Some tips (How To Write A Good Internet Review)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	How To Write A Good Internet Review
Date:	13/04/02 (137 review reads)
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There's no point in repeating everything that's been mentioned in the "Home > Internet > Information > Reference > dooyoo.co.uk > Tips on writing good opinions > The Site In General" because they go into a lot of detail that's very useful to all opinions on Dooyoo and you should all have a browse through this category at some point anyway.

I'm not here to tell everyone how to write Internet opinions. After all, everyone has their own natural style. However, keep three things in mind when writing your opinion: information is the key, personal experience adds loads to your opinion and try and make your opinion as balanced as possible. The following is a guide to some of the information I personally think should be included in the various types of opinions you can write in Internet, and it's entirely up to you to choose which you want to (or can) include and which you leave out.

If you are a web wizard and know practically everything about the Internet, try to keep the amount of unexplained jargon or acronyms to a minimum. You might know that an ISP is an Internet Service Provider, like Freeserve, AOL, Blueyonder etc. but does your readership?

What sorts of Internet opinions are there?

The Internet category falls into three main types: websites, services and the Forum.

? Website Opinions.

Most of us mere mortals (yes, even me, my minions) are still running 56k modems down a phone line. So, in some cases, it might be worth mentioning the loading times of some web sites, especially if you found them to be exceedingly slow over a number of visits. For example, www.shockwave.com can be quite a fun site, but there's no way I'd access it from home. I wait until I'm at university before going anywhere near it. Obviously, if loading times were very quick, or you're using broadband, this is not really an issue (although, feel free to mention it if you wish).

Some words a
bout site design are nice. Again, you don't have to go into detail about colours and the fonts used etc. but it's wise to include such information like how easy you found it to navigate, was the information all correct and up to date? Are there any broken links (i.e. links which don't go anywhere, or to out of date pages), or is the site still under construction? Perhaps you were looking for a specific thing like a file or a piece of information, or even pictures of a naked Britney Spears. Did it take you long to find them, or were you running around in circles with no idea where to go or what to do next?

Speaking of naked Ms. Spears (not THE Britney Spears mind you, but a fictional... oh, who am I kidding?), if the content of the web site you're describing is a tad... adult, then you should probably mention this as well. It might be obvious that it's an adult site e.g. www.britneyinthebuff.com or www.swearyhumour.org but other sites might not be so obviously named and some readers might have younger children around and could do with the warning before going off to view the site.

If you are using a web site that requires you to sign up before you use it, then give a rough idea of what sort of information the website requires from you. Do you have to give twenty pages of complex personal history or a simple username and password? If your email address is a necessity, are you inundated with spam as a result? Do they send out good, interesting and relevant stuff in their emails or is it a waste of time? If they required your credit or debit card details, did you feel you could trust them? Did you have faith in the security of their site to keep your details secure?

On those occasions that the web site offers a lot of services (e.g. Yahoo!, Amazon etc.) it's not entirely necessary to go through each bit, giving an explanation. Usually, in cases like this, one or two small examples can adequately show what the web site i
s all about, without boring the reader to tears with long lists, repeating stuff you've said already.

? Services.

Services opinions can be split into two main sections ISPs and Other Services. When writing about these, it's your personal experience that matters more than simply listing what the company is offering. After all, we could simply read their services off their web site.

i) ISP opinions (and, to a lesser extent, hosting firms).

Most of the opinions about ISPs I've read on Dooyoo are complaints, especially aimed at those bastions of niceness "AO Hell" and "NT Hell". Of course, we all appreciate your viewpoint and you should let people know why you are annoyed with your ISP. However, why not tell us why you picked one ISP over another. Was it price? Good worth of mouth? A free trial that simply ended up being a lifetime commitment? Did it offer the ability to sign up over the Internet? Payment methods? There's always a reason why you made the decision before you had your bad experiences. Go on, give us that information!

Hosting firms are similar - give the details that made you choose them. Describe the hosting packages: amount of web space, the web technologies (ASP, php, cgi etc.*) if any. If you have problems, again, please tell us, but don't solely base your opinion on your complaint because after all there must have been a reason you chose one firm over another in the first place.

In both the above cases, you may also wish to comment on their web site and, if necessary or applicable, their customer service standards.

* These are technologies used for creating dynamic (changing) web sites. Ordinary ISPs don't usually offer anything for this, so you have to go to a hosting company.

ii) Other Services.

Other services include things like web-based email (Hotmail, Another etc.), auction sites (eBay, QXL) plus online services like secur
e payments (PayPal, NoChex) etc. Like the ISPs and Hosting Services above, tell us why you used these services over other, similar ones. What prices, costs or charges are involved? How did you sign up to these services? Did you find them to be good value for money for what they offer? Like everything else, list what you thought was good, and what you thought was bad. Give some examples of how the site's works. Again, going into minute detail about everything isn't necessary, but give the reader an idea of how the site/service works.

As you can see, a lot of the things I suggested you include when writing about web sites is also applicable across the whole Internet category. Usually, web-based firms operate through their web site which means when writing opinions on these services/firms, more often than not the opinion is split between how good their web site is and how good the actual company is.

Feel free to list a few alternatives as well, and this is especially true id you think you've found a hidden gem of a company that you want to share.

? Internet Forum opinions.

These are hybrids of Internet opinions and Speakers Corner opinions. You're not reviewing anything in particular, but you may be called upon to describe your experiences anyway. There's not much I can really say about these ones, apart from the fact they're a lot less "technical" than anything else in the Internet category.

Writing opinions of this type is more like writing a general Dooyoo opinion, and the only thing I would say here (which I've already said above) is to try and explain any jargon in plain English.

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Anyway, there you have my guide to what to include in an Internet opinion. Please note these are not rules, and this is not telling you HOW to write. Everything that is written above is by no means everything you'd need to include in an Internet opinio
n, but hopefully there's enough there to get your old brain ticking over. The most important thing is to have fun, and don't be afraid to ask questions if you have any doubts.

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