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

Okay, now there is officially none of my original essay left!

That's okay! I find that translating a school assignment directly to h2g2 rarely works well. I like what you've got now.

Lbclaire: "You don't know what you're missing, Jim!"

Sadly, I do

I could never connect with Austen's world, yet I'm currently reading Gone with the Wind and perhaps because the film's so clear in my mind I'm racing through it and enjoying it immensely. I suspect it's a class thing as I adore the Brontes and Thomas Hardy, but just cannot get into Austen.

And just to be even more conrtadictory, I haven't read any Trollope, but the TV drama of The Pallisers was superb.

Jimster, you could go down to the old video library and borrow "Emma" starring Gwyneth Paltrow and "Clueless" starring Alicia Silverstone. Watch them in that order.

That looks much better - well done!

Just a few points to polish it a bit more :

I think perhaps the sections on the individual characters need a bit more about the actual characters, and not just Emma's reaction to them, although this is important too. For example, Mr Elton needs a bit of fleshing out in terms of his character. Also Miss Bates - the fact that she's a spinster who lives with her mother and has little social standing, but that she's a gentle, kind (if very talkative!) soul who inspires kindness and generosity in others. Your 'Jane Fairfax' one is a good example of how to blend the character themselves with Emma's reaction to them.

Also, quotes from the book look better in blockquotes (see <./>GuideML-Clinic</.&gt. It might be nice to put the first lines from the book that you currently have under 'Emma Woodhouse' (‘Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.’) at the very beginning of the entry, as it's a nice introduction to the subject.

You'll have to remove the picture, I'm afraid, as you can't add pictures to your own entries. If this entry gets onto the Front Page, the Editors will add a suitable picture then.

Finally, house style is to avoid any first-person references, so it would be best to remove 'Are you still with me?'.

I like your 'Emma at the Movies' bit at the end.

It might be nice to introduce the book itself a bit more at the beginning eg. it was the fourth book Jane Austen wrote, between 1814 and 1815, and the last to be published before she died; she was thirty-nine when she completed it and she died a year and a half after it was published; the first printrun sold badly and she earned less than forty pounds from the book during her lifetime etc.

Don't be disheartened if it seems I'm making a lot of comments - it's because I love the book and like your entry, and want it to be as good as it can be!

Lbclaire

Ah, now, you see - I like Hardy and Charlotte Bronte, but hate Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights'. With Jane Austen, I think it's the language and delicious tongue in cheek tone that I love most - it makes her books a joy to read (with the possible exception of Mansfield Park, with its rather stuffy heroine and dull 'hero').

But each to their own!

Lbclaire

Sorry, that was in response to Jimster's: ' I suspect it's a class thing as I adore the Brontes and Thomas Hardy, but just cannot get into Austen.'

Lbclaire (being rather confusing!)

I can do that for the bigger quotes, that form their own sentences, but what about the smaller quotes like in this -

However, she doesn't even consider Mr. Elton as a possible match for herself as ‘the Eltons were nobody’, and Emma considers herself ‘greatly his superior’. She thinks that he acted with effrontery to think that she would consider marrying him and believes that he merely wishes to ‘aggrandize and enrich himself’. Mr Elton is offended when Emma tells him that she thought he was interested in Harriet: ‘I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance, to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!’

Okay, I put the larger quotes in blockprint but I'm not sure they look better as they're only 1-2 lines long.

Whew, how long does this peer review thing usually take?

It can take days or months. You're doing very well!

There are still a few details to be sorted out.

The Gwyneth Paltrow film was released worldwide, not just in America.


The large paragraph that gives the complete plot summary should probably be broken up into two or three paragraphs, if you can find a suitable point to break it.

I noticed that you have "She then discovers..." followed rapidly by "She then realises...". To make this better, you should remove one of these "thens".

GuideML:

You should turn the blockquotes into italic text: put after the and put before the .

You should put before paragraphs and after them, rather than using .


h2g2 Style:

We don't use full stops after abbreviations, so you should say Mr Knightley rather than Mr. Knightley, although you can of course leave the full stop there in the quotation, as that is the way that Austen wrote it.


