Secrets of bad reviews revealed in lousy limericks
Aug 06 '01 (Updated Aug 10 '01)
The Bottom Line While it's not "My way or the Highway," you can profit at Epinions (and in life) from taking these pitfalls into consideration...
I once asked a review writer named slim_rick
About the kinds of reviews that make him sick.
Things went from awful to worse,
'Cause he was speaking in verse,
And every rhyme that he spun was a limerick!
I don't think there's a reviewer here at Epinions named slim_rick -- if there is, I apologize to him/her.
The reviewing habits described below are some that I run across frequently enough that they stick in my mind, like tiny little thorns in the brain {and that's not a good thing). So if I gave you a NH, SH, or H some time recently and you're completely convinced your work deserved a VH, it might be that your review ran afoul of one of my pet peeves. Listed here (in no particular order) are pitfalls that I happen to think you should avoid while writing your reviews... and each of 'em is introduced by one of our friend slim_rick's lousy limericks.
This might be the worst book that I've ever seen.
What? Read it again? I'd rather eat spleen!
I bought it last Monday,
And finished it Sunday.
Can't remember a word, but the cover is green.
The no-useful-information-about-the-topic review
The reviewer here told his readers exactly two things about the book he reviewed: first, that he didn't like it, and second, the color of cover. Half of that information we could have gotten just by stopping at our local B & N. I don't know about the rest of you out there, but I usually base my selections in a bookstore or library based on content, not packaging.
Now, there are some people who won't write a synopsis of a book's plot, but you darned well have to say something about the book you claim you're reviewing, besides how many pages it has and what the cover art looks like. Compare it to other books by the same author or contrast it with other works in the same genre. Explain what you liked or didn't like it -- you don't need to wax poetic about it, but you're supposedly trying to help other members decide whether or not to read this book.
Now this is just me, but I mark down all book reviews that slyly intone, "You don't want me to give away the plot." I figure you're trying to avoid writing another fifty or a hundred more words, and believe me: you can easily avoid plot spoilers if you're at all inventive.
I just love my new shoes, yes I love them to bits!
I'll bet all the others are really the pits!
Though I really don't know,
They're my only ones, so,
I'm having to guess that no other shoe fits.
The glowing-review-without-any-basis
So what! if this is the first (mobile phone, computer monitor, radial arm saw, mountain bike, cox box) you've ever owned. Tell your readers what it is you like most about this particular (dishwasher, compost bin, eyeliner, tennis racket, pyrotechnic grenade), and then tell us what you think the manufacturer should change to make it even better. Why did you decide on this brand as opposed to all the others: hotter features? your best friend has one just like it? you like the color? If friends and relatives have competing products, compare yours to theirs. Don't get fanatic on us (iMac reviewers take note), though: be honest and realistic.
And above all, don't merely quote the specs off the package. We can get that from the manufacturer's website, which is just a click or two away!
This car is a lemon, this car's for the birds.
The stereo's awful, its exhaust smells like turds.
This vehicle's bad,
Bad, bad, bad, so I'm sad.
I'm hoping this line makes the full hundred words.
The just-meets-the-bare-minimum review
Maybe Epinions ought to raise the minimum word count to two hundred, or even three hundred. There are very few products out there that you can simply describe in one hundred words, much less write about in a review that says anything other than "It's the best!" or "It's the worst!" One hundred-word reviews -- unless they're extremely special -- almost never get anything better than a SH out of me. Sorry... but now you've been warned.
Spend some time and craft a review that actually says something: do you honestly believe that the people on this site with a hundred thousand hits got there by writing reviews exactly one hundred and one words long? You don't need to write a dissertation, but you're not going to get any repeat business if every review's just the bare minimum. Work it, baby!
Mrs. Hoffman's New Gingko Bilboa Vital
Yes, I know that the product name is the title.
It's not that I'm lazy,
It's just that I'm hazy
On why that trick might make folks homicidal.
The I-can't-think-of-a-good-review-title review
In case you'd never noticed, the name of the item appears right there under the title of the review -- don't make me read it twice! At least half the fun here at Epinions is exercising your creativity. Advertising people specialize in getting our attention -- if an advertisement doesn't attract notice, it doesn't sell the product. Well, I think the same thing is true of our reviews: if they don't get noticed, they don't get read -- and (to sort of quote Ben Franklin), a review not read is a penny not earned.
