanted to keep going with this entry, and if not, to remove it from PR. I said it nicely, though.

It's very close to being finished though. Anyway, lets see if the author comes back.

sprout

Didn't know I had unsubscribed, I don't remember doing so.

Sometimes it happens accidentally. Welcome back, though!

There are some helpful ideas and tips up in post #6, ready and waiting for you.


Mikey

Yes I will get on with now, give me a week or so.

Just to let you all know I am looking up some extra information to add but this is involving actually attending the library so is taking a little longer. MM

great to know you're still around and working on it.

Emmily

Hello. Are you still around and working on this?
What you've written so far seems great, but I'm sure there's more to say on the subject - i.e. just expanding the sections you have. There are some good suggestions in this conversation already, I believe.

Hi,
Thank you all for your responses, have started to do some further work but due to other commitments currently will not complete for a while. So I have removed it from peer review for the moment.

MM