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My review creation and rating guidelines.Feb 20 '04 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line I hope this article will assist readers writing quality and hopefully increase the usefulness and accessibility of their reviews.
Thanks for reading!
----- Introduction ----- I have been meaning to write this for quite a while, and today I finally decided to sit down and get it done. This will be a two-part article, with the first section describing how to write a Very Helpful review and the second section detailing how I rate other people’s reviews. If you have questions about a rating I’ve given you, jump to the ratings section and see why I rated you that way. If you’re looking for guidelines on how to rate reviews, I hope my personal standards will be helpful to you. Now, let the show begin! --- HELP! I want to write an excellent review, but I don’t know how. --- In my early days at Epinions I suffered from a quantity over quality approach to review writing. I quickly overcame this habit thanks to the helpful prodding and coaching of the resident Advisors and other Epinions veterans. These 4 goals I've outlined below should help you in your next review construction. Goal #1: Write a unique and singular review from YOUR personal perspective. This is the most important feature of your review, and it’s the whole reason other people are searching the Epinions database in the first place. Prospective buyers/consumers already know what the manufacturer says about their product, and they have probably looked at “professional” comparison tests and reviews. What they are looking for the the average Joe’s experience with the product in question. The more unique information you can include in your review, the more helpful it becomes. For this reason alone, partial plagiarism or completely copying obscure reviews is a big no-no. If you do this, prepare for many Not Helpful or Off Topic ratings and your review will sink to the bottom of the list. Original material is always the best choice, and the only real way to help your readers. Goal #2: Be fair, balanced, and maintain some objectivity. This is one of my pet peeves when reading other opinions. When the owner/consumer of a product has a particularly horrible or glowingly perfect experience, they have a tendency to write a very skewed review based on that one experience. You should always try to be objective in your writing so that other people can see both sides of the issue. This doesn’t mean you have to always walk down the middle line on every product, if you like or dislike something go ahead and tell it like is! Just remember to make a note of those details that swing to the other side of the spectrum and make sure to include them as well. Goal #3: Make your review stand out… kick it up a notch! This is where many reviews fail to take that extra step and move into the VH category. Let’s assume all the information is there, positive and negative aspects described thoroughly, personal comments and experiences thrown in for good measure, but the review structure is muddled and confusing. This is not going to be as helpful to readers looking to make a decision and possibly a purchase. Paragraphs are very useful segregation tools, and it’s amazing how a 400 word review becomes instantly more readable when you divide it up with paragraphs! Not only do paragraphs give you a visual break in the material, but they help to separate your review into distinct sections. If you want to look downright professional, start to implement HTML code into your reviews. Use bold text to highlight movie titles, special features you want noticed, or more importantly create category dividers for various portions of your review. A simple three step division of your review will make it look more professional and also allow readers to jump to certain portions they are interested in. Below I've displayed several styles you could try in your next review. ===== Introduction ===== *** Positive Comments *** (( Now For The Bad News )) ----- CLOSING COMMENTS ----- --{ How It Worked For Me }-- All right, now we have a few examples of bold text and I think we should move on to italics. I use italics to emphasize a particular point I'm making, highlight actor/author names, and titles of references or books. Example below. For his role in Minority Report, the surprised Tom Cruise was awarded the Titanium Pestle trophy. For his role in Minority Report, the surprised Tom Cruise was awarded the Titanium Pestle trophy. Now that we've seen both HTML modifiers, we'll know to use them, but use them both somewhat sparingly and don't overdo it. You'll notice it really does juice up your review and will make it stand out from the rest. Take the link below to find Epinion's quick 'n' dirty HTML guide. HTML code instructions: One last thing to remember about standing out from the rest is to infuse your writing with your attitude. Some examples are humor, sarcasm, dry wit, or many other attributes that will separate your writing from the rest. To quote Chef Emeril, you've got to KICK IT UP A NOTCH! GOAL #4: Don't just try to pacify the Advisors. I have to admit, I was stuck in this rut for a while myself. You try to find what the top rating people want, and then give them an overdose. Loads of details, heaps upon heaps of words, and not all of them are necessary. One thing that taught me a lot was sleeper's Lean 'N' Mean Write-Off. I realized with quite a few products you could cut down the word count and still get the message across just as clear. Some items such as automobiles, movies, and certain electronics require a more lengthy discourse, but try not to write purely to make your review longer. If you write your review FOR the readers (the non-members and outside-site visitors) you will be doing your job. In my experience the ratings always follow the review quality, so keep up the hard work and you'll be rewarded. ----- Closing Comments ----- Writing an opinion or review is a very personal event, and everyone does it slightly different. I hope some of these basic outlines have helped your writing style, or at least given you a few new ideas. Let me know via email or comment if you find anything omitted that could be helpful, or if you have anything else to comment about. ---------- My Rating Guidelines ---------- Ratings are the life-blood of Epinions community structure. After a review has been written, it flies or dies based on its overall rating level. Reviews with Helpful or Very Helpful ratings rise toward the top of that item's review list, while lower rated reviews hide near the bottom. If you want your review to be seen, you need to get it as close as you can to the top. Below I've described what each rating means to me, and how I use it. Most Helpful or MH: This is the uber-stamp of perfection that requires a truly amazing review to even qualify. Some members seem to use this more than others, but I find few reviews that merit MH. To qualify, I read the top 5-10 reviews of the item in question. If the MH candidate is a step above all the others and provides the best possible review for that item, then I'll give it a Most Helpful. Very Helpful or VH: The majority of quality reviews are rated VH and not MH. To qualify as VH, I have a few things I look for in each review. It must be an accurate review without any guesswork or copied information, it needs to have both hard data and a decent amount of personal comments and experiences, and it also need to look good. One of the criteria that is ofter forgotten is the look of a review, its overall presentation and polish. If the review is coherent, formatted well, and with a core set of facts it will be a Very Helpful review. Helpful or H: This review is usually nudging at the heels of VH, but is missing one of the vital components. Usually it's either hard factual data or visual presentation. The addition of the missing part should bump it up to VH. Somewhat Helpful or SH: For a SH rating to be necessary there has to be a significant lack of information and/or a lack of review formating and presentation. The SH review needs a significant upgrade or revision, but with some serious attention it still has a chance for VH status. Not Helpful or NH: This is a truly awful review, and I've only had to give this rating once or twice. Totally false or plagiarized information and non-existent page formatting are required to achieve this ultimate low. Most often I skip the NH rating and to straight to its red-headed stepchild Off Topic. Off Topic or OT: This review can be a complete wreck, or it may be a quality piece of writing. If the review is placed under the wrong category/item description I'll have to label it off topic. If a category exists for the item you can move it to the appropriate item and ask for a re-rating. There you go, my Epinions rating guidelines. I hope you've enjoyed and found my opinion very helpful. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment! Openroad  |
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