And so as resident Review Doctor Extraordinaire, I figured I’d just do a mass diagnosis of everyone on YWS and offer my collective remedy for this terrible ailment.
Step One: Examine Your Reviews
Now, we’re going to do a little self-diagnosis here so don’t get carried away. This is a very simple process, with very simple criteria for determining whether your review is awesome or not. So grab your nearest review and consider the following:
1. Were you polite and thoughtful in your review?
Being courteous and kind is the first step toward being an awesome reviewer! And being thoughtful means you didn’t just slap something in the textbox for some points; you read the work and spent at least a few minutes really thinking about the work you just read.
2. Did you include at least one point of praise?
Reviews are meant to be encouraging! Whether the writer describes their settings really well, has super well rounded characters, or just had a really nice phrase or two you liked there’s always something to point out that has been done particularly well.
3. Did you include at least one point of critique?
Reviews are also meant to be instructive and helpful! Personally, I’d like to count this one point of critique as something other than grammar/spelling nitpicks but I suppose I’m willing to let that slide if you’re really getting into that sort of thing in your reviews. Just like praise, there is always something a writer can improve on. Maybe their description is too vague to picture clearly, or maybe there’s a hole in their plot. Don’t worry if you feel like you’re repeating yourself/other reviewers either! When more than one person agrees that something is an issue in a piece, the writer is able to understand better what needs to be improved than if just one person points something out.
And that’s it! That’s all there is to it! So long as you’re hitting these three criteria in any fashion, you’re writing reviews like a total pro. So go out and spread that reviewing magic with the eager swarms of YWSers who would be honored to have your insight on their work!
Okay, so I get that sometimes it just isn’t enough to know you’ve got the basics down. If you’re still feeling self-conscious about your review quality, or if you think you might not meet those three criteria, here are some ways to try to improve your reviews! (And, just like in writing, we’re all always improving!)
1. Check out awesome guides like Nate’s Critique Sandwich, Emerson’s How To Write A Good Critique, and Tenyo’s Battle Tactics: Reviewing the Unreviewable. There are also a lot of other critique guides in the YWS section of the knowledge base.
2. Read up on technique, style, etc! The Knowledge Base has loads of awesome articles written by YWSers about all kinds of writing. Not only are these wonderful sources of information for our pursuits as writers, but being more knowledgeable about writing allows us to better critique the writing of others!
3.
4. And finally, the best reviewers on YWS got that way because they did a lot of thoughtful reviews for other YWSers. As they say, practice makes perfect, and the more time you spend working on helpful, thoughtful reviews the better they will become and the more helpful you will be as a reviewer.
Gender:
Points: 370
Reviews: 541