Link to article: Zyn's Crit Tips - Part II - Reviewing Overhaul Works.
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[[>]] [[module Rate]] [[/>]] Hello again! This is [[*user Zyn]], admin for the SCP wiki, captain of the Forum Criticism Team/Butterfly Squad εїз εїз here with some more tips on critiquing. In this page, I’ll cover how to respond to SCP article drafts that need a serious overhaul of some kind (i.e., have a lot of immediately identifiable errors) before the author can expect them to do well on the site. General note: these tips are for anyone and everyone, newbies and veterans alike! General note II: these tips are geared towards giving feedback in the drafts critique forum: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/c-50864 General note III: these are not rules! These are suggestions on how to productively and efficiently (read: potentially 5 minutes or less!) critique SCP drafts that need a lot of work to reach mainsite standards. Here we go! --------------- @@@@ @@@@ ++++ Overall tips/things to keep in mind: 1. **IMPORTANT: you are not here to rewrite the article for the author.** Even if you see a metric ton of errors, it’s not the reviewers’ responsibility to tell the author about each and every one. Writing assistance tools like Grammarly and in-browser spellcheckers can do a fair bit of simple edit fixes automatically, and all authors on the site should be able to learn the basics of clinical tone and proper conceptualization by themselves. 2. **Don’t assume knowledge of buzzwords.** If the tone of a draft is extremely casual, telling an author “your clinical tone is off” won’t help them improve their writing much. Similarly, telling someone they have a “generic cursed magic object” might just result in confusion, especially if that’s what they //wanted// to write and they’re not sure why it’s an issue. (2.5) Catchphrase critique, while succinct, typically isn’t specific enough to explain how an author can improve their particular work. Similarly, don’t just throw links to guides at an author. //Your review should match the draft at hand, rather than being easily swapped between any other draft.// 3. **Don’t overwhelm the author, and don’t overwhelm yourself.** Drafts in need of overhaul //should not take a long time to review//; rather, they should be among the fastest things because the author can do a lot of the basic fixes themselves after some studying on their own. Additionally, there’s no need to laundry list out a wall of shame for why a piece is bad--you want the author to feel like they’re capable of improving on their own rather than relying on reviewers for everything. @@@@ @@@@ ------------- @@@@ @@@@ Now on to the basics: when responding to a draft in need of some serious overhaul, rather than avalanching the author with all the things they did wrong, try to keep things simple and focus on addressing two things: concept and execution. @@@@ @@@@ ++++ Concept and Execution. What are those? @@@@ @@@@ **Concept** is basically what the article is about. What is the anomaly? And if applicable, what is the story the author is telling with it? * Common major issues with concepts include: * Stuff the audience has seen a lot already (objects like powered-up humanoids, generic cursed magic items, things that kill you for no reason) * Overly predictable premise/storyline * Item that doesn’t seem that anomalous * Heavy usage of copyrighted material or other work that the author borrows extensively from * Tools that can be recommended to address conceptual issues include: * The Ideas and Brainstorming forum: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/c-89000/help:ideas-and-brainstorming and the IRC chat: http://www.scp-wiki.net/chat-guide * The Tag Search tool: http://www.scp-wiki.net/tag-search (for finding existing articles that might be overly similar, or articles that are examples of concepts done particularly well) * When applicable, Guide Hub pages like the humanoid writing guide: http://www.scp-wiki.net/so-you-want-to-write-a-humanoid-scp-object * (to an extent) Tvtropes, or other websites that have lists of popular franchise examples of certain recurring themes * Important: if you’re not certain if something is a unique or workable concept, own up to it! Just tell the author “I personally liked/didn’t like this idea, but I don’t know for sure if the rest of the audience has this same perspective.” * Also important: if you really like something about the concept, tell the author! Maybe the humanoid is super boring and cliché, but his goofy enlightened tapeworm sidekick is great and you’d rather read about that. You shouldn’t need to go hunting for something nice to say, but if something stands out that you like, be honest about it so the author knows what to focus on. @@@@ @@@@ **Execution** is how the article is written. This can include grammar, mechanics, formatting, tone, and organization. * Common major issues with execution include: * An abundance of simple grammar and mechanics errors (confusing “it’s” with “its”) * Improper formatting (unintentionally does not use proper article headings, lack of paragraph spaces, superhuge images) * Casual, rather than clinical, tone (sounds like a teenager explaining a video game rather than a professional scientist writing an official report) * Lack of proper scientific portrayal (containment procedures that don’t make sense, scientists acting like idiots, Foundation personnel somehow knowing everything about an SCP even though they shouldn’t) * Sloppy organization (descriptive content in the containment procedures, excessive background content before the item itself and its anomaly are explained, lots of extra fluff details that can be trimmed down or removed entirely) * Tools that can be recommended to address execution issues include: * Grammarly, an in-browser spellchecker, other writing assistance tools * The Guides to Writing pages in the SCP wiki’s Guide Hub: http://www.scp-wiki.net/guide-hub#toc2 * Links in the General Writing Resource Thread: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-871935/general-writing-resource-thread * College-level course information, like this series from Walden University: https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/scholarlyvoice/tone * When applicable, other SCP articles (ideally, recently posted works that reflect current audience expectations). * When applicable, bilingual site members who may be able to help with translation of certain kinds of material, or International Branch sites. * Important: if you’re not super familiar with clinical tone, site formatting, or advanced writing yourself, let the author know! A statement like “I’m not an expert on scientific writing, but the clinical tone looks fine to me” is more helpful (and less likely to be misleading) than “the clinical tone is good”. And now time for some examples! Remember, a good review both identifies issues and helps the author figure out how to fix those issues. Disclaimer: do not copy-paste these responses word-for-word as your own feedback. @@@@ @@@@ ------------- @@@@ @@@@ Example of response to a draft where the concept and execution both need work: [[collapsible]] > Okay author, I’ll be honest with you. This will need a lot of work before it will be ready for the mainsite, and there are several things that you’ll need to fix before you can expect reviewers to be willing to give you an in-depth read. > > To start off, there are a lot of simple errors in the draft that make it difficult to read through the piece smoothly, and that makes the SCP look very lazily written. For example, there are a lot of typos like “personell” instead of “personnel”, and every instance of “it’s” is used incorrectly (“it’s” means “it is”). A good spellchecker or writing assistance tool like Grammarly can help with those basics. And on and on. There’s also a lot of overly casual phrasing like “when the monster beats up those he sees as bad guys, he goes into a rage state”, which doesn’t sound like the writing of a professional researcher and makes it hard for the audience to take the piece seriously. Definitely go through the Guide Hub’s “Guides to Writing” pages for advice on how to address that, and maybe some college-level writing resources. > > Conceptually though, what you have here is something that we’ve seen a lot on the mainsite (humanoid that magically forces people to do things or it gets mad and kills people). As a result, given all the other articles that we already have that are more compelling, it just isn’t interesting enough as it currently is to make me feel like upvoting it if I saw it posted to the mainsite. Take a look at the articles we already have [http://www.scp-wiki.net/system:page-tags/tag/compulsion#pages tagged with "compulsion"], and maybe the humanoid and hostile tags as well. I recommend getting the base idea polished up in the [http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/c-89000/help:ideas-and-brainstorming Ideas and Brainstorming forum] before you try fixing the draft. [[/collapsible]] @@@@ @@@@ ------------- @@@@ @@@@ Example of response to a draft where the concept is good, and the execution needs work: [[collapsible]] > Okay, took a look at this. I will say that I really like the concept, but there are a lot of writing errors here that make me hesitant to read through the entire piece. > > As an example, your formatting is incorrect, which immediately makes the piece look sloppy--please use the template in the How to Write an SCP Guide (templates tab) for the proper bolded headings (it’s “Item #:”, not “SCP ID number”). Remember to put line spaces between your paragraphs so you don’t get the wall of text effect, and it’s easier on a reader’s eyes. You have a lot of stuff in the containment that describes the anomaly rather than actually being instructions on how to keep it locked up; put that in the description or just trim it out entirely (there’s a //lot// of extra information about how exactly the tree looks that isn’t really interesting or super necessary to understanding how the anomaly works). There’s also a lot of overly unprofessional behavior from the Foundation staff here; trained and experienced researchers shouldn’t need to be told not to do dumb things, and having the Level-3 researcher just conveniently decide that titanium would fix everything just seems too silly to believe. Maybe take a look at the Guide Hub’s writing guides on containment and technical pieces to adjust for these things. > > As I said, I do like the concept of a tree that grows different kinds of poison dart frogs because it’s so quirky and the imagery is great. I feel like if you prune out the fluff text so the wordcount isn’t so bogged down and make the Foundation staff act more competent, this will do pretty well. Best of luck with this! [[/collapsible]] @@@@ @@@@ --------------- @@@@ @@@@ Example of response to a draft where the concept needs work, and the execution is good: [[collapsible]] > Okay, took a look at this. Author, I will say that the writing is pretty good: the description and containment sound like a real researcher wrote them, and there’s a good balance between important basic information and details. > > The idea though, I feel like needs work before I’d be in upvote territory for this. I don’t know a lot about particle physics, but the way that the anomaly is described it doesn’t really sound like it’s something that can never happen in real life. It also kind of feels like something from an X-files episode (I think it was called "Ice"?), so maybe look into that with a quick Google search or the like to make sure what you have is more distinct and doesn’t come off as plagiarism. I say definitely get the core concept checked in the Ideas and Brainstorming forum before editing the draft, so you can get a feel for what the development and content the audience wants to see in order to like the piece. Also, maybe ask around in chat for some of our physics savvy readers to see what they think of the particle physics explanations here. [[/collapsible]] @@@@ @@@@ --------------- @@@@ @@@@ Above all: make sure that your critique is actionable! That means that the author knows what to do next when fixing their article, not just knowing that there's a lot that needs fixing. Thanks for reading! And remember, helpful reviews keep the community alive and thriving! @@@@ @@@@ [[=]] **<< [[[zyn-s-crit-tips-i | Part I: Reviewing Long Drafts]]] | [[[zyn-s-crit-tips-iii | Part III: The Quick Crit]]] >>** [[/=]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box]] [[include :scp-wiki:component:license-box-end]]