Being a reader, or perhaps a writer, you might sometimes find yourself in the position to write reviews. These can be tricky little blurbs to create, and many reviewers often fall prey to simple mistakes. Here is a list of ten things to be aware of when writing a review:

1. Use proper grammar and punctuation. No one is perfect, but there’s nothing more infuriating to an author than to be told that their grammar is incorrect by someone who appears to have no knowledge of it. Also, avoid using “chat-speak” or abbreviations; to some, you might as well be speaking a foreign language, because they won’t be able to decipher your review.
2. Be polite. The Internet might be a great shield of anonymity, but manners still matter. If you didn’t like a certain piece, try explaining why or cite examples of what bothered you. Denouncing the author won’t solve anything; if you discuss your concerns calmly and patiently, the author might be willing to make changes, or take precautions to avoid similar situations in the future.
3. Read your review out loud before you submit it. This might sound patronising but sometimes words or whole phrases get left out in the rush to get a thought down before it vanishes. If the only merit of your review is as a handy fill-in-the-blank game, then you’ll want to re-write it. Going to the trouble of writing a review at all is pointless if the author has no idea what you are trying to tell them.
4. Be aware of your audience. Just as an author needs to know who they’re writing for, so too does a reviewer. Is this something that can be accessed by other reviewers, or is it for the author alone? Depending on the answer, certain topics may be inappropriate. For example, if you’re writing a public review, and happen to know the author personally, this is probably not the best place to recount that hilariously embarrassing story about summer camp.
5. Be consistent and stay on topic. Your Aunt Jenny might bake amazing pies, but if the writing had nothing to do with baked-goods, the author might find this tidbit of information quite useless.
6. Praise is rarely a bad thing, but try to offer criticism as well. If there wasn’t anything that you thought the author could improve upon, then tell them what you enjoyed the most and why. Though it might not help them improve their problems, assuming they have any, it can help them produce more of the same material that you enjoy reading.
7. Try not to make demands. There’s a very fine line between demands and suggestions, and it is sometimes hard to figure out which side your review might fall on. Try phrasing your wishes as polite questions. There are as many different types of authors out there as there are reviewers, and you never know who you might offend by not saying please.
8. Avoid harsh language or negative implications. Perhaps you’re reviewing something that was truly awful but, in the interest of helping the author improve, you’ve written a review for them. Does your review read like a list of offenses? If the answer is yes, then you might want to re-work it a little. Even though you have only the best intentions in mind, if your review only covers that which was bad about the writing, you still might come off as rude to its author. To avoid this, try offering something that was well-done or interesting about the piece for every mistake or problem that you point out.
9. If at all possible, try not to compare the author’s work or general style to another author’s. Except in cases of plagiarism, each new work of writing is different and should be treated as such. Sometimes, comparisons are unavoidable, but you should always be careful about making them, because you never know when you might accidentally compare an author to someone that they hate.
10. If you suspect someone of plagiarism, contact the appropriate authorities. Confronting the author about this suspicion is generally a bad idea; those who did plagiarize will get defensive, and those who didn’t will just be offended. Instead, submit your suspicion, and any proof you might have, to whoever manages the website that the work appears on or to whoever publishes it. And please, for the sake of everyone involved, be quite certain that plagiarism is going on; you don’t want to accidentally eviscerate the credibility of an innocent author.