Typos and grammar points:

heirarchal --> hierarchical

first published in 1816 is what makes --> first published in 1816, are what make

Emma herself noticed that Mr. Elton seemed to pay more attention --> Emma herself notices that Mr Elton seems to pay more attention

nouveaux riche --> nouveau riche (I think!)

a insecure --> an insecure

two part series --> two-part series


Well done!

The general rule is: if a quote is short - a sentence or less - incorporate it into a paragraph by wrapping it with single inverted commas; bigger than two lines and you'll probably want to put it in ... tags. In-between a sentence and three sentences and it's up to you, depending on how easy it is to read.

And Peer Review takes as long as it needs. Every entry must be in PR for a minimum of seven days; after that, it might be accepted straight away, or you can take as long as you need to get it how you want it to be, or it might even get people excited enough to keep helping you work on it (I'm trying to stress here that there's absolutely no shame in an entry taking an age to get accepted).

But I have to say, this is looking great. Two suggestions:

You say that Highbury is 16 miles north of London. Most modern readers would consider Highbury *part* of London, but I think I'm right in saying that back then, London was considered to mean The City and that's where measurements were taken from. Although 16 miles does seem quite far away.

Emma on TV. There have actually been two BBC adaptations. The first was broadcast in six parts between 26 February - 1 April 1960, though as it was broadcast live, no tapes survive of that production. The one you mention was actually six - not two - parts, broadcast between 20 July and 24 August 1972 (although it was released on BBC Video in the 1990s across two tapes, which is where you possibly got the two parts thing). You can find more information on that production at the Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068068/

A 1996 version, made by Meridien for ITV, starred Kate Beckinsale as Emma, with Mark Strong as Mr Knightley [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118308/].

Hope this helps

Excellent additions to the Miss Bates and Mr Elton sections (though you might want to break Mr Elton's up into paragraphs) .

I still think the opening lines from the book would be better placed at the very beginning of the entry, instead of under 'Emma Woodhouse' but that's just a personal preference so feel free to ignore! If you do leave them under 'Emma Woodhouse' though, I think you need a bit more in the lines after them, rather than just 'That is the famous opening line to the novel, and describes Emma well.' It looks a bit sparse, especially with another quotation directly after it.

Don't worry about it taking a long time in PR - this has only been in for a few days and some take much longer! This is the stage for polishing and improving your entry, so that it's ripe and ready for picking by a scout! You're being very proactive and open-minded with the feedback you're getting, which is a good thing too.

Lbclaire

This is looking really good

Mol

I've made most of the changes recommended except:

nouveau riche> I didn't change this cos both spellings are right.

I didn't move the opening line (Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, etc) mostly because I'd have to rewrite the opening paragraph! I think it looks ok as an intro to Emma's character anyway.

I did everything else though.

Yes, but "nouveaux riche" is the plural of the term. You have "a boastful nouveaux riche". But since it is just one, it should be the singular form.

You learn somethiing new everyday!

OK, changed.

Any other suggestions?

Hi there!

Jane Austen... I have to admit that it's been ages since I've read Emma, but I'll give it a go

The lines:

Although many of Jane Austen's contemporaries found Emma to be boring, it is now considered to be one of her greatest works. Jane Austen understood that Emma was very different from her other novels, and confided that her intention was to write about ‘a heroine whom no one but myself will much like'.

I think that'd be best placed at the end of the entry, sort of giving it something to end on, because it seems a bit blunt just ending with the movies and such.

Did the novel have a working title like Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility did? Not necessary to put in, but just for my curiosity

Other than that, I like it Nice one!

Caper Plip

do you see any parellel between emma and eveline by james joyace?

Thanks Caper Plip!

I like your suggestion about putting part of the intro paragraph at the end, I think it reads much better now.

I think Jane Austen was going to name Emma in the same style as P+P and S+S but I don't know what it was meant to be called.

Sorry, flyingtwinkle, I've never read Eveline