HowTo talk:Defend your Home
HowTo:Defend your Home[edit]
Um yeah had this reviewed already. This was an article I made ages ago which sucked and I'm trying to make it better. Constructive critiscm would be much appreciated. I have made changes since the last review but I'm all out of ideas and dont really know what needs changing.
Wow thanks, that was way more helpful than the last one.
UnNinja 15:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
| Humour: | 5 | Ok I think you have a good idea of what you want to do with your humour, but I think your approach to executing it is flawed. When you get the tone correct you are very amusing and are sporadically so throughout the article. However you seem inconsistent otherwise. Try to be far less in-your-face with your humour, the key to successfully writing a HowTo is to be less obvious and stupid. Many people fall into this trap, so have a look at some of the featured HowTo's. See how the authors clearly imply that the reader is a moron, but without explicitly stating it. You could try experimenting with this approach in your intro, maybe something along the lines of Why hello<insert name here>, zombie hordes closing in? Just preparing? Have a lot of time on your hands?? Then this is the guide for you!. Also, I see what you are trying to do by expressing an opinion contrary to the article's given view, but this seems to break the flow of the article and leave a reader confused rather than amused (More on this below). |
| Concept: | 7 | I really like your concept and with work you can use it to create an excellent article. However the key to doing so lies in consistency of tone. The key with a HowTo is to teach, so breaking the tone of the article to refer to your own instructions by with something like 'This is idiotic' undermines your instructions and leaves the reader unsure; try to work your way towards a culminating point throughout the article. Also, to draw from your work, to say 'If you have a timber home, you freak' is unprofessional and ruins any tone you might have had previously. To address this try and avoid switching between perspectives in your article. Either write from the first person viewpoint, or from the purely encyclopedic third person. If you run into difficulties doing this then try and avoid referring to yourself as I, use we, and look at wikipedia articles to see how they inform the reader. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | Your prose are formatted well and you do well to avoid large blocks of text, perhaps too well, some expansion on a couple of sections is slightly desirable as I think you have the makings of a very amusing article, and it would be a shame if it ended too soon. You have a couple of grammar difficulties, nothing to get worked up over or to get the folks at UN:PS excited. Just proofread the article carefully and enlist the help one of the people at UN:PS if you are unsure. My main issue is that your image to text balance is a bit off. If you expand your sections you will need to include a couple more images and, even if you don't, more than one image is always desirable. |
| Images: | 6 | You have one image in the article, and while it is a bit generic on it's own, your caption makes it more amusing. However I think you can do more than this. You should, at the very least, have one more. Think about pictures that compliment your text and add significantly to your article, also try and make the existing image slightly smaller so it doesn't dominate the article |
| Miscellaneous: | 6 | My overall grade of the article. |
| Final Score: | 31 | While this review is very negative I would hope that you are not discouraged, it has the makings of a very good article, if you work at it. My main comments would be, try to ditch the self-deprecating humour and remain detached from the article. Expand a couple of sections, and be a bit more subtle. Good luck with any editing. |
| Reviewer: | --ChiefjusticeDS 18:05, 6 July 2009 (UTC) | |
HowTo:Defend your Home[edit]
UnNinja 23:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
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| Humour: | 7.434 | Intro - Well phrased, but maybe you can throw in some action inside. Maybe in the second paragraph you can include "But, we have the solution, right here!" or something. Bring in the action. Make the reader feel the adrenaline! Make Step one - Other than the ugly red links, it's quite good. But what's heat vision? Maybe youc an link it to somethign or put brackets like "heat vision (Mud in disguise)" or something (yeah). The first to paragraphs are fairly good, but then you fall into a trap after that. You're new here, right? So let me tell you. NEVER HAVE A SENTENCE WITH ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. It ruins everything, makes it less factual. Also, never use memes like Oscar Wilde, Kitten huffing, whatever. Maybe you can phrase the third paragraph into a sweeter statement like "Of course, the zomies will be able to break through and kill you. But it's alright." or something. My sentences aren't very good. Step two' - Be more decisive. Stop putting the slashes. For the header, put somethign like "Lock yourself, and maybe your family into the basement. And you should put "Terrorists or zombies or robots or Jews" instead of "Terrorists/zombies/robots/Jews". Slashes are ugly. And sinec you said basment above, you should use basement. Not cellar. The last pararaph is good, but the penultimate paragraph of the section is a bit weird. Either phrase it to make it sound better, or delete it. Believe me, it's of no use. Step Three - THe first paragraph is good. "Cower... in fear?" should be "Cower in fear?" After all, you're the narrator. You're not afraid... right? Spare the "..."s. Maybe it should be "Cower in fear? You... you imbecile! Words cannot describe this idiocy... oh, christ..." Sounds much better. Right? The last passage is great, but you should increase the fear. Heighten it. Maybe you can say "keep screaming to liven the family". Or something. Step Four - I didn't like the grandma either. But you still should make it sound more drastic, like "scream at the top of your breath while banging the lifeless corpse with your chainsaw". |
| Concept: | 8.4980 | Great. Nice article. But you shouldn't keep repeating "Jew/zombie/robot/terrorist". Maybe at each situation, choose one of those to use. |
| Prose and formatting: | 5.4 | Generally - Too many red links. Ugly. You know, you can do [[Shit|Section]] instead of [[Section]]? The former produces Section while the other produces a red link - Section. And your sentences... You need to put a spacebar after the full stop. Correct all those sentences.
