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

Entry: PENDULUMS - A865406
Author: St Romani arc'Angel Guardian of Crystals, on the Quest for Truth and Freedom - U203633

could I please submit my pendulums piece for peer review.

thankyou in advance

romani

Hi Romani,

welcome to PR (or have you been before, )

May i just say that i got a bit of a surprise when initially skimming through this i got a bit of a surprise when i saw 'When dousing for ley lines'!

I had assumed, in my innocent little way, that this was going to feature clocks quite prominently.

Nonetheless, it is nicely written in many places. Content is a little alternative for my personal edited entry criteria, but that's no big deal. This piece is no less valid for not being encyclopoedia-like.

I see at least two ways to go here:

you could very easily work this into an edited entry, on 'pendulum swinging' for instance. But i fear you would have to make some changes.

or you could keep it as it is and try The Post with it. for that matter, you could give some real personal insights into 'the practice of making decisions with pendulums(pendula?)' - really go for it...

if you do decide to go for the EG with it, may i recommend that you keep this version somewhere and do a before/after look at finished product. Could be an interesting experiment.

Having said all that - this entry is basically sound. I'm not saying you're gonna have to rip it to shreds. But i do think you'll need some changes.

and please do take all that with a

all the best with this and future writings
spiff

thankyou spiff

no I havent sent anything into peer review before I,m a total newbie at all this but I think I like the idea of sending it to the post

I could have gone on forever with this subject but had I done so it would then have become confusing for the reader.

I personally for some years now have used a quartz crystal pendulum, so the idea of this was to be a informative & teaching piece.

i.e as in that people who maybe would be interested in learning this artform could then ask specific questions that I could then answer(if you follow what I mean).
So since i,m a newbie at this where do I go from here as to get it in the post ?

romani

Here is a link to <./>ThePost</.>, if you want to submit your entry there. To submit the entry, click on the link entitled 'The Post Office', and then there should be a link to The Post's website, where you can submit your entry.

I think The post is probably the ideal place for an entry like this.

However, I also think that the subject may be suitable for writing an edited entry, however, there are more restrictions placed on the way edited entries are written. The h2g2 writing guidelines here:
<./>Writing-Guidelines<./>, should give you an idea of what is expected of edited entries. The particular problem here is likely to be guidelines 9. Try to be Well-balanced. This is more of an issue with Dowsing, as it seems to be a rather controversial subject. As it stands, this entry seems heavily on the side of the believers.

If you want to make this ready for the edited guide, then 2 methods occur to me. One is to present the subject as a debate, and don't present either side as right, but present the arguments from both sides of the debate, and allow the reader to make up their own mind. There, you must be careful with your language to avoid stating things as facts, things that are contentious.

The other way is to avoid talking about arguments for and against, and instead talk about the beliefs that dowsers have, and talk about them in terms of belief, rather than fact. This is the sort of style that seems to be common when talking about religions. For example, this entry on the Mennonites:A703342, or this, about the Seventh Day Adventists:A855227. The idea of balanced doesn't really apply as much with beliefs, so long as you make it clear that they are beliefs.

You aren't restricted to beliefs, the history of dowsing is also a valid subject, so long as you handle this in a balanced way, as appropriate.

There may be other ways of making this appropriate for the edited guide, but those seem to be the main ways of handling this sort of subject.

So, you can try to adjust this entry, to make it suitable for the edited guide, or you could go for a more personal expression of your beliefs, and submit it to The Post.

We also have an Alternative Writing Workshop, which is designed to provide a place for entries that aren't suitable for the edited to be commented on, and read. Some of these entries are highlighted by the Post, as well.

If you want to try for the edited guide, you might want to keep a copy of the entry as it stands as well, in case you change your mind.

Also, you could submit a more balanced entry, suitable for the edited guide, whilst also submitting a more personal, opinionated version of this to The Post as well.

One last thing, you might want to learn GuideML, as that lets you create heading, subheaders, and the like, which look better than just ordinary text. This page: A395552 may help you learn about it, and links to other pages related t the subject.

Anyway, welcome to peer review, and good luck.

oh what a lot of info

siverfish

I thought that I had written it to be informative for ppl to make their own minds up anyway & i did,nt intend it to be 1 sided & I did,nt realise it looked that way

I wrote this in plain text intending to change it to guide ml after, but I was,nt quite sure whether I should do that or you, but thatsits easily sorted.

I was going to do some more pieces on all different types of dowsing, so maybe for now it would be better left until ive done those too.

all of a sudden im no longer sure what I want to do with this piece of work but thanks for your info all the same

romani

If you want to have your entry in GuideMl, I think it is probably best if you learn it yourself, as it is fairly easy to learn, and you are not reliant on other people if you want to make changes. However, if you want to do that, I would be happy to help you learn.

This applies more if you want to have your copy of the entry in GuideML. If your entry gets recommmend, then the editors make a copy of the entry, and they edit that. I think if you did the entry in plaintext, the editors may convert the entry to GuideML for you, if this is appropriate. Similarly, if you submit your entry to the post, they may do the GuideML for you.

In the case of the edited guide, I don't know if this applies, it seems to be rather rare for entries to be recommended that aren't written in GuideML, so this issue is usually not applicable. I will ask about that, to see what the position is. As for the post, I am not that familiar with how they operate, but if you follow the link I gave you, that might help you track down people who know what the situation is.

In any case, I would say the best thing is to concentrate on the content of the entry, rather than GuideML. You can leave the decision about whether to use GuideML or not to when you consider your entry mostly finished if you want. It does look more impressive than plaintext, but what really impresses people is generally the quality of the entry itself.

thankyou for your comments although guide ml is,nt a problem ive already done that on my crystal cavern page.

