Quote:
Originally Posted by Dukefrukem  awesome shlo. This goes to show you how little people actually read my reviews. You and Darq are the only ones really who have given me feedback besides: "awesome review" or "looks good".
And the truth is, i do have someone proofread them before i post them. I suppose I shall give this person a talking to for letting these slip. Correcting them now.
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I doubt it means people aren't reading them, just that same as actually proofreading is a pain in the ass, so is remarking about proofreading. I just happen to have an eye for the mundane.
Some tricks, which you may already know, but actually work for grammar and readability.
Obviously, have a stranger read it is a great one. Also, read it out loud to yourself. Or better yet, have the stranger read it out loud to you. that way you guys can pick up both grammar and see if they are pacing it and connecting the continuous sentence structure in the way you intend it. Sometimes meaning can get lost when multiple sentences aren't constructed in the right way to make them more 'readable'. Having them read it aloud the first time they are seeing it further exacerbates this effect, IMO. Usually the writer is too intimately involved to make themselves objective enough at picking this stuff up.
On of the best things you can do alone is read it out loud, one sentence at a time (really, really slowly). By this I mean, basically, don't read it continuously, or move on to the next sentence until the previous one is totally in your head, and you could repeat it aloud without looking at the page. It's hard to do at first, and takes a long time, but it works well for me to do this on important writing.
Finally, don't rely on your spellchecker alone to pick up mis-spells, or to auto-correct each mis-spelling. Often times it will either skip a wrong word because it isn't a misspelled word (see the
Bolded word '
creates' below in your paragraph). Actually pay close attention when you are going through this step, re-reading the entire sentence whenever it gives you even a little spelling or tiny grammar error, to make sure that sentence sounds totally clear.
Other, much smaller things I noticed:
Think about your writing voice, by which I mean are you writing it first person, 3rd person, active, passive, etc... not sure which you are supposed to do for reviews (
), but whichever it is, you want to avoid jumping from one to another. For example, using '
I liked....' in one sentence, followed by '
You have to.....' in the next one. Or from past tense to present tense...etc. Yeah, this sucks to pay attention to, but again, I assume the reason you are asking for feedback is to make them more on a 'professional' level.
Another one is to work on and refine your wordiness a little. It might be your personal style but sometimes it gets in the way of content. Trust me, I struggle with this alot every day in any writing or speaking I do.
For example:
'Nothing drastic has changed from the single player campaigns to the multiplayer campaigns except you can decide whether or not players want random
creates to appear and offer rank upgrades to your units or cash rewards. Another option you can change when you host a game is the speed, fast medium or slow, but these were all options in previous Command and Conquer games. However, the one new cool feature for multiplayer campaigns is the ability to broadcast your game to anyone who downloads a free client Battlecast. Expect to see some
competivie leagues supporting C&C3.'
Could be written:
'Multiplayer campaigns have most of the same features as previous versions. One popular feature that persists is variable game speed: fast, medium, or slow. A notable change which adds variety is the ability to toggle random crate drops which offer rank upgrades or cash rewards. Additionally, a very cool new feature for multiplayer campaigns is the ability to broadcast your game to anyone who downloads a free client Battlecast. Expect to see some competitive leagues supporting C&C3.'
This way you are going from existing features preserved, to new, to new&cool features. Instead of before where it was jumping around more between those things. Also, I've reduced it from like 96 words to 80 words without reducing the content.
Check over each sentence and make sure there is substance in all of them. It doesn't hurt to read each sentence with 2 highlighters, one for 'substance' and one for 'filler'. After highlighting each sentence completely, part with the 'content' color, and part with the 'filler' color, see how much of the filler you can eliminate.
Maximizing content in a review is difficult enough without making the review too long, but if you have too much bloated filler, it's even harder. Always try to maximize content while still making it an enjoyable and not too dense a read, should be your goal.
These seem nit-picky, but in the grand scheme of things, will give your review a more polished feel over-all, I think.
I will say you already have a key component to reviews, which is that you are talking about computer games, which are a tool for 'fun'. Your reviews always appropriately address that, both by their style and substance. They showcase your intense desire to find 'fun' in the game, and the writing style is part of that. Don't lose that and get too robotic in your writing, by which I mean, don't listen to all of my advice all the time.
