We study a sample of 23 Type II plateau supernovae (SNe II-P), all observed with the same set of instruments. Analysis of their photometric evolution confirms that their typical plateau duration is 100 d with little scatter, showing a tendency to get shorter for more energetic SNe. We examine the claimed correlation between the luminosity and the rise time from explosion to plateau. We analyse their spectra, measuring typical ejecta velocities, and confirm that they follow a well-behaved power-law decline. We find indications of high-velocity material in the spectra of six of our SNe. We test different dust-extinction correction methods by asking the following - does the uniformity of the sample increase after the application of a given method? A reasonably behaved underlying distribution should become tighter after correction. No method we tested made a significant improvement.