Everyone Has an Opinion

Our English 251 class has been doing a lot of work with Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness lately. For this assignment, we were tasked with taking the novel and interacting socially with online communities and our own social networks.

Before I could create my own review of the novel, I needed to discover what made a review a good review. Below, I have listed my findings.

1. Catch the reader’s attention immediately with a clever/interesting hook.
2. Definitely do not be objective. The point of a review isn’t to give a summary of the novel--the point of a review is to encourage others to read/not read the book depending on your opinion.
3. Appropriate length. No one wants to read a novel before they actually read a novel.
4. For Amazon in particular: Some people comment on the actual layout of the book. Amazon reviews are a little more formal than Goodreads reviews.
5. For Goodreads in particular: Put more of a personal anecdote in your review.

We were also instructed to create criteria that illustrates a credible Amazon/Goodreads user:

1. I found that I trusted the reviewers who reviewed a variety of things of Amazon. I enjoyed browsing through different users’ reviews and seeing little snippets of their lives. I also trusted users on Goodreads who reviewed lots of different books and who were active in their online community.
2. I trusted those who used their actual name as opposed to a pseudonym.
3. In essence, I followed people on Goodreads and Amazon who seemed more “real.”

For my Amazon review, I tried to stay a little more formal. I gave Heart of Darkness 3 stars. I commented that I enjoyed reading the novel, but I acknowledged that it is a difficult read. I also commented on the layout of the kindle edition of Heart of Darkness. For my Goodreads post, I tried to be more personal so people could see a little bit of my personality while touching on the same things that I discussed in my Amazon review. I am really new at this, but I think I did all right!

With the internet, we tend to judge people and their personalities extremely quickly. As such, I believe it is somewhat important to show who we truly are online--not for the benefit of others, but for ourselves. We are all super great, so we should show that to other people! Hopefully as I become more involved with the Amazon and Goodreads communities, I will be better able to represent myself.

After I completed my reviews, I posted my Goodreads review on Facebook. I can’t say that I had too much interaction, sadly. I had a few past teachers like my status on Facebook., but no one really commented. I tried engaging other people on Goodreads as well. Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten much of a response yet. I followed a few people and looked at the profiles of A LOT of users. I made a comment on an active forum but no one replied!