& I suppose I could do a bit more work on it too

but what I really need to know is it going to be suitable for peer or not even after ive done all that, or would I be better advised to remove it ?

romani

I think that if you made sure the entry was balanced, as I've mentioned, there is potential for this to be suitable for the edited guide. I think you should leave this in peer review, at least for the moment, and see what some of the other researcher around here think of the entry, and how it might be improved.

On the balancing issue, the main problem, for me at least, is you talk about things as fact, that are fairly contentious. One example, is talking about pendulums communicating with you. Your entry seems to take it as read that they are in fact communicating, when this is fairly contentious. In particular, the second sentence of the section on pendulum reading seems to do this.

There are other examples, but I thought I'd highlight ths one, to show you what I mean.

As for GuideML, you seem to have an understanding of how it works, judging by your personal space, but the GuideML in this entry could do with improving. Firstly, breaking down paragraphs is usually done with P tags. You start each paragraph with a and end it with a . This is the standard way of doing things, rather than using lines as seperators. This gives you a blank space between the paragraphs.

Also, I think you could do with using the HEADER, or SUBHEADER tags for your headers. They work in the same way, but are different sizes. To create a header, you start with a tag, and end with a , so a header, readings header would be created thus:
header. The subheaders work in the same way, but with HEADER, replaced with SUBHEADER.

thankyou

Ive altered it in to guide ml roughly for now i,ll do more tomorrow ive gtg now & be up early for work

I can see what you mean bout the wording but the main problem there is that crystals which I use are in fact living things i.e like a tree or plant is, so in a way they do communicate with us its just a matter of understanding what they mean.......so that is what I meant.....but maybe I should think of trying to reword it a bit.

Oh & thamx for the tips on guide ml I admit Im a novice & still learning so any advice is welcome.

I look forward to any more comments/views

bye for now
romani

would it be for me to change the title ?

I was thinking of calling it "Easy Dowsing".

because I was thinking the name Pendulums could be a bit deceiving plus I was thinking off adding on other forms of dowsing like using Aura Rods

romani

Hi Rommi!
Maybe you could call it "Dowsing with pendulums", that way if people are looking for the sort of pendulum you are talking about they will get to it straight away.



ChiKi

Hi,

Edited Entries for H2G2 are supposed to be about facts, and your entry describes fairly contentious view on pendulums, crystals and dowsing.
Now, admittedly I'm horribly biased, being a skeptic and non-believer who'd rather see the entry changed to focus on the scientific viewpoint, but as it is it's not suitable for the Edited Guide. You need to change the parts where you make contentious claims somewhat, to make it clear that this is one view. A couple of examples:

"can be used to give definate answers to questions or as an indicator when looking for something."
can, according to believers in dowsing and pendulums, be used to give definite answers to questions or as an indicator when looking for something.

"There have been excellent results obtained using Pendulums correctly for all these functions as well as other more vague uses."
Believers in dowsing claim to have obtained excellent results using Pendulums, but have never been able to repeat these in scientific tests.

Changing your entry to use this kind of language, nodding to the skeptical community at every turn will most likely be sufficient for this entry to enter the guide. Good luck.

Oh, one other thing, if you plan to make major changes, like adding several other forms of dowsing, you should take this out of Peer Review, and put it back when you are happy with the changed version.

indeed, for future reference, there is a separate forum for work in progress: Writing-Workshop

yes, I agree with Spiff, the writing workshop sounds like a good idea

ChiKi

spiff for your useful comments

chikki for your suggestion, but as there are more forms of dowsing than just the pendulum I think it would be misleading to use that word in the title

naita I think that taking it out of peer for a while until all changes have been made is a good idea, so now how do I take it out of peer plz ?

but I would also say I disagree strongly that dowsing with the pendulum as never been repeated....unless a scientist themselves as tried using another persons pendulum........& I also dont think you have to be a believer for any form of dowsing to work, I myself was very sceptical & just tried out of curiosity & I was amazed that it did work everytime I tried it

romani

You simply go to the PeerReview page and press the link that says remove, that you will have next to your entry.

And if you can show me reports of tests done where anyone using dowsing equipment have been able to consistantly repeat their own findings in a double blind test I will be convinced. However that is not a discussion belonging in this forum. You say it works, the scientific community says no-one has been able to prove that. No need to believe or disbelieve, this is a fact.

I was,nt even aware that there had been any scientific tests done in the 1st place......could you tell me anything about these tests ?

oh by the way as you,ve previously stated that you are a sceptic....just like I was......ive just had a thought.....why not try it yourself & let me know how you get on.......I would be interested in hearing of your experience

romani

I've tried the bent metal wire thingies. My experience was that I only found things I knew were there, or believed were there.

I don't have a complete list of tests available, but let me point you to the pages of the James Randi Educational Foundation at www.randi.org. This Foundation offers a $1,000,000 prize to anyone capable of demonstrating a paranormal ability. Dowsing with a pendulum would qualify. No one has so far been able to pass preliminary testing.

I'd quote a test, but it would be far more simple for you to check the page out for yourself.

hmmmm well the rods only show how large a persons aura is.......but the pendulum is a different thing entirely but unfortunately its too complex & long an issue to go into here

my article was merely aimed at showing people how to do it so they could experiment for themselves......which is why I tried to keep it as simple as I could.

if I had put all the facts & uses in it would have made it very confusing for the unaware......if you see what I mean

for the info anyway

romani