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

Entry: Brazil - A689178
Author: Sciefyr - U189405

Well, I left this up at the Writer's Workshop for a while, so I think it's ready now...

Hi Sciefyr,

this is a truly great entry, should go in the Edited Guide without any problems. The only (rather smallish) point is that the headers should be de-capitalized (if you don't then the Subeditor will surely do).

Good work!
SchrEck Inc.

Hi Sciefyr,

Good article.

You might want to check when Mauritania outlawed slavery (most recently 1990-something to my knowledge ) before saying that Brazil was the last country to do so. Bit of a personal bugbear of mine.

It might be useful to compare Brazil's land-area with somewhere else (e.g. USA 9.1 million sq km, Mexico 1.9 million sq km, UK 0.241 sq km vs. Brazil's 8.5 million sq km, sorry I don't have these in sq mi) as I think very few people find these stats meaningful without comparison points. Or possibly mention it's the seventh (erm, I think ) largest country.

And the dreaded word 'gotten' seems to have slipped through the Writing Workshop! 'got' or 'obtained' would work fine here.

Oh yes, and the USA once had an Emperor of sorts - but you probably don't want to open that can of worms!

Well done though, should be no trouble getting this in with or without my suggestions.

Gif

Oo, I've just noticed that my figures and yours for Brazil's area are different.

Also, are you sure the cerrados has more species than the rainforest? That's quite surprising.

Gif

Two little points, your figures for the surface area of the country are a little strange, the two figures, km² and miles² don't equal the same area... after having looked in Britannica - 3.3 million square miles, but 8.54 million square kilometres..

Apart from that, you mention the overall population of the country, it might be interesting to note afterwards how many of those people actually live in the major cities: I believe Rio has somewhere in the region of 14 million inhabitants for example.

Just three small points:

The sentence starting "One is the famous Amazon rainforest" has two separate clauses starting with "which". This does not read well. Try splitting up the sentence into two separate sentences.

In the sentence about torture, "the way that" should be "in the way that".

"Argentines" should be "Argentinians".

Giford, Whisky, Gnomon, thank you for your comments. I've incorporated them into the entry... ANd Gif - yes, the cerrado is more biodiverse than the Amazon. One of those convenient little facts you learn living in it...

Sciefyr

Great Entry! There are a few words in it that I had to look up: syncretism, feijoada and vatapá, for instance - and it might be a good idea to add explanatory footnotes for some of the more obscure terms, in case anyone else as ignorant as me reads the Entry! But this is a superb piece of work, certain to make it into the Edited Guide.

One more thing: you have mentioned that the whole knows about Brazil's football team. In case you'd like to expand on that a little, here's the page about the team on the FIFA 2002 World Cup site: http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/en/t/t/p/bra.html . The fact that they've won the World Cup four times is probably worth a mention. The dates when they did so are listed at the bottom of that page.

On the subject of cities - Sao Paulo is the 4th largest in the world, and Rio also scrapes into the top 20 at 19th largest (in pop. terms, obviously, 2000 figures).

Gif

Argentines, Argentinians, Argentineans are all correct.

Theanthrope, half-Argentine

As the rather loud subject says, this has been picked for the inclusion into the Edited Guide Next stage - SubEditors Any questions then just yell Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

Well done!

fyi, I have just posted to Peer Review an article on Biodiversity that I was inspired to write after reading Sciefyr's comment that the cerrados is more biodiverse than the Amazon.

It's at A699078.

Gif

Hi there (again)

*Takes off scout hat and puts on Sub-Editor hat*

In case you were wondering what happens next:

I'll be the sub-ed for your entry, which roughly speaking means I read it through for spellink mistokes and grammatically errors and generally give it a final polish, ready for the front page of the guide...

If you've any questions, queries or insults to throw, just give me a shout.

Congratulations and
whisky