Choose arresting, Good-sized Imagery
Select a good photograph, either an interesting angle or some engaging composition, tone or colour. Ensure that the Image you upload is at or above 480 pixels wide, or else the display quality may suffer. Affino will re-size the image for you into a Main Image no larger than 480 x 480 pixels and a Thumbnail Image no larger than 60 x 60 pixels.
Select landscape and Square-shaped rather than portrait style images
Computer screens are landscape format, and there is a real premium on vertical screen real estate; for this reason, try to select images that are wider than they are tall.
Do some Research
It’s good to be able to add a date to a review, list producers and collaborators and reference some sort of website resource via the ’Source Link’ on the Review. Don’t get caught up in the Guardian trap though - where you talk so much around the subject - history, process and context, that you actually fail to give any proper account of the main event.
Write Details first, then pick out Highlights
Compose a detailed review, carefully considering the key viewpoints from various angles. Once the main Review part is written, you should be able to easily extract pertinent Features / Highlights, Pros and Cons.
Don’t Over-Rate your Reviews
If you love every single track on an album, it surely warrants a 5 star review; if there’s even just one dud track, the maximum score should only be 4 stars. Objects, events and experiences which you love and return to again and again are worthy of 5 stars; everyone has favourites, not everyone keeps an ongoing record of them like me.
Don’t be Unecessarily Controversial
It’s fine if you honestly like something to bits, but don’t go giving something 5 stars just to make some kind of ’political’ statement. A case in point is the recent 2012 Olympic Logo, which is wrong on so many counts, that its bad points vastly overwhelm its good points and leave no kind of room for salvation.
Choose your categories well and don’t overly cross-reference
Many reviews will overlap 2, 3, 4 or more Categories / Topics which is fine; make sure you are properly selective about which categories you tick though, you need to be careful about not losing focus and over-generalising your entry.
Don’t write too much
Your review should be fairly straight and to the point, with really no more than 5 or so Features, Pros and Cons - bar obvious Technology exceptions.
NOTE - you do not need to enter preceding hyphens or bullet points for Features, Pros or Cons, the system automatically punctuates each new line for you
Don’t write too little
If you only have a single Pro and Con, and little detail to your review, it’s not really a review as such - more like a simple opinion; there needs to be sufficent detail to engage a reader and leave them at least a few cents wiser after they have read your entry.
Have fun and write about what you feel passionate about
After all, Comrz Rated is a shared eperiential resource for the benefit of everyone; like the advice given out by successful authors - write about something you know and care for...
For more details on Adding a Review, read the Adding Reviews with Rated feature
