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

Entry: Living with a gastrectomy: notes from a patient, 9 years after the procedure - A3805814
Author: Ronbloggs - U1258998

This is a valuable piece of personal experience. Useful and informative to those awaiting the operation. I have to say that I feel very healthy, considering the fact that I underwent such a drastic procedure. This should bring hope to all those who find themselves needing such surgical help. I eat well, almost anything, but in small quantities. I experience appetite and hunger and enjoy my food.

Hi Ron

Welcome to Peer Review!
This is a(nother) well-written piece. You're surely right, too, about it helping people who might encounter the procedure.

The main problem with the Entry is that you've written it in the first person. That's not the accepted style for the Edited Guide.

Check out A53209 (the Writing Guidelines for the EG). Don't be put off by an apparently-restrictive format. Lots of us see it that way at first, but those who keep at soon find that they can excel in the EG-style (and it's fun pushing the boundaries)

The content here is good. I would swing it straight into the third person, perhaps describing the account as the typical experience of a recipient of the procedure. If you want to personalise it, you could maybe add a footnote adding that the recipient is the author.

That'll do for now, maybe. As you work on this, you're going to find that PR is more heavily populated than AWW. Prepare for some stimulating crit. You're in the engine room now!

Pin

Hi Pin,
I am delighted you have taken the trouble to read and review my piece on stomach surgery. Your advice is much valued, and I appreciate your interest. If you look at it again now, you will see that I have already partially altered it. I noticed, after due deliberation, that much was missing from the passage that I had kept stored in my head! Thank you for the 'third person' tip, and I shall certainly use it. I take it that there is no time limit, beyond what is reasonable that is, to complete the piece in the 3rd person. Yes, I am expecting some (maybe stinging) comments from around the patch; but I think I can live with that, as they say, 'for my art's sake'. Am I not a pretentious old sod!? Don't answer that Pin, for god's sake, or you'll burst my bubble.

See you,
Ron

Hi Ron,

There is certainly no time limit, as long as you don't disappear for months on end without posting in this thread to say you're still working on it.

If that happens, the piece can be moved, but not without proposal and seconding by two scouts.

So just sort it out in your own time. If you're doing things in bits, you could post here to let people know what you've done and what you're still intending to do. That way they won't suggest things you're already planning to do!

Jules

Hello Ron. As I pointed out in another thread yesterday, it is possible to use your own accounts and write them in first person, if you do it the way it was done here A863345 There are quite a few entries like this one dotted about the Edited Guide, so first person reports are allowed as long as the entire entry isn't written in first person.

If you're worried about making your entry look like that (which will involve learning about Guide ML - <./>GuideML-Clinic</.&gt, don't be put off. Just write your entry in plain text as you already have done, and if and when it gets picked by a Scout, the Sub Editor will put in all the Guide ML

If you don't mind though, I think I'll read the entry *after* I've had my breakfast

Hi Jules,
Thanks, man, for your sound advice, much appreciated.
No, I'm not likely to disappear for months, but lil. old Wifey says the car needs washing, the lawn mowing, etc. etc.
But I'm too much into my lifelong hobby of (originally) putting pen to paper to ever leave it for long; I need my 'fix' of writing on a daily basis.
I'll keep you, and all my supporters informed of my intentions, even some of my detractors too!
Be creative!
See you,
Ron

Hello Gosho,
Ha ha!! I don't blame you for one minute, you could, otherwise, lose your breakfast! I wouldn't want to deprive you of your sustenance!
I hear what you say. I've scanned the piece again, and can only see a few actual first person pronouns. I wonder whether it would pass muster on the present basis. It would, of course, be up to the 'vote' by one's peers and reviewers. Dare I take that risk? I think Pin would advise against; but one cannot gainsay any of the others if they share his opinion.

Thank you for your interest in the present article. I know it's a bit 'gory'; I suppose it is only of interest to a small minority, to the few who are unfortunate enough to be facing such an episode.

See you around,
Ron

As it stands right now Ron, it wouldn't pass muster for being recommended by a Scout because the personal references are scattered throughout the entry. If however, you were to do something like this A3807759 with it...

If that looks good to you we could then work on the entry a bit more.

If you don't want to go down that road, you could always think about submitting the entry to <./>ThePost</.>. They love this sort of thing over there, and they have no objection to personal references

Hi again, Gosho,
Excellent! I've read the link you sent, and I believe it would do the trick for us. And yes, I see what you mean about the scattered personal references, as you have italicised them. I agree that they should be dealt with in the way you have illustrated, with sub-headings. I am indebted to you for your practical suggestions and continuing interest in the piece. Let's take it from there then. I'll have a look at it tomorrow, (after I've cleaned that ruddy car!). We'll leave your idea of submitting it to The Post as a backstop, should the present plan fail. But I am hopeful of a positive result.


