Convincing people to your way of thinking is not an easy task, least of all for a content producer where so many different people can interact with your work. But when you’ve got a brand like Best Reviews, it’s a significant part of the work because the readers that visit from around the globe are expecting to find answers about whatever product it is that they’ve been searching for.
Writing critically is such an intricate skill, but the single most important thing a writer can do is to express themselves with confidence, because if you’re not certain of your opinion, how can you expect a reader to be?
Why Confident Writing Is so Integral to Critique
Depending on who you speak to, writing reviews is a subjective process. It is the transcription of a single person’s experience with a particular product or service and even if, as is the case with Best Reviews, that content is written by experts entrenched and knowledgeable in the field that they’re writing about, it’s still just their opinion.
Whether you agree with that ideology or not, the fact is that a review should still be presented as objective. Look at it from a reader’s perspective: being told matter-of-factly that a product is definitely worth its cost will make that purchase seem like a good use of their cash.
But show any signs of doubt and the reader will feel less certain of the writer’s position as the ‘expert’ and as a result will doubt the review; the reader’s confidence is born from the writer’s confidence.
Showing That You Know Your Stuff
So how do you go about demonstrating just how confident you are in your understanding of a product? Well, as with so many things, it’s all about the language you use.
The simplest thing that can be done is to be direct about an opinion, take ownership of it and don’t try and pass it off onto the reader. For example, if a particular piece of software is easy to use, then just say that it is easy to use.
‘The interface is easy to navigate’ is so much more confident than ‘Users may find the interface easy to navigate’. These two examples say the same thing, but from a reader’s perspective the former tells them a fact – something that is a hard truth – whereas the latter puts the onus on the reader to decide.
Then there are other tricks like backing up an argument with evidence or explanation. This could be literal proof – meaning screenshots of the test results – or simply revealing more detail to a particularly important point.
‘Accessing your account is very awkward,’ you might say in a review, ‘and since you’ll need to do this each time you want to use the service, it quickly becomes a major frustration.’ Adding the second part of the sentence will expressly reveal an intimate understanding of the service and how it is used, and the reader will sense that.
When You’re Not Confident…
But of course there may be times when you’re not feeling all that confident, and when it comes to review writing that could be because it’s a new topic or the product in question just doesn’t have the depth to allow for a full-on exposé of its capabilities.
Our experts at Best Reviews manage such situations deftly. Whenever a writer starts work on a new category, we accept that they aren’t yet experts, but by approaching their research with an analytical mindset, applying their experience with other categories, and looking into the top products – and therefore the expectations of our readers – our writers become knowledgeable about the new topic.
From here, expressing that confidently comes down to the writer’s trust in themselves and the right language.
We don’t expect our writers to make excuses for a product, however. If it isn’t possible to figure out how a particular feature works, we won’t fake the critique. We’ll say it like it is: ‘We couldn’t figure it out’. But we’ll still present the details as they are intended to be, and where possible even supply responses from the product creator to ensure the reader can get every bit of info to help their purchasing decision.
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