Reviewing foibles

Are there any common(ish) reviewing foibles that inexplicably make your blood boil?

Perhaps it's peopoe who, after one negfative review, will proclaim that they'll never use the product/service EVER! Perhaps it's the constant misspelling of definitely. There are loads of them out there. What grinds your gears?

Misuse of its and it's. The misspelling of definitely. Reviewing tinned tomatoes and other cheap food items, and, to top it off, treating the review as it's some kind of epic. Reviews that have titles that simply repeat the name of the product being reviewed. Using i when you mean I. Using text speak.

And that's just for starters...

'Your' instead of 'You're'....and apostrophes being put in random words e.g. it help's to know how to spell definantly...

I'm not concerned about the titles thing - in part because the end consumer probably doesn't care about your title and secondly, simply repeating the product being reviewed arguably helps the site get recognition in search engines.

I dislike people that use "clearly". i.e. "I clearly told you that..." "Person X clearly..." "Fred clearly rates people down just to boost his own ego". Writing "clearly" does not make your half-baked conspiracy theories correct.

Reviewers who feel the need to put "My opinion" as a subtitle as if you are too thick to figure that out yourself.

I've done value tinned toms... I think I was making a point at the time!

Most of you have already made the points I was going to:

Small i instead of I
Misuse of your and you're
Misuse of there, they're and their
Misuse of apostrophes (particularly in plurals)
Textspeak (grrrrr!)
People who obviously don't either spell check or proof-read their reviews
People who SCRAPE over the minimum word count only by repeated unnecessary use of the product name


ps Lynne Truss is my hero...

People who start sentences, or even paragraphs, with 'Now'. It works in speech, it doesn't work in prose.

People who spend almost as much time explaining who they saw a film with as they do giving their opinion of a film. This probably comes from people remembering being taught at school to explain everything you did in those 'what I did at the weekend' assignments that seemed popular when I was in primary school and are probably now a staple of GCSE English (ha ha, exam results time always brings out my inner Telegraph-reader). But it is of no use to someone who just wants to know whether they'd enjoy the film. "What's that? You tried to go see Marley & Me but it was sold out so you saw this instead? And your brother was with you? Interesting. I'll certainly take that on board when planning my next trip to the multiplex..."

I don't like company history or too much background generally in reviews.

I can rarely read read a long review all the way through these days, it would have to be something pretty special.

I know many of us don't like to see the spelling 'definately' but the spelling mistake that most irritates me is 'seperate'.

You should always look for a rat in separate....(*was drummed into me that one, never forgot it!)

I hate headings, especially headings that say "My Opinion".

I don't like hotel reviews which go over the top with a review of the region....

I hate poor advantages, disadvantages and summary.

It really bugs me when the review does not match the star rating.

hogsflesh wrote:

People who start sentences, or even paragraphs, with 'Now'. It works in speech, it doesn't work in prose.

Ha! Though I'm pretty sure I've done that on occasion...

I hate it when people start a paragraph, or even a review, with Well, what can I say or well, I don't know what to say... or even worse well, there's not much I can say about this

Don't write the damn review then!

I hate it when people put "see review" in advantages and disadvantages.

¡¿pnol ʇno ƃuıʎɹɔ ɹoɟ `dn ʎɐʍ ʇɥƃıɹ ǝɥʇ uǝǝɹɔs ɹıǝɥʇ uɹnʇ ʎǝɥʇ ʇ,uɐɔ ʎɥʍ - uʍop ǝpısdn ǝdʎʇ ǝldoǝd uǝɥʍ ʇı ǝʇɐɥ ı

can't say I've ever come across that one!

I hate lack of punctuation, misspelling etc. But the thing that riles me most are the people that write reviews assuming you already know about the product so they don't need to tell you the basics. A good example is writing about a sequel to a film and describing it as "Not as good as the first one..etc." but not actually telling us what the film was about as they assume you know the general plot from the first one. You get the picture, when I read a review I want to read something that is written assuming the reader knows absolutely nothing about the product in question, it's also what I base a large part of my rating on.

Oh, that reminds me of another one... where the author assumes we know all about them and writes in a way where you have to read all their reviews to understand what they're on about.

Ah, another one......when someone puts "Hope you enjoyed reading my review" at the bottom !

I'm probably going to be on my own with this one but I don't like reviews that are long but have no headings. I don't have a great attention span for reviews and find them much easier to read if they have headings. I also don't like reviews that don't stick to their headings, like if someone writes the heading of characters for a book review and then writes about the plot more than the characters.

I don't like it when people mix up your and you're or their and there but don't mind with its and it's because I actually don't know the difference between the two. I don't like when people use americanisms or present things as fact with no references.

helencb wrote:

You should always look for a rat in separate....(*was drummed into me that one, never forgot it!)

I hate headings, especially headings that say "My Opinion".

I don't like hotel reviews which go over the top with a review of the region....

I hate poor advantages, disadvantages and summary.

It really bugs me when the review does not match the star rating.

And even worse, people who put nothing in advantages and disadvantages or "see review". I should just NU them from scratch. You bothered to write a 1000 words but couldn't manage another 8?

When I first joined dooyoo I thought the advantages and disadvantages part were pointless, but I have recently noticed at the bottom of some pages they have lists of products with advantages and disadvantages listed.

Just to clear it up Sonia, it's means it is!

Although if I was saying "Mary's moose has lovely antlers" (because the moose belongs to me - in my dreams anyway) we do NOT say "It's antlers are lovely" (Its antlers are lovely is correct), that would read as "It is antlers are lovely" and wouldn't make sense!

I completely agree with it being annoying where people assume that you know them - not helpful to the general consumer. "As you know, Bob doesn't like dark chocolate, so I didn't think that he'd like the free sample of blah that I got from blah".

Sonia wrote:

I'm probably going to be on my own with this one but I don't like reviews that are long but have no headings. I don't have a great attention span for reviews and find them much easier to read if they have headings. I also don't like reviews that don't stick to their headings, like if someone writes the heading of characters for a book review and then writes about the plot more than the characters.

I don't like it when people mix up your and you're or their and there but don't mind with its and it's because I actually don't know the difference between the two. I don't like when people use americanisms or present things as fact with no references.

The headings thing is a bit hit and miss for me. If done properly, then they can add greatly to the readability of a (long) review. if done poorly, then they are a waste of space IMO.

ENORMOUS spaces between paragraphs - what's THAT all about? Do people think we're so dumb that we'll think it's a longer review because we have to scroll more?

Oh, and another one........ people describing things as 'very unique'.

It's either unique or it's not. It can't be VERY unique.

People who post lists anywhere but at the end of a review were I can ignore it.