RFP for Reptiles and Amphibians’ Description

Reptiles and Amphibians’ Description – Content Creation

 

V.0.3.0-20220429

What's this content for?

This writing task is to draw the first impression of a specific snake, frog, or other reptile & amphibian to the audience. Try to narrow the distance between unfamiliar animals and people, reducing alienation.

This section is the first section directly talking about the characters of the raptiles and amphibians, so it is a “first impression” section. Interesting is in the first place, making an impressive and unique impression of the target animal is the key.

Try to echo the audiences’ memory of these animals, according to the things that we encounter on a daily basis. Reduce herpetological description and measurements unless it is characteristic.

Requirement
一. General Requirements:
  1. Word Count: Each description should consist of around 50 words.
  2. Avoid simple listing: including but not limited to geographical distribution and habitat. Try to use generalized terms, e. g., we should use “Northeast Asia” instead of “Japan, Korea, Inner Mongolia, and Russian Far East”. A simple listing of more than 3 items (countries, habitats) at one time is NOT ALLOWED.
  3. Start with a general describe: size (large or small), venomous or not (especially for the snakes), and main distribution area. (e.g.: The common watersnake is a species of large, nonvenomous snake that originates in North America.)
  4. Interesting: Each description should consist of 2 or more facts in different directions. Some facts are considered to be interesting (Goto section 2. what is an interesting fact?), try to include as much as possible.
  5. Avoid Formulaic Expression: When describing the facts, try to change the choice of content and expression appropriately, preventing similar content with a similar structure from appearing repeatedly within one working set. Overly formulaic content (>50% content is written in the same form) will be rejected.
  6. Specific: Try to find the most characteristic facts about the animals to build the descriptions. Avoid general information that lacks distinctiveness.
  7. Balanced: Do not let any single fact take up too much space in one description.
二、What is an Interesting Fact?
  1. Facts that are related to our daily lives or importance to ecosystems are considered interesting (Dos):
  • Notable behaviour for amateurs; (e.g.: rattlesnakes making a loud noise with its rattle, Suriname toads rise eggs embedded on females’ backs, etc.)
  • Preferred habitats, a.k.a. “where can you find them”;
  • Is it dangerous? (Venomous? Poisonous? Aggressive to humans or pets?)
  • Resamblance to some dangerous species.
  • Symbolic uses in art, music, literature, etc.;
  • Name story;
  • Most …. (world records in any direction)
  • Importance to the local ecosystem;
  • Invasive that threatens local ecosystems and biodiversity.
  • Food, especially cultivated species. Do not encourage forage wildlife.
  • Pet, especially commercial breed species. Never encourage hunting wildlife.
  • Conservation status and why it is endangered.

       2.    These facts are considered NOT interesting (Not Suggested):

  • Morphological description and measurements are not suggested. (unless it is very uncommon in the animal world, or directly related to its name story, usage, etc.)

       3.    Do not mention these pieces of information (Don’ts)

  • Exact range it distributes; (we will talk about it in detail on another section)
  • Scientific synonym, alternative common name. These names are listed in our system in another section, please DO NOT mention them unless there’s an interesting name story behind it;
  • Taxonomy information is neither interesting to common readers nor can it be wrong (because of the taxonomy system that has changed frequently recently), please DO NOT mention it here;
  • DO NOT mention general behaviours/characteristics consist in a large group in this section, like the metamorphosis of frogs.
Special Attentions
  • The relative size (large, moderate or small) of an animal depends on our daily cognition.

E.g., the typical size of a snake is generally considered lesser than 1 m (39 inches), so if a snake could grow significantly longer than 1 meter (>1.2 meter or so), we would say it is a large snake. And a snake shorter than 0.6 meter will be a small snake.

Of course, you can also use “giant” or “tiny” to describe it, which still depends on our daily cognition. But please be a little conservative when using these words.

Frogs, lizards, salamanders, or any other gourp would have their own typical size.

We can generally believe the relative size descriptions of most sources like wikipedia.org or any other specialized databases. If there’s any conflict between different databases and you can not decide, you can choose not to describe its relative size.

  • Use common names instead of Latin names whenever possible;
  • Italicize any Latin words that appear. (e.g., genus names, etc.)
Sample Descriptions

Nerodia sipedon (common watersnake) [57 words]

  • The common watersnake is a species of large, nonvenomous snake that originates in North America. It is a common snake found in its range and is often found swimming in the water or hunting aquatic animals among plants at the water’s edge. It defense itself vigorously when threatened and will bite repeatedly if it is picked up.