Speak to you soon,

Ron

Hi Gosho,
I need your advice re this entry. You have given me that good example through your link. I intend to use it for the final basic plan. First: Do you have any objections to my so doing? Second: I intend to follow the guidelines and take it out of peer review to 'complete' it; do you agree with this idea? Thirdly: Do you wish to be involved with the final 'polishing' of the entry before it is re-submitted? And lastly: Can anyone step in at this stage and scupper the lot?
I intend to give you your credit in the process of the passage's entry into peer review. We can share the 'kudos' ( if there is any!!) in its acceptance.
After seeing some of the stuff accepted, I reckon it stands a good chance

I'll have to have these doors widened, I think!

Ron

Hello Ron

No, of course I have no objection to using the layout of your entry in the link - it's your material after all If you look in the data entry box (top right hand corner) you'll see that it says 'Written and Researched by Ronbloggs. Edited by Gosho'.

If you want to put the content from that link into your entry, what you have to do is this:

Open up the link. In your browser's address bar you'll see Simply replace the 'A' with 'test' and you'll see a text box, just as if you were editing the entry yourself. (You can do this with any h2g2 entry by the way, except for a Rearcher's Personal Space. In that instance you have to replace the 'U' with 'testuserpage').

Copy everything in that text box, open up your own entry, click on 'Edit entry', and then paste the content from my entry into yours and hit 'Update entry'.

You don't need to remove it from Peer Review as long as you still intend for it to be considered for the Edited Guide - you can continue editing it all the time it's in PR. If though, you think you might not be able to work on it for some time, then you should remove it and wait until you have the time to come back.

If you do remove it, then I'll gladly help you with it, although if you leave it in PR there'll be a whole lot more people who can help too

Normally when someone offers to give me credit for helping with an entry I accept gladly, because I think it would be churlish not to. But since this is such a personal entry, I don't know if it would be right to have anyone else's name alongside yours in the data box. I think I should be a ing partner on this one But I appreciate the offer

Good story and well written.

Hello Krabatt,
Glad you like it! Thanks for your interest in a subject that many would find too 'disturbing' to be bothered reading beyond the first few lines!
I suppose you could regard it as a 'story', in the sense that it is the story of my life,in medical terms, since 1996. If it is a story, it is a bit Kafkaesque don't you find! Now,there was a gloomy chap if there ever was one. Imagined himself to be turning into a giant beetle, lying on his bed, too big to get up off his back or to get through his bedroom door.

Crackers,that bloke, like many a literary genius.

Happy posting,

Ron

Hi formerly Gosho!
You had me worried for a time. I thought someone had hijacked your identity and tried to muscle in on your fertile ideas, young man.

Your new name sounds like the Manchester flyover near Barton! (Pardon my joke; I think it's the relief that you are still the same person I was talking to about my PR entry!). When I logged in around 4pm it just gave your new name. You were obviously in the process of changing it at the time.

Cheers Barton,

Ron

Did I say something wrong? If so, I apologize. It is a good story and well written. I didn't read Kafka's story about the guy turning into a beetle, just Das Schloss (3x).

No; it's just me being a bit vague really. You're quite entitled to speak your mind, and do continue to do so; don't mind me! I'm all for free speech, we're too gaged by PC already. No apology necessary.

I have said, myself, that my entry is rather gloomy. It is meant to be of help to sufferers of cancer, or bad cases of ulcers that need to be surgically removed. I was really laughing at myself for expecting rather too much from the entry. It is of limited interest to the younger set.

Ah ,yes; 'The Castle'. Another dark story. I see you're a man of some considerable taste. But you read it three times?? Once is enough for anyone!

Ron

'A good story' sounds a bit sadistic, I agree. I meant to say a good article'. I know I can be a bit inconsiderate in respect to illnesses. I've never had a physical ailment apart from the flu.

Yes, Kafka. The first time I read Das Schloss, at the end of the book some ten or twenty pages were missing. Then I borrowed a copy from a friend and guess what, same story ... So a couple of years later I bought my own copy of a different edition and managed to read it undisturbed to the end. The obsession of K. trying to get in to the castle is fascinating. It made me cry. I like the book a lot.

No, your remarks were not sadistic, that's too strong a self-criticism. They were, perhaps, a tiny bit inappropriate, which isn't half as bad as sadism. Sadism is a sexual perversion involving gratuitous physical cruelty; your remarks hardly amounted to that degree of inappropriateness! They were merely a little wide of the mark. Don't punish yourself for something you haven't done!

Ron

How old are you?