Hey all im wondering if any of u can give me some pointers on making a software review. I know usally there is a format for most reviews for example a little summary of the program then the notes on installtion of the program etc. I would like to know how it goes. And lastly wut do u put into a software review i dont want the review sound like a turtoral. like for example in installation i dont want to tell people every little detail that happenes like the licence agreement or where the progream installs to. some pointers would be nice with the format like for example I Summary wut the program does II installation etc thx VG
- Argueably the most important component of developing a successful review is to target the audience appropriately (age group, type of software: game/business etc, any other message you may be trying to convey, tech savvyness) - A quick sentence at the beginning to (a) name the program, (b) the associated company, (c) type of program (d) a quick adjective outlining your overall one-word opinion of the program (i.e, excellent, dismal etc) (e) any additional information (i.e., region specific information) - It may help, if the review isnt horribly formal, to have a simple "out of 10" ranking at the end so the reader can read the first sentance and then the last sentence and get the gist of your opinion - Depending on the audience you may choose to (or not to) outline the purpose of the program however this should be a fairly brief section should you include it -- your purpose isnt to describe the program but rather to given an opinion on it - Outline some strengths and weaknesses (typically in that order however you may have reasons to have differing orders). Make sure your strength/weakness outlines, overall, depict your opinion of the program (i.e., you rate the program 3.0/10 but all you do is outline its strenghts) - You may choose to add reccomendations and subsequently, conditions to those reccomendations (i.e., for students i'd reccommend A, for professionals, B etc) and a state which strength stands out the most which gave you that final impression (or the other way if you dont like the program)
Depends on the context of the review, the targeted audience, any message you are trying to convey, whether or not the piture (even remotely) disagrees with your final evaluation, the format of the review etc. Would help if I had something more to work with For example, I made a casual review of UT2004 here: http://www.hazza.dsl.pipex.com/REVIEWS/R002.htm ... the targeted audidence are casual-hardcore gamers who are already familiar with FPS and in particular UT2003. An added picture at the top wasnt required, but it helps to give the review a "personality". Here, I've done a quick hardware review http://www.hazza.dsl.pipex.com/REVIEWS/R003.htm and the picture is more of a pseudo-neccesity _X_X_X_X_X_[small]ASUS A7N8X-X, XP2500+ OC'd to XP3200+ Samsung 1024MB, PC2700 OC'd to PC3200 480GB [3x160GB, 7200, 8MB] EVGA, GeForce4 Ti4600 128MB Rules and Policies: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487[/small]
