Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Breaking Bad/Sample Episode Review Forum

First if, you've seen the entire show, this montage is awesome (an at-once touching and darkly funny tribute to everyone who died on Breaking Bad). If you haven't watched the finale and/or ever intend to watch the show, don't watch it.

That said, I'm going to use this post to begin building a sample review. While often times reviewers don't quote other reviewers, I'm going to in this one (and it's perfectly acceptable for you to quote a reviewer or two yourself). That said, I find it's important to think about WHY you would offer up someone else's opinion about your subject (after all, a review is not a research paper, and, as it's purely opinion-based, it doesn't demand sources in the way other genres do).

Why you might incorporate a source into your review:

You'd like to highlight a reaction directly opposite your own, or you want to point out several different takes on your product/film/show. Acknowledging that you know what the already-existing conversation looks and sounds like can be a good strategy so long as the bulk of your content is yours. As your text tells you, whenever you write about something, you're entering a conversation that already exists, so showing some awareness of that conversation, its themes, popular points of view, etc. can establish that you've done your homework, that you care about other viewpoints,  that you aren't speaking from a vacuum. Balance is key, of course. Again, not a research paper here, so the bulk of your ideas should come from YOU.  That said, quoting an opinion that doesn't mesh with your own doesn't take away from or weaken your contentions. You're often more likely to "keep" a reader who disagrees with you if you acknowledge contrasting viewpoints and beliefs. Acknowledging and validating these other points of view (without giving into or adopting them) is called conceding (a "concession"). And using concessions is a crucial part of writing a strong opinion piece, so practicing in the review can't be a bad thing, right? As such, I'll show you an example of how this is done.

You want to provide support/show agreement with your opinion. Now, as a reviewer, you don't "owe" your readers evidence that your stance is correct. You don't need to prove your opinion -- a) it's an opinion and can't be proved or disproved b) readers read reviews because they WANT your opinion, not because they're looking for some form of proof and c) you aren't necessarily trying to convince your readers to adopt your point of view. After all, people often times read reviews before they have sampled/watched/purchased the item/show/film in question, so they don't necessarily even know whether they agree with you. Still, though, if you're asserting that your opinion is the most popular prevailing one or the unlikeliest possibility, you really ARE making an argument that needs some come of support. For instance, having read MANY reviews of the final episode of Breaking Bad, I can say with some certainty that the prevailing reaction has been largely positive and that viewers mostly appreciate the fact that the finale is a traditional one, that it wraps up most loose ends. If I'm going to state as much in my review, it makes sense that I might offer a few quotes from other reviews that establish as much.

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