Another long op... (Writing a Good dooyoo Review)

Member Name: mpeh

Product:	Writing a Good dooyoo Review
Date:	05/09/01 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see text

Disadvantages: see text, that's such a cop out isn't it?

Wow an auspicious place to write an op. Must live up to all those crowns and VUs I saw on the way to posting this.

I'm writing this for three reasons. Firstly to see if I can, I feel like I'm still a newby on Dooyoo even though I've been here since April I think. I suppose there was a big gap from May to July but even so I've written a few reviews and I want to test if I know enough about things to write this. Also to see if I can get away with it, maybe older wiser members will find this presumptuous for a relative novice with only a few reviews behind him to try and give advice on how to write. Looked at from the other side, this is a test for all those people who, in my opinion (and that's what this place is all about anyway) take dooyooing (verbisation) too seriously. I want to see how many comments I get telling me I'm a jumped up little ... Secondly I thought that if I wrote down all the things that in my mind made a review a good one it might improve my own opinion writing, which couldn't be a bad thing and thirdly, ah bugrit it's gone, too much ranting on point one.

The aim of writing opinions is to get reads, the more the better. Whether it be purely for points or just for that feeling the knowledge that a load of people have read something you've written gives you we all want to be read lots. There are two ways to ensure this, read loads and write loads of comments and, nearly as importantly, write well so that people who click on your stuff at random come back and read more than one or two of your opinions. The first thing that crops up in my head here is how long do you make an opinion? Some people complain if you make it too brief and rightly so, there needs to be a lot of information given in a good opinion and I like ops that give me loads of new info on stuff I didn't know before. Again a lot of people will complain at you if you write too much that drifts away from what is strictly included u
nder the review title but others, like me, enjoy getting a taste of forbidden knowledge. Back to length and many people, I guess, don't finish reading very long reviews. I often get read/rated a few times just after I post a long review and they can't have read it that quickly. No way. If they rate then fair enough I'm getting points but some people might, and this is only speculation, start reading a long opinion and then just give up and go and read something briefer. I'd like to say that premier opinions, those with crowns, are usually longer but some stuff that's been crowned isn't really much longer than this review up to here. So it's a question of balance, write opinions that are long enough to intrigue and engross the reader but not so long that they'll put people off reading more of your stuff as it takes too long. My advice would be don't worry about length, just write what you feel needs writing and then stop. The trouble with me is by following this advice myself I tend to write long opinions, that's my problem though.

Content is obviously what will sway people into rating you highly. If you write something they agree with then they're more likely to rate you highly, even if it isn't conscious, I know I do it, sometimes people ask me why I rated them U not VU and I go back and read it and it's because I didn't agree with them and I then have to be totally objective and try to make sure that I've rated fairly. Obviously you can't write reviews that everyone is going to agree with but ops that are too strongly opinionated often get irate comments and I guess slightly lower ratings than those that allow readers who disagree to feel argued against as opposed to trampled or insulted. What I'm saying here isn't don't be opinionated, totally the opposite, the stronger your feelings on what you're writing about, in general, the better the opinion you'll write but write w
ith understanding for those people who disagree with what you're writing. Obviously this is more applicable to things like speakers corner than when you're reviewing a razor but there are product reviews that people slip other things into, I'm sure I do.

Make sure that you actually answer the question 'Is this product any use'. It is surprisingly easy to start writing a review with the best of intentions and then tell us what it's like, it's feel and look and then not say if it works or not. I've done it, often with music or book reviews, I say what the music is like and how it sounds, how it is recorded and what the production values are like and leave the reader to deduce what I hold obvious that I liked/hated the album in question and I think I should probably actually say 'This album sucked' (IMHO) or whatever.

On the other hand don't only tell us whether you liked the product or not. We've all read reviews that go; this is the product, I thought it rocked, bye and thanks for five pence. Try to avoid this, obviously but I had to say it didn't I? Some people advise that you take an opinion methodically and almost write it to a recipe, tell us about each point in order and then conclude almost like writing an exam answer. I think that variety is the spice of life so that as long as you get the stuff into your review and it isn't totally lacking coordination or structure that's good. This allows different peoples opinions to read very differently and this is surely a good thing. Make sure you give enough information on the product that the reader definitely knows a lot more about it than they did before they read your review. I don't know if this is good dooyoo practice or not but I would advise that you read the other reviews, or some of them, on a product so as to make sure you aren't simply going to repeat them and to make sure you are going to give something fresh. This is in
an attempt to stop what appears to be plagiarism not to give you stuff to write about.

Last comment on content, harping back to what I said at the top. Don't only tell us about the product in a clinical this is the way I found it way. Tell us a little about your experiences, make asides and comments and generally put a little of yourself into an opinion. If everyone does this, and most people do, each opinion we read will be new, fresh and different so that even if we spend all day on dooyoo (sadly I don't have the time) we will still be finding new stuff written by new people in new ways.

Write your opinions off line. It's easier for a start not to have that stupid little box on the right of your screen and it also allows you to read what you've written, spell check it and correct it so it reads nicely. Tip for PC users: If you write your op in word or cart it into a word type program to spell check it then copy it into notepad before you save it or copy it onto dooyoo. This is because copying straight from word leaves a long gap at the end of your review, or so I'm told by one of those older wiser dooyooers I was insulting gently earlier.

I seem to have wound down, I predicted writing more than this, but following my own advice

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