Tell Me How I Feel

In-house style guides are an integral part of any writing job, whether it’s paid or not. Just about every serious organisation realises very quickly that their presence in print needs to be controlled to some extent and governed by basic rules. If it isn’t, readers can be given distinctly different impressions, depending on the author.

One of the easier positions to worm one’s way into as a writer online is that of a reviewer. This is doubly true now that so many websites allow users to post their opinions of goods and services, often with very little or no editorial control. Few of these sites have a style guide available to their content providers and even fewer have (enough) editors to check the content.

Perhaps because of this, many would-be review writers fall into a very common bad habit: telling readers how they feel. How often have articles been published with phrases like “You will love this movie” or “You will want to use this again and again”?

The problem is that the reviewer cannot possibly know what the reader will feel. Advertising has deadened our senses to the overuse of the second person, but the fact is that it should be avoided. The job of a reviewer is to inform, not to dictate: tell the reader what you, as the reviewer, liked or disliked and support it with reasoned arguments and information.

Rather than dictating that all readers “will love this movie”, a reviewer could suggest that “people who enjoy the genre will probably love this movie”. Not only is that a more helpful and informative expression, but it allows a reader who hates the genre to agree. It leads to discussion, not argument.

Telling readers how they feel is annoying and unprofessional. Reviewers who do so may be seen as partisan, and get nasty feedback.

[Originally published on www.wordophilia.com]