There's a whole section in the Member Center devoted to attracting new readers by creating alluring titles. Let me remind you of something right up front: you're going to get far more people stopping by to read your latest review if the title is catchy, funny, mysterious, or (especially) mildly raunchy. Personally, if a review title's just the name of the item being reviewed, I almost always look elsewhere -- and I'll bet anything I'm not the only Epinionator who has that policy. For example, here are the titles of two reviews of the same product; the 2001 Ford Escort ZX2: 2001 Ford ZX2 and Somewhere a sewing machine is missing its motor. I know which of the two I'd pick; which one are you gonna read?
There are thousands of reviews written every day that have the same or similar titles: "Not a Bad ...." and "The Best ..." are two I see every time I go through the new reviews section. Try dressing up your titles and see if you don't get more notice.
Never visit this branch of Cerulean Bank,
The tellers are stupid, the head honcho's a crank!
I went there one time,
And was treated like slime.
Why, they made me stop drinking my Sauvignon Blanc!
The you'll-never-see-my-face-in-here-again! review
Will Rogers always said, "I never met a man I didn't like." There's a catch in that old saw: it didn't mean the Will liked everybody, it meant that he went into every new situation with an open mind. Do the same with restaurants, banks, department stores, websites, whatever service you're going to review. I don't much care for the bank where I do my business (A Bank? or an Aerobics Shoe? is the name of my review of Bank of America), but I've changed banks often enough to know that it's usually not worth the hassle just 'cause I got mad one day. Besides, they're all pretty much the same (and I'll believe that until convinced otherwise). If you can document consistent fraud, incompetence, dishonesty, or generally poor service to a company's clientele, by all means let us know -- the marketplace can only benefit from this information. But I'll be willing to bet that for every horror story you can produce, someone else wants to pin a medal on the company!
And last but not least, I'll be the first to admit that my own bad attitude can be contagious: overworked and underpaid service personnel will react negatively to the thirty-seventh obnoxious customer in the last six minutes. Take for instance my most recent flight on Continental Airlines. I had no problems: had a bulkhead seat next to Ms scmrak, had an edible (if not yummy) snack, lost no luggage, in general had no problems. Yet the guy in the seat next to me went ballistic when the cabin attendant told him (twice) to put his briefcase in an overhead bin since there's no underseat storage in a bulkhead row. Lots of angry words ensued, including threats of letters to the airline president and visits from FAA enforcers. All because he had a BAD-itude, and it wasn't the only one on the plane, believe you me. Don't take the chance of being contagious!
This phone has alot of grate thinks about it.
If you ain't scene it yet ewe sure oughta scout it.
Every thyme that ewe dial
Yule sea a big smile
I bout won. "I love it!" I shouted.
The half-baked-spell-checker review
I'll bet that had this review been an assigned theme in school, when the teacher handed it back it would have so much red ink on it you'd think it had bled to death! And yet, most words in there are spelled right, there just the wrong word (the first person to tell me what was wrong in that sentence gets five free hits). Spell-checkers are kewl, to be sure, but they are about as intelligent as your average kitchen-cabinet cockroach. A spell-checker can not recognize a correctly-spelled but incorrectly-used word. It's that simple. So do me (and yourself) a favor: proofread your reviews. Don't expect the Epinions spell-checker or the spell-checker in word-processing software to find these errors.
Personally, I type all my reviews out in a ascii text editor, read 'em over, and then paste them into the browser. And there are still mistakes in my stuff -- I'll admit it.
If, however, you don't care, trust me: it shows. I don't spend much time in some of the sections of Epinions where the spelling is worst, so you may not see my comments there. But if you write reviews of books, you can expect me to lower my rating of your opinion for sloppy writing habits.
The author who wrote this manure is a fool!
This naive pretender has the brains of a mule!
I know all that there is;
Knowledge greater than his.
He's no expert, I tell you, on Old Istanbul.
The I'm-just-stroking-my-own-ego review
I ran across a review much like this just recently: an Epinion in which the reviewer had an extremely high opinion of his expertise on some subject or other. His review (of a book) was far more about what he knew that the writer allegedly didn't than it was about the book itself. To make matters worse, he was harping on a subject that didn't have much to do with the book itself.
Here's a hypothetical example: I read a murder mystery in which one of the suspects is a geologist (that's my profession). Instead of reviewing the book in my normal fashion -- discussion of plot, character development, and writing; with comparison to other books by the same author -- I instead harp on my area of expertise and how the author incorrectly portrayed a geologist -- for the entire review, without doing any of the other review-type stuff (in fact I have read such a mystery; though I haven't yet reviewed it...) Is that a help to other people?
Besides, lacking evidence of the reviewer's expertise, I'm inclined to disbelief...
So there you have it
One person's opinion on what can make or break your "career" at Epinions. The interesting thing about it is -- in my experience -- Epinions is a slice of life in general, and successful writing habits here will translate to more successful writing on the outside as well!
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