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2024-05-15

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Tips on Reviewing Books, Film, Music, etc.

What should you talk about? What should you not include?

Reviewing a book, TV show, film, or album is not always easy to do. Sometimes, the content is unwieldy, and it feels impossible to boil down your thoughts into something cohesive; other times, it's so popular that it feels like everyone has already reviewed it to the point where you struggle to say something unique. 

Here are some things to consider: 

  • Detailed plot summaries aren't usually necessary. Instead, try to give a synopsis of the story or work in just a sentence or two. Save your words for your analysis and criticism. This is especially true for works that are extremely popular. 
  • In line with that, you should take time to describe how the music sounds, how the film looks and what it makes you feel, and what the author's style of writing is like. If it's good, why so? If it's bad, why so?
  • If you go into the work knowing you're going to write a review, take notes! This way, you can remember what stood out upon your first intake and what your gut reactions were. 
  • Keep it short! There's a difference between an in-depth analysis or academic take on a body of work and a review. Reviews (abiding by HubPages word count standards, of course) should be roughly about 800 words. If you're bringing up questions for group discussions, Q&As, and biographies about the author, then you're not really writing a review. Thus, you should consider reframing the article and title. 
  • Read other reviews! This will help you gauge whether what you're planning to write has already been said several times over or if your take will present something new.


Pro Tips

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Handling Articles in a Series

Remember that HubPages network sites don't publish articles whose titles indicate that they're explicitly in a series. That means articles titled things like "Part One."

Instead, if you are working on something requiring multiple installments, you should tinker with the titles, interlink the pieces, and explain to your readers how the articles are structured. 

You can interlink via the text throughout or create a capsule at the bottom where you link everything else. 

As an example, if you're writing about the history of Japan and it requires multiple installments, don't write the title as "History of Japan (Part 1): Jomon period"; instead, you can just say "History of Japan: Jomon period." 

If a few pieces from the series don't make their way onto a network site and instead live on discover.hubpages.com, you can still include text to direct your readers to the piece. In this case, don't interlink, as doing so between network sites and discover.hubpages, diminishes site quality. 

These standards are all in an effort to keep our sites organized and ranking as high as possible in search results. Abiding by them helps us establish a higher level of domain authority and, in turn, helps us bring in more viewers!


Featured Articles of the Week

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Featured Articles of the Week

From "red" states in America that have embraced clean energy to a rundown of a few hundred names from the mind of J. R. R. Tolkien, these are the HubPages featured articles of the week. Thank you for your contributions! 


  HubPages Fun Fact: Babies do have kneecaps right after birth, but for the first few years of a child's life, they aren't bone but cartilage.
working

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