40 Word Limit, Please!

40 Word Limit...Please!

Budroe in 2012!

I notice from time to time that some reviewers choose to copy/paste the entire work they have reviewed into the review they give the writer. Or the spoiler. Or the chapter of the book they liked best. Some reviewers post the entire work they have reviewed, and say little or nothing about the problems they find. This is bad reviewing form.

Some people refer to such reviews as an "In-Line" or "Line-by-Line" review. It's actually not a review at all, but a line edit critique--one of severaI types of the technical critique. I can accept that. These types of critiques can be beneficial to the writer. Some of them, however are neither beneficial to the writer nor the reviewing community. None of them belong on a public reviewing page. Here's why:

         1. Re-creating an author's work within the review itself (especially when it's a public review) takes away the unbiased nature of the next person to review the work if they read such reviews. (Trust me, they do.) Not providing a second review robs the writer of companion and/or comparison reviews, but that does not mean yours is the definitive review of the work. Yours may be a terrific review, but I don't want to follow it with my own. It begins to feel like nothing more than a competition between reviewers. I don't know any writer who appreciates their work becoming a battlefield between what devolves into ego warfare.

         2. To put entire works on the reviewing pages kills the excitement of unbiased comparison. It taints my neutral view of the work, and it very often becomes my desire to review the review--or the reviewer. Yes, I review reviewers.

         3. To use more than 40 of the writer's original words in a review is unseemly. It is also, for a public forum unnecessary in my view. This becomes the "other" problem on such forums, and is NOT a solution to the 40 word review.

         4. If the word count is that significant to you, please make them YOUR words. This is especially true when the entire work is copied into your review tool, yet you have nothing to say about most of the words themselves. To copy a 5k work into a review tool only to speak to 100 of them is just not fair to the writer of the work, or to the public reading your review..

         5. In some circles, this practice could be (believe it or not) considered either copyright infringement, plagiarism, or both. I'm sure this is no one's intent.

         6. It tends to offer the notion to other potential reviewers that any work reviewed for this writer will be of epic proportions. That's visual effect for you.

         7. It tends to do the reviewer no good service. This is true because of the sparcity of the original words, as previously noted.

I try to force myself to a limit of no more than 40 of the author's original words in any public review. It may be a public review, but I want the readers of the review to visit the work. Why bother when the work, with the bias attached is in front of them?

As a writer, my request for a "Line-by-Line" should include a specific request to be private, for the good of the reviewing community. It is my responsibility as a writer to protect my work. We may presume that the reviewer will understand and comply--or pass on the work.

Even if the writer does not specifically request a private line edit of their work, the reviewer should be mature enough in the craft to NEVER post such a review in the public forums. It is finally an ethical issue of the reviewer. Using more than 40 words should automatically, in my view, yield a private "line edit" to the writer, and a public review of the work en toto. Please remember that a review is supposed to be a communication to the writer about the effect the wrting had on you as a reader. But it should not include more than 40 of the writer's original words!

So, please do not post more than 40 of the writer's original words in your public reviews.