reviews

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The purpose of a review is to give readers your honest opinion about a particular piece of work (e.g. a book, a movie, a video game, etc.) so that they can make informed decisions about whether to invest their own time with it or not.  Regardless of WHAT you are reviewing, there are always 2 main parts to a review. 

1.  A brief summary/overview of the book or movie (without giving away the ending!)

2.  Your review / critique / opinion of the book or movie with specific evidence and examples to support it! 

movie reviews

For some more specific guidelines / tips about writing movie reviews, look at these websites:


This website contains a step-by-step guide to writing a movie review, along with some sample movie reviews to read:
http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Movie-Review

This website provides one possible template for writing movie reviews: 
http://www.ucls.uchicago.edu/students/projects/1996-97/MovieMetropolis/howto.html


a reviewer's language toolbox

Reviewers often use specific words to discuss the books and films they are describing.  Make sure you do not use words that are too general, such as "good," or "bad."  You want to make sure that you are describing the book / movie with extremely specific verbs, nouns, and adjectives so that you review sound professional and convincing, but also so that you are communicating clearly to your audience.  Use the resources below to help you do this. 


This website contains great descriptive words to use when talking about movies and television.
http://www.words-to-use.com/words/movies-tv/

This website contains great descriptive words to use when talking about books:
http://www.words-to-use.com/words/books/

The document below contains sophisticated synonyms you can use when describing characters, texts, plot, theme, and writing style in books: 


sample reviews

Book Reviews:

Movie Reviews: