Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/Spoon
Spoon[edit]
This is an article by n00b Rj2399, he just had a little difficulty putting it here it seems. :P Please leave him a message after you're through. 
Mattsnow 08:15, May 23, 2012 (UTC)
| Humour: | 6 | Hello RJ. I hope you're well. Sorry you've had to wait a while for a review, but things are moving kinda slowly on Pee Review at the moment. Anyway, for a first article this is a really good effort. I may sound harsh in some of the things I say here, but I am not saying there is anything wrong with your article, I am just saying "these are the things you would need to do to get this featured". So anyway, let's start from the top.
First of all, I think you should get rid of the canned quotes at the top of the page. Generally speaking, opening quotes are unencyclopaedic and simply a lazy way of telling jokes. They rarely get to grips with the subject matter in a humorous way, not like written prose does. They have to be really funny to work, whereas these just kinda look like they're there for the sake of it. The article will look better without them, in my view. A lot of the humour in the first part of the article is good. I like the deadpan material about what spoons are and what they're used for. Some of it is too random or confusing, however, at least in my opinion. Like where you say "female utensil". What do you mean by this? And "naturally composed"? How is it composed naturally? Is this just a joke? If so I don't get it. And Arctic Jesus? That's a bit random. So a word about jokes. Take a look at this line: "they are mainly used for eating food in all states of matter, aside from grease, but this is yet to be proven... A study was made to identify whether grease should be considered a state of matter or not". Now I'd just like to say that, while there is nothing wrong with this line, it's a misguided approach to humour. What I mean is; it's not really a joke. It's just a random passage of nonsense. Random passages of nonsense are rarely funny. I could say "eggs were invented by Josef Goebbels in 8 BC", but it wouldn't be funny. A joke needs a punch line or a twist or at the very least some basis in reality to make it funny. To give you an example, here is a joke: "There's a new movie about truck drivers coming out. The trailer looks awful". Now compare that to a standard line of text: "a film about trucks would be really boring". The difference is that the first surprises you with its punch line and uses wordplay for added humour. The second one basically says the same thing but because it has no comic anchor it just looks like a throwaway line. I hope this makes sense and that it helps you construct some jokes. At this point I would probably recommend you take a look at some of our featured articles, if you haven't already. Especially things like Door handle and Rolex, which are similarly about quite mundane objects. See how funny and well-written they are, and set that as a benchmark for your future writing! We also have some tips on writing for the site (not sure if you've read them already, but there are some decent suggestions in there). |
| Concept: | 5 | There are some good ideas in here, but overall I feel it's too inconsistent. I am sorry to say that a lot of the article is too silly. If you wanted to write an article wherein spoons are living creatures then go for it (although I probably wouldn't recommend it), but that needs to be the consistent approach all the way through (this excellent article is a good example of how to do this kind of thing right). The line about Noah, for example, doesn't really add anything. It's just confusing because spoons aren't animals. And as far as I'm aware this is the first mention of them being animals in the article even though it's about half-way through (if the whole article was about them being animals it wouldn't be a problem, but it isn't). I would probably recommend you stick as close to the truth as possible with this one though, mainly because some of the stuff in the first half of the article is really good.
I like the idea about edible spoons, but if early spoons are going to be edible, wouldn't it make more sense for them to be made out of some kind of food, instead of wood? Maybe cheese or something? The story about the copyrighting of spoons is interesting, and I think it could work well if you clean up the prose/grammar and maybe cut out some of the randomness (as per what I say above and below). A question you should ask yourself: what do Abe Lincoln and Jesus have to do with spoons? Also, a lot of the World War stuff doesn't really make much sense, although I do like the idea of metal spoons being unpopular at first because they were inedible. You need to think more about what you're putting in here. You can't just fill it with nonsense. Remember what I said above about writing comedy: humour needs some basis in reality or your readers will just find it tiresome. No one wants to read a made-up history on kitchen utensils, unless it's a comedic masterpiece (which I frankly think would be near-impossible to achieve). |
| Prose and formatting: | 5 | The biggest problem with the article, in m opinion, is the way it's written. For example: "used to be and is still being referred as spun and spoone, also the more rarer spune." - This is a bit clumsy, and as result it's hard to follow. There are too many words in there. Don't overcomplicate your writing; if you want to say it used to be referred to as a "spun" then just say it like that. Speak as plainly as possible with written comedy, unless the joke is that it's supposed to be unintelligible (which it isn't here). Also, get rid of that full stop/period inside the brackets; this isn't the end of the sentence, it's the end of your little "aside" in the brackets.
"Used to teleport matter" - I love this idea but I think you mean "transport" rather than "teleport". You should either end your sentence or put a comma after "location", because it doesn't flow very well to the next part. And again you are overcomplicating things: "doing process known as lifting" is just a really clumsy phrase that no human would ever say. Try reading this stuff out loud to get a better idea of how it sounds. Make it sound more natural. This line is also difficult to understand: "but it is commonly manipulated by the use of physics by a so called group of society called psychics". There is just too much in there. Overall you need more commas, more full stops/periods and less words. Some issues from the history section:
There a lots of problems with tense and grammar. I would proofread this very carefully, perhaps out-loud as I find this can be a useful way of fixing the flow. I also recommend running it through a spellchecker; eg. Microsoft Word, or a browser that has this function (I use Google Chrome, which has one). |
| Images: | 5 | You definitely need some more images. How about some actual images of spoons? It's weird that there aren't any. Try to have one image every few paragraphs to make the article look nice and pretty, and to avoid big long walls of text. Again I suggest you look at our features to see how they use images. |
| Miscellaneous: | 6 | Overall impression. |
| Final Score: | 27 | So overall this is a good start, and a great first attempt. Just try to get the article a bit more focussed and consistent, and have a think about how you deliver your jokes. Oh, and get some more/better pics in there. If there's anything else you want me to look at or explain better then let me know. I hope the review is okay. |
| Reviewer: | --Black Flamingo 21:21, May 31, 2012 (UTC) | |