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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: long reviews
Message-ID: <6365@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 19-Jul-85 02:35:40 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.6365
Posted: Fri Jul 19 02:35:40 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Jul-85 05:20:01 EDT
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 29

Things having quieted down a little, mail-wise, I will briefly report the 
results of my question about the lengths of my reviews (and then, not so briefly
but in a separate article, describe a little about my philosophy of movie 
reviews).  Using purely arbitrary divisions, and some guesswork on how to 
classify certain responses, and with the caveat that I may well have dropped 
some messages on the floor accidentally, here are the results.

Fine at this length: 19
A little too long (keep it around 100 lines): 4
Too long (keep it to 2 screensful): 6
Much too long (all I want is how many stars you give it): 1

I am suspicious of these numbers, as I remember a lot more replies saying
that the reviews were too long.  Either I'm overly sensitive to criticism
(definitely true, but maybe not the explanation), or I subconsciously sent
the negative messages to the bit bucket.  At any rate, as far as the feedback's
result goes, I think that I will try to make a concious effort to put a 100
line limit on reviews of a single movie.  Once in a while, I review more than
one movie in a posting, and those will probably run longer.  Editing is one
of the writing skills everyone should practice, and I'll try to improve mine.
Also, I will be saving myself from Chuqui's proposed article guillotine.

Thanks to all who responded.  Due to the volume, I didn't have time to
answer you individually, but some of the specific questions and criticisms
you raised will be addressed in an upcoming posting.  
-- 
        			Peter Reiher
				reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher