After reading and rating 2000 reviews on Mouthshut(I completed this figure today!), I must say I have come across some of the most wonderful pieces of work I have ever read in my life on one hand while on the other hand, most of the reviews I read were so badly written, that I felt like banging my head on the wall!
It all boils down to the fact that Writing reviews is not EASY! Or shall I say writing good reviews is not EASY!
So here are some of the tips(in the journey to writing a review) that might prove to be helpful to all of those learning to write as well as to everyone else(it won’t be a waste of time, believe me!):
What to write on:
The 5 minute theory
Hmm.so want to write a review and don’t know where to start! Well, it depends on what you are writing. If you are writing on your car, before writing it go and have a short drive in it.if its on a book, have a scroll down the pages for 5 minutes, if its on a software or a website or a magazine, browse through it for 5-10 minutes, if its on an institution(a school, college, a company), have all the relevant information handy. Read through the brochures(if any), if you are a member of that institution, for 5 minutes rethink how it was like. If you are about to write a travel review on a place, or on an excursion, look through the photographs(if you went on a holiday), browse the Net to get some pictures to look for and so on. The same advice goes for any other object you are reviewing(perfume, chocolate, cosmetics, movies, music albums etc).
The basic aim of these 5 minutes is to get the feel of the product. These 5 minutes will instantly help you decide whether you want to write about the product or not! If not, drop it and find another one. Another advantage of these 5 minutes is that it refreshes the memory, brings back your experiences with it and will help you write a more focussed review, as you’ll be confident about what you are writing about. And lastly, it’ll give you new ideas, a new dimension when you look to it closely, which you didn’t think of before!
Tip no.1: Take notes before starting to review anything: You cannot remember everything you see or hear. If something in the movie or play reminds you of something you have seen before, take note. If something you hear reminds you of something you have heard before, take note. You can then mention it, regardless of whether you praise or criticize its reference to the earlier work.(Taking notes at a restaurant is difficult, but you might ask for a menu to take home with you.)
When done with these 5 minutes and sure about the topic you are writing, you have passed one of the first requirements of being a good reviewer. Let’s move on.
Writing the review:
All charged about the topic, yes!
1. Give it a title and write a paragraph on introduction: This is one of the most important part of your review. Your title should not be longer than 5 words and should summarise your experience. For help, pick up any newspaper and magazine and look at the cover-pages. You’ll get all the help from there. Now comes writing the introduction of a review. Remember, the first 15-20 lines of your review are the ones which will decide the fate of your review. This part can be 2-10 lines long telling the readers maybe about your initial expectations of the product or just about how you thought of writing about the product or anything else that will have the readers charged up about the main review! It can be humorous and light and you share more than you tell here!
Tip no.2:Don’t start giving your opinions on the product in the first line itself.
Tip no.3: After writing the introduction, read it 5 times. If it interests you, it will interest the reader. If it doesn’t, change it!
2. The body of your review:
Now you have come to the most important part of your review, that which forms the crux of the whole review. To start writing it, you need to get your hands on any pieces of information that you have of the product. It can be the product itself, information downloaded from the product’s web page, place of buying and so on. The first paragraph should tell the reader exactly what the product is(a few lines on the product’s history, if available or where you bought it from would be fine). Next comes your experience of the product. Be honest in whatever you have to say. Call a spade a spade! You are evaluating something, and if you don’t like it, say so. Don’t criticize 100 percent of the work even if you found something you didn’t like, and don’t praise 100 percent of the work if you found something you liked. To sum up, your review should be objective. Take into account both sides of the coin, even if one side is difficult to write on—that’s the real fun of reviewing!
This part of your review can be anything from 20 lines to 2-3 pages. In any case, if your review is more than 100 words, you need to spend time restructuring it, breaking it into smaller paragraphs. A suitable title for each paragraph would be a welcome addition!
3. Conclusion:
So you have said it all about the product! Well done, but don’t forget concluding it. This can be 3 to a maximum of 10 lines summarising of what you just said and ending it with something like.’I highly recommend this product because.’ or ‘This one lived upto my expectations because.’ would doubly assure the reader interested in the product that the product is worth a buy. A final rating would be most helpful! This has two advantages: the reader is not left in the dark and secondly, if he’s in a real hurry, he can just go over the conclusion and know how the product is!
So you have written a review. Before posting it, ask these four questions to yourself:
Q1: Do you know what you are talking about?
Your worth as a critic or reviewer drops off dramatically if you misspell the name of an actor in a movie review, if you get the title of a song wrong in a music review, or if you make some spelling or grammatical mistake. At least one of your readers will know more than you about what you are reviewing; in all probability, many readers will know at least as much as you do, if not more. Therefore, go through your review at least 10 times to pick out spelling and grammatical mistakes. If you are using a word processor, you have won half of the battle. The other half is also won if you haven’t used any casual or foul language in the review. Remember, bad spellings put off readers instantly!
Q.2: Is the review you are posting 100% original?
Another extremely important point. If you have copied it from somewhere, besides losing the trust of the readers, you kill your conscience as well. Forget about being caught; copying reviews will have you bored in no time. Therefore, make sure that whatever you are writing, its based on your first-hand experience, and not any other’s. Believe me, you’ll enjoy writing an original review.
Q3: Does your review look good?
Presentation is another area which needs to be looked carefully on in a review. You could have had tons of information in the review, but is it readable? Jam-packing everything in a paragraph won’t get you any admirers. The reason being that a page of continuous text is very hard to digest(Imagine gulping down a whole chapatti!). Therefore, you need to break it down into digestible paragraphs(just like you do in a chapatti!) so that the reader can finish it!
CONTINUED IN THE COMMENTS SECTION.
