Featured: Album Reviews on Mibba

Recently there's been a large number of album reviews submitted. While going over them before approval, I've noticed that these articles often take the most time to edit because of all the formatting errors and inconsistencies. To help with this, I've compiled a quick list of album review formatting and other issues I've encountered. If reviewers take the time to follow these guidelines, less of your articles will be rejected, the approving process will be much quicker, and your articles will up on the site in record time.

Basic Formatting

Let's start with the easiest thing: formatting. For most album reviews, there's just three main pieces that need to be formatted: the album title, the song title and the use of lyrics.

Album Titles: All album titles must be capitalized* and album titles must be italicized. (Example: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill)

Song Titles: All song titles must also be capitalized* and all song titles must be placed in quotes. (Example: "When It Hurts So Bad")

Lyrics: All lyrics must be properly quoted within quotation marks and all lyrics must be italicized. (Example: “But how could this be love and make me feel so bad? Gave up my power. I existed for you. But whoever knew the voodoo you'd do?”)

_{* Capitalization Rule No. 8 (from GrammarBook.com): Always capitalize the first and last words of titles of publications regardless of their parts of speech. Capitalize other words within titles, including the short verb forms Is, Are, and Be. Exceptions: Do not capitalize little words within titles such as a, an, the, but, as, if, and, or, nor, or prepositions, regardless of their length.}

Headings

A common form of album reviews is the 'track by track' review. This usually consists of the reviewer giving his/her opinion on individual songs on the album. These reviews can be the most tedious and arduous to review, so it's definitely appreciated when members pay close attention to the formatting, spelling, grammar, and capitalization in these articles.

Headings: When doing a 'track by track' review, remember to highlight the song title before you speak about it. This is usually done in one of two ways, either by bolding the song title (like here) or using heading number 4 in the article editor.

Giving Your Opinions

Like in any review, your personal opinion of the album is extremely important in album reviews. Don't be afraid to be honest, but remember that you must ALWAYS give your opinion in a way that is respectful. This is the difference between saying, “This is my least favorite album by this artist. I didn't find the lyrics touching or catchy. In most of the songs, her voice is either too raspy or a pitch too high, and she sounded a bit nasally throughout most of the album,” and saying, “This is the worst album I've ever heard. They songs are so stupid and her voice is shit. I can't believe anyone would give her a recording contract.”

When writing your reviews, please keep Mibba's rules against bashing in mind.

Other Things to Remember

Here's a few other things to remember when writing your album reviews:

• Remember to keep your reviews a bit more formal than you would a journal entry or an online conversation with your friends. Specifically, keep the profanities to a minimum (only using them if they are a part of the album or song's title or lyrics). Don't use chatspeak (OMG, FTW, LOL, etc.). When writing your reviews, think of other reviews you've read in magazine and newspapers and try to follow that sense of formality.


• If you choose to do a 'track by track' review, remember to have actual content in your review of each song. A track by track review in which most of your opinions consist of “I really liked this song. The beat was nice,” or “Wow, there are no words,” isn't going to be an effective review. If you can't think of a way to describe a song or the way you feel about it, don't draw attention to it by giving its own section. Even if you love the song, you can always give it praise in your summary paragraph. So unless you actually have something to say – an opinion you can articulate – skip it.
  
  It's much better to have a shorter review that's filled with interesting content and commentary, than to have a mile long review that's mostly boring filler.


• If you're quoting lyrics in your reviews, remember to read over and check them. Often the lyrics submitted to lyric websites go unchecked for spelling, grammar, capitalization and other issues, so watch out for that. Remember that any article with an excess of errors won't be published to the site – even if those errors weren't made by you personally.


• When talking about an album or song, many reviewers often add a link to the artist's official website or MySpace page. While it's not necessary, it's often appreciated by readers who may be looking for more information.


• Like with any other article (or piece of writing on Mibba), be sure to proofread (or have your work proofread) before submitting it. Admins are here to approve your articles, not to edit them. While we will edit a few small mistakes for you, if we find that we're spending too much time correcting your piece, your article won't be published.

If you need help proofreading your work, don't be afraid to ask other Mibbians – the Editing and Proofreading is always a good place to ask.

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