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

Entry: Tapirs - A4959200
Author: fiery opaleye: Draconic Seer and 4ooli2h Scholar - U1671322



What do you think?

I think it's pretty damn good.

Thanks BH.

Tis good. I don't think you need to footnote unobtrusive though.

sprout

Ok, thanks.

I originally did it because after the first draft, I wondered: exactly what did I mean by unobtrusive?

This is very good. The only thing I know about tapirs which you don't seem to have mentioned is that the Malaysian type are black and white while the Brazilian ones are black all over, except for some white on the tips of their ears. And have you mentioned their ears? Big like trumpets.

There are few things you could do to make this look better; some of your paragraphs are very short - you could combine them to make longer paragraphs. It wouldn't seem so scrappy then.

You could make the list of tapir species into a bullet list:


tapir species 1 - these are etc.
tapir species 2 - these are etc.
tapir species 3 - these are etc.


Well done! This is the sort of information we need in the Guide. I'll mention this entry at the Loyal Zoological Society and ask the members to come and have a look at it.

A tapir once wee'd on my brother at Cotswold Wildlife Park...

Good entry.

Thanks Gnomon.

I did originally have descriptions for each species but thought that might make the entry a bit long. I did think of creating another page with the descriptions and linking it to this one. Do you think that's worth doing?

I'll put the bullets in and tidy up the paragraphs like you suggested. They do look a bit all over the place don't they.




Thanks Dreadful.

Bad luck on your brother.

You're better keeping it all in one entry. Don't start producing lots of entries and linking to them, as entries are supposed to be self-contained.

One other thing - please remove the link to hippopotamuses - in the Edited Guide, you are only allowed link to other Edited Guide entries. The hippopotamuses one is good but hasn't been approved yet.

Done.

And I'll put those descriptions back in as soon as I can.

More stuff:

Please use the GuideML I suggested earlier to implement the Bulleted List, rather than doing it the way you have done. We try to keep these things standard across h2g2.

I think you would be better to link directly to the Tapir Gallery, at http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal rather than to TapirBack's home page.

Please remove the colons at the end of the headers.

Ok.

This is looking great now! Two final things, and then I'm finished with it.

1. You have the Latin name as Tapir for some species and Tapirus for others. Shouldn't they all be the same?

2. You've put so much in the bulleted sections that they should really be spaced out a bit. Add paragraph markers within the LI markers. That is,

replace with
replace with



This entry is pretty much guaranteed to be picked when the time comes. It has to sit in Peer Review for a full week first, so that everybody has a chance to have their say.

Good work!

Thankyou.

And thanks for your input. Much appreciated.

I like Tapirs. They look funni.

Paully
(aged 6 3/4)

6 3/4? Awww, bless... and look, he's got his own little 'Staff' badge too.

He got that for colouring inside the lines.

Bless

Seriously though...

"There are four species of tapir that consist of three South American and one Asian species:"
'There are four species of tapir - three from South and Central America and one from Asia:'
I more commonly see Mexico (Baird's and Lowland Tapirs) described as being part of North America, and since there are parts of Mexico which are actually *north* of where I live in the US (south central Texas) I wouldn't think of it as South America, which is why I suggest going with Central America in that sentence to avoid any confusion.

"northern most part of Colombia" - northernmost

reddish brown - reddish-brown (a couple of instances)

"area on is back" - its

"dark spots just under each eye on the face"
'on the face, below each eye'

"This species is generally smaller than Baird’s tapir and are widely distributed east of the Andes"
'and is widely distributed'

"gives the face an inward, bowl-shaped look"
'gives the face a concave, bowl-shaped look'

"northern Peru.1"
Footnotes should come before the punctuation:
'northern Peru...text....'

"considerably larger in size, the largest of all the tapir species"
That needs amending, and I think there are a couple of options:
'considerably larger in size, being the largest of all the tapir species'
Or
'considerably larger in sizeIn fact it is the largest of all the tapir species,'

I think the 'Description' section should come before the descriptions of the individual species, which should have their own header.

"by snapping at them and can deliver a mean bite"
'by snapping at them, and can deliver a mean bite'

"Their thick hides would also serve them"
'Their thick hides also serve them'

"18 months – 2 years of age"
I'm not entirely sure what the Sub-editor will do with that, including leaving it completely unchanged, but in that instance I would say 'between 18 and 24 months', and I'd do that for two reasons (these are purely my own opinions and may not reflect strict House Style). Firstly, we're supposed write out numbers from one to nine, but this rule always looks odd when you're using a sentence that includes both single and double (or triple) digit numbers. Secondly, I prefer to use the same measure of time in such instances, which is why I would use '24 months' instead of '2 years'.

anytime - any time

"Breeding can occur at anytime during the year with the female becoming receptive once a month and can produce a calf about every two years"
That sentence needs a comma or two.

"although some tapirs will have twins occasionally"
'although tapirs will occasionally have twins'

"weigh between 16 – 17 kilograms"
'weigh between 16 and 17 kilograms'

"These stripes will eventually disappear after the first six months of age"
'These stripes will disappear after the first six months'

"tapirs would eat aquatic vegetation"
'tapirs eat aquatic vegetation'

"They have been known to bulldoze areas of forests"
When I think of the word 'bulldoze', I think of turning trees over... in fact, complete devastation (I've suddenly got a vision in my head of the Crablogger from Thunderbirds ). I'm sure tapirs aren't capable of that. Is there another more suitable word you can find to describe exactly what you mean there?

thier - their

"The ecology of the area that these animals live would suffer if these animals were to disappear"
'if they were to disappear'

"as they are vital seed dispersers of plants"
'as they are a vital link in the dispersal of local plant seeds'

Thanks BH.

I even found one or two other errors while proof reading it. And corrected them of course.

Ah, you've misunderstood me.

This paragraph: "The tapir's body is heavy, round in shape with a curved back..." needs to come immediately after the introduction, underneath the header 'Description' and before the description of the four individual species.

I've had a look at the GuideML you've used for the section describing the four species, and I think the Sub-editor will in all likelihood change it for something more in line with standard h2g2 usage of GML. What you've done is to use a tag but without any tags within it. This makes the whole section look as if it's been done with blockquote tags since there are no bullets.

I think the descritpions of the individual species are long enough that they really don't need to be in a list, and I'd recommend a header called something like 'Species of Tapir', then your sentence "There are four species of tapir - three from Central and South America and one from Asia:", and then a subheader for each of the four species descriptions.