A bit like finding the keys the minute you stop looking for them, my most useful insight into writing reviews came just days after giving up editing them. It also came from totally outside TEFL, now that I finally have time to actually enjoy such things.
The last edition of the New York Review of Books marked 50 years of that great publication and came with a complete copy of the very first 1963 edition. In general it was kind of sad how much better the quality of writing was then than now. However, the very worst review was in the 1963 edition, and the mistake it made was being written with the publisher rather than the reader in mind. Looking back, a few TEFL.net reviewers had to have that edited out of their reviews too.
My insight was therefore the completely obvious one of “Think about your audience”, the audience being, for TEFL reviews:
1. People (teachers, school managers and language learners) who will need to choose to spend their money on that book or other competing ones in the market
2. People who have basically already decided to buy a book but might be persuaded otherwise
3. People who weren’t thinking of buying any such thing but might be after reading a review
4. People who are interested in new titles even when they are unlikely to buy anything
5. People who might be persuaded to read a review if it seems interesting or important enough
6. People who have read all the articles and have a vague sense that they might learn something from the reviews as well (e.g. a wider point about good materials or good teaching)
7. People who are stuck on a train with nothing else to read
8. Authors and publishers of that title
9. Authors and publishers more generally
Which of those is your main audience is likely to depend on where your review is. If it’s on Amazon, it will obviously be almost entirely people who are already thinking about buying exactly that thing. Magazines and sites with email newsletters, however, will mainly have readers who aren’t necessarily interested in buying Cuttingest Edge Newest Edition but might be interested in hearing your take on it and its meaning for the whole industry.
In general, the main audiences above that reviewers need to remind themselves of are publishers in general (rather than a list of typos for the publisher of that book), people who are actually choosing between books and want to know which is more suitable for them (much more common than those who want to know the strengths and weaknesses of one title), and people who have no interest in the actual book but might be able to learn something interesting anyway.
If you missed your chance to review for TEFLnet or want to move on from doing so, advice and links on how to do that for others are here:
