Reviews on MS-an afterthought. Review on Mouthshut

Before proceeding with this review, I’d like to clarify that I’m no expert on writing, and this is purely my judgment…

On a consumer site such as MS, there’re all sorts

of people: the serious ones who review, rate & comment on everything, those who are interested in the site for the product ratings from a consumer point of view, those who love to write, those who love to interact and meet new kinds of people and just belong, those who like to read and blog, and many, many of those who seem to review for the sake of seeing their words on screen.

Personally, I make an effort to make my reviews coherent, fairly well put forward (can’t say I’ve ac hieved that), simply because I know that it is some sort of a responsibility wherein someone is going to actually buy or go to the places I review about based on my opinion, and the fact that I love to write.

It’s only fair that when we write a review, we take care to make it useful for other people to read within our limits. It’s not important to have the best grasp of the language, be a walking thesaurus, have a wicked sense of humor or a bag of colourful anecdotes to share, but one should at the least attempt, to make the review substantial in terms of description, personal experience, passion and anything else one feels could be of importance to the reader. Infact before posting the review on the site, one should see if they’d appreciate reading their own review to begin with!

Here’s a rough list of helpful hints to go by when writing- they definitely won’t get you a Booker’s prize or a best selling novel title, but might be of interest anyway!

1. Decide if your topic to review is interesting enough to you, firstly. And if you know or remember enough about it to write something about, get your facts right.

   
   




2. Definitely make a rough skeleton, no matter how brief, so that each aspect of the product can be presented without being forgotten, and is not half hazard like it often happens when new ideas keep popping into the head! 3. Start writing your tale, remembering to make sure that what you say is from personal experience or should be mentioned when otherwise. 4. Check for spellings- generally slang and short forms are pretty irritating to read, and rude!

   
   




3. Remember that there are all sorts of members on the site- young and old, professional and homely, many distinguished in each of their fields, from various countries and one must respect that. Full stop.

   
   




4. Value other people’s opinion as being their own, instead of taking it personally and reacting. Instead of slandering the person who assigned an NU for your review, find out why it wasn’t useful for them.

   
   




5. Enjoy what you are doing; this isn’t an examination- unless you enjoy those!

   
   




6. Think- if you read your review, would you be convinced of what you are trying to say?

   
   

Rating reviews should not be a tit-for-tat gesture, one should be proud of getting kudos for a job well done. One shouldn’t add members to their trusted circle based on what they look like in their profile or their gender- it would be a lot more credible if their reviews were read and it made sense to you first. Don’t make MS a place for idle time-pass, it’s not gained it’s reputation based on that.

And lastly, please leave a comment or hints on what I have left out here.