How to Write Reviews
Easy Guidelines for Writing Intelligent, Informative, Witty Reviews
Whether you want to write movie reviews, book reviews, restaurant reviews, music reviews, or any other sort of creative effort, a few guidelines will help you succeed.
Contributing reviews of any sort of creative endeavor that excites your passion and engages your intellect offers aspiring writers a great opportunity to break into print. Local daily newspapers, weekly tabloids, monthly regional magazines, and any sort of publication that caters to specialized enthusiast crowds are especially likely markets for such pieces.
But many aspairing writers simply don't know how to be a critic.
When writing reviews of any kind—restaurant reviews, book reviews, movie reviews, art reviews, music or concert reviews, and more—it's important to organize your thoughts carefully and always to keep in mind the people who will be likely to read what you write. Keep a few key pointers in mind to ensure that whatever review you write will be intelligent, informative, engaging, and fair.
- Have a point of view. Arrive at a clear understanding of the point you want to make about whatever experience you’re reviewing. But bear in mind that your point of view might well emerge through the process of writing. Above all, don't go into the experience with any preconceived opinions; be prepared only to be fair.
- Know the publication for which you’re writing. Different publications have different stylistic approaches or quirks. Be sure to find these out, whether through writers’ guidelines (often available online) or through study of back issue. Then, use those stylistic features in your own review.
- Know the audience. At the same time that you put yourself in the publication’s frame of mind, remember that the publication aims for a specific target audience. You can find clues to who that audience is by scanning the publications letters to the editor, editor's column, articles, and even its ads. Write with that audience—its demographics and interests—in mind.
- Write with an informed perspective. Get necessary background information on the creator(s) and the subject area, to help you write intelligently and with depth. There are few things more amateurish than a reviewer who doesn't get the terminology right.
- Be clever—within reason. If the publication allows for it, feel free to show some wit. But don’t display your cleverness at the subject’s expense. Humor should always serve the review's broader aims.
- Stay aware of alternative viewpoints. Keep in mind the possibility that others may like what you're reviewing, even if you hated it. Consider trying to offer readers an inroad to its appreciation and, perhaps, to explain what kinds of people might or might not like it.
- Provide context. When reviewing multiple works, consider creating a broader context into which your separate reviews neatly fit. If, for example, you're reviewing the best pizza restaurants in your city, find a way to set up some broader statement about pizza in the region, citing the places you're reviewing as examples.
- Don’t praise—or damn—blindly. If you’re going to enshrine the subject, or entomb it, back up your opinions with concrete evidence. Why is that particular pizza so darn good? What's an example of a particular author's dazzling turns of phrase? What about the artist's technique makes a particular painting so exciting? In what ways did the cabaret singer fail to engage the audience?
- Have an opinion. Writing a review is not an occasion to be modest or self-effacing. As long as you're capable of backing up your opinion (see above), don’t be afraid to express, emphatically, what you feel or believe.
Remember: professionalism is in the details. Specific facts, keen observations, and well-considered insights amount to more than opinions, and will help to set you apart from the pack of aspiring reviewers. (For more great tips on nonfiction writing, see "How to Ghostwrite," "How to Write a How-to Article," and "How to Interview: Tips for Writers.")