HowTo template - SItuated in a very nice place, tucked at the top right corner. I've seen templates strewn all over the place, but yours is great. Nice position. Fairly good. Slashes - Remove thee slashes. I talked about it in humor, use "or" or "and" or "maybe". I don't know how maybe can be used, but maybe. Step 3 - "...and eat you brains..." should be "...and eat your brains...". And "...be dead.Firstly, wrap..." should be "...be dead. Firstly, wrap...". The spacebar. "...Keep shotgun..." should be "...Keep your shotgun...". After that, the three dots (...) should be a... b instead of a...b - separate them. |
| Images: | 6.444545 | One pic - Good. But what does Jane Fonda or whoever want to do? Eat you? |
| Miscellaneous: | 6.9 | Averaged. I love decimals. |
| Final Score: | 34.676545 | Nice article. Keep working on it! |
| Reviewer: | Mr Brute! ~02:36/6 of July | |
HowTo:Defend your Home[edit]
HowTo:Defend your Home Ragnarok 14:38, August 4, 2010 (UTC)
Mine. 24 hours or it's cancelled... --Some Idiot 
07:26, August 11, 2010 (UTC)
| Humour: | 7 | Ah, yes. The old horror zombie movie cliche. Your article portrays this quite well. The main humor in your article is the wackiness of the fact that they are making a guide on how to do such a thing. But I was thinking you could add some more stuff, of different humor, like the captions you have on your pictures. Like, when you're talking about locking yourself up in the basement, mention something about how badly the guys from 'War of the Worlds' did it and to learn from their mistakes. Looking at movies like this would be really effective, and is it gives some extra funny one liners, besides the humor in the concept itself.
Your entire article is rather good on the subject of humor, but here I'll also add some comments for each section, so you can improve the little things. Here we go…
Is that all you could fit in? Maybe you could add a final conclusion or something, or at least build more on the sections you've already got. The thing is, this article is rather short and needs to be expanded. Now, it's ok, as a lot of HowTo article are stubs, but a longer article is always better then a little one. |
| Concept: | 8 | This is a really good concept, but I still think you have space to build on it in the ways I have mentioned above. |
| Prose and formatting: | 7 | You kept a constant style of prose throughout. Your spelling and grammar was not bad and your article looks ok (although in step 3 it should be “your shotgun”). However, there are a few points I may make here.
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| Images: | 7 | Your images are pretty good. I still think you should add another, maybe from a movie, with people or zombies actually attacking the house. Or detailed diagrams on how to properly nail wooden boards over a window. If you need photoshopped images, I always recommend here where some great photoshoppers could attend to your needs. |
| Miscellaneous: | 7.25 | Averaged your scores. |
| Final Score: | 36.25 | This is a great concept and your basic content is actually pretty good. But if you build it and fix it up in the ways I have mentioned, it could definitely be a high quality article. I hope to see you writing more great stuff soon, and I hope that helped! |
| Reviewer: | --Some Idiot 11:47, August 11, 2010 (UTC)
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