What word should I use to describe something is not carefully made?

Question

E.g. I read a book teaching people how to cook. The first chapter is written great(carefully made) while the latter are bad. (bad and so-so would be too generic I think)

"The first chapter is great while the latter are ______."

rough? crude?

Answer 1

"Crude" is a good word for something that is "constructed in a rudimentary or makeshift way", but it does have other definitions too, so when used, your context must be clear. One might say "this is a crude copy of [x]", which would be quite clear because the word "copy" indicates that you are referring to the item's creation. However, in your context of chapters of a book, I'm afraid people might assume you mean another definition of crude which is "offensively coarse or rude, especially in relation to sexual matters".

"Rough" would be a better word in this context, or perhaps shoddy or inferior. You could also just say "poorly written" or "badly written", if you want to make it absolutely clear you are referring to the writing quality, rather than the story content.

Also, as your sentence begins "The first chapter is great..." one might expect that you are drawing a contrast, and that the word you use to describe the later chapters ought to be an antonym of "great" such as "bad", or "poor". You might want to consider stating that the first chapter was "well written", and then whatever word you choose to describe the later chapters, it becomes more clear that this is about the writing standard.

Answer 2

If your intention is to express admiration about the first chapter and disappointment about the lack of same quality in the next chapters, you just write something in the sense: "This is good but that not."

The first chapter is written great while the latter ones not so.

If your intention is to express what specifically you miss in the latter chapters, you can say something that is not necessary an adjective or antonym of the first quality:

The first chapter is written great while the latter are not detailed enough or not that useful.

If it has to be an adjective and the opposite of ´great´:

The first chapter is written great while the latter are thin or week or poor or not impressive or disappointing.

Answer 3

half-baked

For what it's worth, this figure of speech comes from the topic of your book: cooking.

dictionary.com

insufficiently cooked

Cambridge

not planned or considered carefully enough

Answer 4

If the verb here is 'write', I'd rather just use 'badly-written', if the verb is 'cook', it could be 'badly-cooked'. This way is simple, but does the trick. :D