Exercise: What Was That All About?

Players get samples of writing from various internet sources - randomly chosen movie reviews from IMDB, news stories from Huffington Post, blog posts from Wordpress, Wikipedia articles, etc.

Player A gets to block out 5% of the words in the sample. Player B then tries to guess the topic the sample discusses.

For example, here's a semi-randomly chosen IMDB review - the first one I grabbed off the site. It got 137 "helpful" votes out of 161 voters, so it's perceived as a good review. It's of a famous movie. I've blocked 5% of the words. Try to guess what movie.

This film has become a --------- tradition in my family. We watch it every year and never tire of it. -------- is a master of creating films with a message that reinforce strong values. This is probably his greatest film in that regard. Both he and ------ have publicly stated that this is their favorite film.

The message in this film is one of courage and sacrifice for the greater good as ------, a man with big ideas about seeing the world, continually forsakes his own desires to do what is right for the ------. The second message is that each life important. No matter how insignificant we feel we are, we are all inextricably linked to each other and play an important part in the fabric of one another's lives.

------'s direction is brilliant. His genius is bringing human stories to life in a ways that not only make a point, but that totally involve the audience in the lives of the characters. He is always extremely optimistic about the human condition. He is known for testing his characters with overwhelming adversity to make them struggle to triumph in a way that causes the world to change and the character to grow. For this reason his films were always crowd pleasers and this film was the best of all in that regard.

Led by ------'s understanding hand, the actors all did a magnificent job. ------'s wide-eyed enthusiasm and boyish charm, coupled with an unbending strength of character made him the perfect folk hero. ------ was lovely and charming and attained the right balance between being supportive and inspirational. The romantic chemistry between her and ------ was subtle and charming. ------ was towering as the greedy old skinflint who was trying to take over the ------. ------ plays one of my favorite characters, as the bumbling ------ in probably his most memorable role.

This film is number ------ on AFI's list of best films of the century. It was nominated for ------ academy awards and won ------. It was swept in ------ by ------, a great film that won ------ Oscars that year but in my opinion was the lesser film. History has corrected that minor injustice by rendering ------ an enduring classic that is viewed and loved by generation after generation. Of course, I rated it a 10/10. I can't wait to see it again this ------.

Clearly, this review fails to be specific. I've pretty much just blocked all the proper nouns - names of actors, years, etc. Still, I am willing to guess that not many people will know what the movie is. (I also blocked the two words describing a plot element and the setting.)

By contrast, I went to Wikipedia and hit "random article" repeatedly until I got an article whose title was something I had heard of before. The entire article is a little long, so I took the first two segments from the beginning of the article. Try to guess the topic of the article.

------ is a ------ ------ ------ ------ that was an international success during the 1990s and early 2000s with shows being filmed in America, Finland, The United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Sweden, Nigeria and Denmark. Russia,Germany, The Bahamas and Japan would also compete in international shows during the series. After a lengthy break, ------ was revived in 2008 in the UK, the US, Australia and Saudi Arabia.

The concept of the show is that athletic members of the public ------ against the show's own ----- (often semi-professional or ex-athletes) to claim points in several events that require speed, strength and skill. In the final event of the show, ------ the contenders ------ against each other (with starting times based on previous events), with the ------ ------ ------ winning the episode and moving onto the next round.

A children's derivative of the concept was also made in the US, called ------ (1994–1996). A UK variant of this was aired starting in 1995, called ------.

History

[edit]1990s success

The initial concept for the show by Dan Carr and John C. Ferraro was held in Erie, Pennsylvania, in the USA before being sold to Samuel Goldwyn Productions/MGM where the format was adapted and televised as ------ with the first series airing over 1989-1990. As the show progressed, new events were introduced along with new ------, sometimes retiring previous ------.

Following the success of ------, other countries began to produce their own versions of the show with the UK and Finland starting production in 1992. ------ had already picked up a cult following in the UK after being shown on late night TV. The UK, most noticeably adapted the concept into a large arena (the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham), glamorizing the show, often adapting events from the American series as well as introducing many of their own, often more high-tech. Winners from the UK and Finnish series would then go over to America, to film a special show of ------ in which they competed against the current American champions along with selected athletes from other territories such as Japan and the Bahamas and South Korea.

In early 1995, the first full scale international competition was launched in which selected ------ from the American, Finnish and British series competed against contender champions from those three countries. A fourth country, Russia was added but as they did not have their own domestic series, the ------ and contenders were hand-picked by Russian TV producers. The Finnish series ceased production after ------.

In 1995, Australia began production of their own show, basing it on the UK series. After the first series, a three part 'Ashes' mini series was filmed in Australia, in which a selection of British and Australian ------ faced champions from the opposing countries. Australia then went on to compete in ------ along with the UK and America. Russia also returned, even though they still did not have a domestic series. Germany and South Africa also competed even though they too did not have their own domestic series.

This is definitely more specific, but it still could be significantly better. It's probably clear that it's a television show where people have some sort of athletic competition, but it's not really clear what sort of athletic competition it was, what the general mood of the show was like, etc. There is a bit more information on this later in the article, but not quite as much as one might expect. Still, you know a lot more about this show than you know about the movie. This is despite the blanks blocking significant material; I blocked out verbs like "compete" and "race". In the movie review, there wasn't even such material available to block.

The answers are It's a Wonderful Life and Gladiators television franchise.

Passages that aren't specific could describe many different things, so by blocking out a few words, the original topic is lost. Highly-specific passages don't have this problem. This exercises teaches how to be on the lookout for specific and non-specific writing, but also gives us some data on what sorts of writing tend to be specific and what sorts do not. That way you know when to be especially aware of the "Be Specific" skill. (I predicted ahead of time that artistic reviews would be very non-specific and Wikipedia articles would be very specific.)

Variants

A representative from team A writes a passage. Team B blocks 5% of the words. The rest of team A tries to fill the words back in. The number of words correctly filled in is the team's score.

Rewrite non-specific passages to be specific.

Write your own content in the same style, but with a list of taboo words. For example, an article about the Gladiators series that taboos "gladiator", "television series", "competition", etc.

All players use a particular source of content and search through to find the longest contiguous passage they can that doesn't reveal the topic. For example, one might through IMDB reviews until you find a passage that's 200 words long and doesn't let you identify the movie, even with no words blocked.