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

http://www.h2g2.com/A481998

While browsing through the Guide, I discovered something disturbing: A lack of entries on horse racing. How can this be? I decided to rectify the situation immediately, and chose to begin with the best American racing has to offer: Man o' War.

Elected "Horse of the Century" last year, he is certainly worthy of an entry.

Hi Spiletta,

Wow, that's a whole lot of information!

Could you explain what the stars before the names of Rock Sand and Fairly Gold mean?

I think your entry would be easier to read if you broke it into sections on Parentage, Races, Offspring etc - and maybe combine some of your paragraphs: the very short ones give it a choppy, staccato quality.

Aside from that, as a non-fan of racing I found the constant stream of horse names and races quite hard to follow, and had to keep checking back to who we were talking about each time - but maybe that's because I'm not into it.

Anyway, it's a worthy piece that meets all the criteria - good luck!

GVI

I just skimmed through the entry after reading your comments. I seem to have missed the mark on my target audience, because it is very hard to follow for a non-horseperson. If I was writing this for Blood-Horse, it would be great, but for the Guide, not so much. I'll give it an edit on Monday.

I went ahead and deleted the asteriks. In older pedigrees, they indicate that a horse is imported. It doesn't belong in prose, I just typed them without even realizing it!

Perhaps I should add a little glossary of racing terminology. Putting definitions into the piece itself would be distracting. Once again, that will have to wait until Monday.

As for the choppy paragraphs, they resulted from my attempt to edit this thing down to a more reasonable length. I had blathered on about Rock Sand, Bend Or, and a few others, then gone back and deleted the extra information. Once again, I'll fix it.

Question: How do I break it into sections? Do I have to post it in sections, or can I just add some subtitles in HTML? Explain, please, if you've got a sec.

Thanks for the comments!

Hi Spiletta,

Glad to hear my comments were well received - I'll look forward to reading the article again after the changes.

In terms of sections: I'd recommend using GuideML rather than HTML, because that keeps everyone's work looking the same and means your article will look equally good in the blue or white screen layouts.

When you convert your article to GuideML, you have to put the ... tage around every paragraph. You can then just use ... tags on your titles. If you need more information, ask me or go to the experts at http://www.h2g2.com/GuideML-Clinic

I do think glossaries and lower-level articles would be well-received. You could then refer to them in these more specific pieces, and it would save you explaining stuff twice.

One thing that does occur to me: we do have a medium here for people with more expert knowledge, who want to put together a "package" of a number of interrelated articles which will all go through the editing process at once - I think that might suit you perfectly. It's the Project system at the "University of Life" - visit the home page for that (http://www.h2g2.com/University) and you'll find out what is required and where to sign up. If you want to ask more questions about it, Peta (http://www.h2g2.com/U24) is really helpful. Oh, and you get a shiny badge for your home space!

Have fun with the article, whichever way you approach it, and thanks for contributing.

GVI

I just wanted to say that I think this entry rocks!

I agree with GVI, though, that the readability would be greatly enhanced by the used of headers and subheaders.


Mikey

Congrats Spiletta42, your Entry has been picked to become part of The Edited Guide (the wheels do turn, just extremely slowly ). The ENtry is now packed up and sent off to a SubEd for sprucing up, adding headers etc. and will then be returned, to appear on the Front Page Now this may take another wee whiley, so patience is still needed, but it will get there Again, congratulations - THIS THREAD IS NOW CLOSED
BCNU - Crescent

Editorial Note: This thread has been moved out of the Peer Review forum because this entry has now been recommended for the Edited Guide.

If they have not been along already, the Scout who recommended your entry will post here soon, to let you know what happens next. Meanwhile you can find out what will happen to your entry here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/SubEditors-Process

Congratulations!