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

I'm putting together a portfolio of my best work to show my writing ability off to any prospective employers - and as I've been writing here for years, I thought I'd best put one of my edited entries in.

I've picked my four favourite entries, so if you'd let me know which one you think is best, that'd be brilliant:

Dr Josef Mengele - the Angel of Death (A2875368)
The Battle of Waterloo, 1815 (A5403881)
Leeds United AFC - The Premiership Years 1992 - 2004 (A13488474)
Being an Away Supporter at a Football Match (A20725931)

Cheers guys!

OK- I'll have to admit up front that while the two football ones were extremely well-written, I'm not at all interested in the subject matter so I didn't pick either of them as my personal favorite.

That said, "The Battle of Waterloo" is the one I liked best. So much so, it warrants re-reading again, just for fun.

Oh, has to be Leeds United - for personal reasons.

I thought you'd say that B'El...

I'd say Being an Away Supporter. Don't pick Mengele, because it will will look like you're really into death, pain and torture. ditto Leeds United Either of the other two would be fine, I reckon, I just like the away supporter one more.

Good reasoning there Rich.

I'd go for Waterloo.

I wish you'd all be able to reach a consensus...

Nah, seriously, thanks for helping with this guys. It's really appreciated.

I guess it depends on what impression you want to give as well. Waterloo would suit a more serious job, but Being an Away Supporter would show a lighter side to your personality. They're both very good pieces of writing but in different ways, so it's difficult to say which is 'better'. Can you not include two or three?

I suppose I could - at the moment I've picked out ten different things to showcase in my portfolio:

>Work for Blue Chip companies
>Work for small businesses
>Proof of my editing ability
>Convincing tone
>Reassuring tone
>Entertaining tone
>Instructive tone
>Informative tone
>Basic Web Copy
>SEO Web Copy

At the moment, I've got 8 pieces for PH Media that I want to use - covering everything except instructive and informative. I think Away Supporter would fit as instructive (as it's a how to), whereas Waterloo is quite an informative article.

My personal favourite from my portfolio is the one I have for Entertaining - a script for a skip hire firm that wanted a funny script that contains a few pop culture references:

(Style of “The A-Team” intro) A number of years ago, in the past, a crack skip hire association was set up by a group of professionals to get rid of stuff you don’t want. These men promptly set up a network of contacts throughout the country, from their secret base in Carlisle. Today, still wanted by the general public, they survive as skip providers extraordinaire. If you have a pile of rubbish, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The Skip Network. (FX: Staccato machine gun noise)

It's Waterloo for me, though as you know it's one of my hobbies.

However, with my manager's hat on - if I was reading all the pieces - which I have - I would be concerned about the Mengle write up, fascism is a worrying matter, especially nowadays with multi-cultural work forces.

I'm also a football fan, but I think you'd be in danger of being linked with the bad old days at Leeds by anyone over 50 years of age, and humour is always subjective.

Assumingh you're not applying to a french firm - it'd be Waterloo all the way for me.

Cheers McKay - I'd pretty much discounted Mengele, seeing as studying Auschwitz could be seen as a very strange hobby...