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

Entry: The Duct Tape Cure for Warts - A2833751
Author: lepoulet - U783323

Thanks for your consideration.

Excellent entry I can’t wait to try it – a must have for all first aid kits! I hope this entry is seriously considered for the guide. I like your writing style. My only thought is that maybe the introduction could be a little longer and more general in its opening? Something … oh I don’t know something like “Are you troubled by warts? You know those irritating …???????” anyway it’s your entry!
Nick

Hello lepoulet,

And welcome to H2G2. I hope you find our community a welcoming place for sharing your thoughts with us. H2G2 can be somewhat daunting at first but with a little bit of perseverance (and plenty of lurking) you'll get used to it!

Peer Review is the system we use to turn guide entries into Edited Guide entries - these entries will appear on the front page of H2G2, and form part of what is known as the Official Guide. Entries that pass certain conditions defined in our Writing-Guidelines section, and which take into account the views of reviewers such as myself will eventually be selected from Peer Review and turned into Edited Guide entries.

Your first entry to Peer Review is very useful and informative, however you have written it in such a way that it does not meet the Writing-Guidelines at this time. The only main issue is that it is written in the first person - "I", has one or two personal theories and probably needs a little more fleshing out in terms of the research findings that you mention.

You still have the bones of a good article here! Your first paragraph is mostly fine, your section on the process is spot on, and your conclusion is fine too. Can you find anything else out about what is known about the duct tape method? Can you re-examine the bits where you have written about your own experience? What can work is to put a section titled "A Researcher's Experience" at the end of your entry.

I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing this develop into a potential Edited Guide entry.

Take care,

Woodpigeon

Very nice Entry. And I suspect it works well. Also, the first-person bits have been corrected! Way to go! A valuable addition to the Guide IMO.

HELL

PS: I had some ten viral warts on the palm of my left hand. The medical solution did not work. So, one day I put my hand under running water and *shaved* the warts off, I left the bleeding hand in the water until no more blood was visible (I had heard that the blood contains viruses, and that they might infect other parts) - the warts never came back, and my hand still looks healthy.

Yes, this is a big improvement! Well done!

"So, one day I put my hand under running water and *shaved* the warts off"



I did have a rather nasty verruca on my foot once, so I went to the doctor who prescribed some expensive lotion. I was a research student, and couldn't afford this, so I pointed out to the doctor that I had access to a chemical lab. 'Aha!', he said, 'try glacial acetic acid. When it starts hurting, it's time to stop'. So I took a bottle of the stuff home with me, dabbed it on each day, and it completely destroyed the thing.

The other do-it-yourself cure I have heard of is for cold sores. A colleague came home from work one day with an awful cold sore. His young daughter took one look at it and said: 'instant coffee powder. That's what all the kids use at school'.
So he tried it, and it worked. No more cold sore.

I think I ought to stop here as I don't think it's very wise to go around encouraging do-it-yourself medial procedures...

Great entry

Possibly worth providing including a link to corroborate the facts eg http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/10/15/duct_tape021015
http://www.diagnose-me.com/cond/C199025.html or http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume7/issue5/features/demichele.html
but you already cover the information adequately and mention the original source, so this may be unnecessary.

Pimms

(Don't forget to write a brief introduction to your space)

Yes, acetic and salicylic acids are what's in those over-the-counter Compound-W type medicines. But I had a rather unsuccessful experience with the OTCs--stings like all hell. I have a low threshold for pain .
In other news, I've added in a section on what exactly a wart is--let me know if it works.
Signing off,
Le poulet en colere

This is just the kind of entry we need in the EG Still needs some work though (don't they all ).

British spelling throughout please:
Pediatrics - Paediatrics
theorize - theorise
skepticism - scepticism

The first header (Introduction) is unnecessary.

Each and every paragraph should be enclosed within a ... tag. tags are only used for things like quotes.

'Researcher' is an h2g2 title, just like Scout, Sub-editor, Community Artist, or even Staff, so it should capitalised.

"They commonly grown on the face"
'They commonly grow on the face'

debride - to surgically excise from a wound or lesion. I don't think 'debride' is the right word to use in this instance. Maybe you were thinking of abrade?

"bottoms of her feet"
'bottom of her feet'

"around quarter-size"
Quarter what - inch? Centimetre? Foot?

awhile - a while


Scout

Informative entry, nicely written, on the whole a commendable first effort .

I'd be interested in hearing more about this cold sore/coffee grounds quackery . Care to write an entry, Felonious?

I don't think I have enough to back an entry up apart from this one example, which happened years ago. What I would say is that if anyone suffers from cold sores, they might try clobbering one with coffee powder to see if it works.

http://www.geocities.com/allergylifeline/010.html

This mentions the coffee entry. Unless you are really skint, I'd go out and buy some Zovirax were I you.

Sounds better than my method. The one wart I had I hacked out with a knife. Bled for an hour, hurt like buggery, but it never grew back!

Hi lepoulet

Noted a minor adjustment that you could address:

'Introduction' header is not needed - usually Edited Guide entries have an unheaded introductory paragraph following the title, no header needed until the main sections of the entry.

Pimms

I think, this one is *ripe*...

HELL

...there are also a few typos (scapleled>scalpeled, detatches>detaches)

There could be an issue with this entry, as it could be seen as giving medical advice, something that the BBC try and steer clear of. I can't see it myself, as it appears a fairly objective review of the research and its effectiveness, with sensible caveats about using the technique without professional advice. It is not really much different from any entry reviewing surprising research.

There are many sites detailing the research (try a google on any two of Focht, wart, pediatric) Possibly links to more of these are needed

Pimms

The author hasn't posted for foour weeks, which is as long as this has been in PR

I'm sad to report that the Duct Tape Cure for Warts didn't manage to cure the wart on my right foot.

It did make the skin under the tape really squishy and kind of moist in a not wholly pleasant way. And now a while after abandoning the tape the skin is kind of dry and flaky. And the wart is still there.

I'm not happy with the entry for the reason that it does give medical advice. This sort of advice, for legal reasons at least, should come only from a qualified medic NOT a lay person.

Anyway, seeing as the author hasn't posted for 4 weeks, how about a move back to entry?

OK, re-reading it it does come over a bit strongly in favour of the efficacy of the cure. The credentials of the cure are there to be checked out on the web, but since lepoulet isn't there to argue the corner for this entry I'll second the move to entry. people can still read the Guide entry and make their own minds up.

Pimms