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

Hi Tom,

After being encouraged by you, I started writing an entry. It's at http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A595929 and It's about Taking off.

I'm having self confidance crisis, so I'd like you to please look at it and saay what you think.

It's easy for me to look at PR entries and say what I think about them, but I'm having a lot of difficulty with mine, and It's getting kind of messy.

Pleas be so kind and drop by.

Yours,

Dancer

Thanks for turning to me! I'll have a look at the entry straight away.

Hi again!
I read it, and really liked it! As you may have seen in my other postings, I usually admire researchers that come up with easy-to-understand entries about not-so-easy-to-understand subjects. I don't find your entry messy at all. There are a few English flaws, but don't think about them now, they will eventually be dealt with in PR, or by running the text through an automatic spellchecker.

What you have written so far is good. What I would do, would be to have a small passage about helicopter take-offs. (Or do they _lift_ off? ) After that, you'd have an entry worthy its place in the edited guide.

If you'd like to add a 'bonus section', so to speak, you could write a little bit about why it is so troublesome for human beings to take off, especially without powerful engines attached to us. Or something in the vicinity of that.

When I saw your mango eating method, I thought you might have a talent for writing. Now I know you do!

Tom

Thanks, Now that I got all these compliments I fully intend to finish the entry, so I'll add the Helicopters, Rockets and, Gliders, Birds and insect. I'll also add the Bonus section you mentioned and another bonus section about Ornichopters (probably as a subheader of the insect flight).

Thanks for the support

Yours,

Dancer

I made the changes and additions, and ran a basic spellchecking.

Will appreciate input.

Yours,

Dancer

Good work! As it stands now, it is a very good entry on flying. As I can see, that subject is not covered in the edited guide. There are a couple of non-edited ones, but they aren't very good.

I like the way you have mixed "boring" stuff with lighter ways of presenting the material. I also like that you stick to facts most of the time, thus giving the entry a solid trustworthyness, and entry I'd want to read and use if I was to explain the phenomenon of flying to, say, one of my kids.

I feel sure that people in PR will comment on you not mentioning the h2g2 flight description. (Fall to the ground, and then, as you drop, get distracted, and miss the ground...) I think not including that is a good idea. It would make the whole entry seem less factual than it is.

There are still some English flaws, where the spelling is right, but it's the wrong word, and things like that. (Under the paragraph on birds, you seem to have missed an "f" in "flight", making it "light". Under "Insects" it says "going up and sown", where I believe you wanted to write "going up and down".

But these flaws don't change the fact that this is a very good entry!

Tom

Thanks,

Fixed the typos and I think youre right about the HHGTTG's definition on flight. I didn't want to add it. I think most if not all h2g2 dwellers are aware of that definition.

Thanks for the complimetnd,

Yours,

Dancer

Oh, by the way http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F48874?thread=130174 is the PR thread, if you want to look at it and have the time. <>< Dancer