As promised, I will critique people’s blogs so people can improve their blogs for the future, regardless if they win or not. As stated in my list of criteria in the inaugural post, I’m basing my grading on that. For blog owners, I will write a few suggestions and my overall impressions. They will get published after all the blogs in the bracket had their polls opened.
For the first one, I will give criticism to the first quarter of the Green Bracket. If you are the author of these blogs, please take it with a grain of salt as these are my opinions and they aren’t meant to offend you.
Toxic Muffin
Accessed April 13, 2012
Content (12/18): Toxic Muffin is mostly a manga review blog. From the first appearance, there is a good amount of grammar mistakes. Like I have said before, too many grammar and spelling mistakes will turn off the reader.
Design (7/10): The overall design looks bland. Create a header image to make it look better.
Post Frequency (1/2)
Mobile Site: Yes (WordPress.com default)
Overall Grade: 22/30, C, This blog needs some improvement. Just read the suggestions I made above.
8thSin Fansubs Anime Blog
Accessed April 13, 2012
Content (14/18): 8thSin is a fansubs blog consisting of episodic, review posts. Although the content has some grammar mistakes (capitalization and verb form), transition notes were a bonus adds added some value to the post. Still, the writing still felt a bit bland and needs a bit more personality.
Design (7/10) – The over design looks good and clean. However, it’s very difficult to navigate to the older posts since there is no archive page or widget
Post Frequency: (2/2)
Mobile Site: No
Overall Grade: 23/30, C – The content is good, but make sure you proofread before publishing.
Amaenbou Dane~
Accessed April 13, 2012
Content (14/18): This blog focuses primarily on visual novel reviews. As for the content, it’s unique since the author reviews various novels and explains his/her thoughts about the story. However, the grammar issues slightly turned me off because some of the sentences do not sound right. Needless to say, it’s not bad
Design (10/10): Overall, it looks good.
Post Frequency (1/2)
Mobile Site: Yes (WordPress.com default)
Overall Grade: (27/30): A – Overall, your blog is good. The only thing you need to focus on is fixing some of the grammar issues. You can do this by rereading the post before you publish it, either out loud or using text to speech. From this, you can easily pick up sentences that might sound funny.
Dere Moe Project
Accessed April 13, 2012
Content (13/18): Content consists of episodic, review and opinion/news posts. From my first impressions on checking out a post, there were some obvious spelling mistakes. However, this will vary because this is a team blog.
Design (6/10): The design looks good overall. However, it’s very difficult to access your content and some of the links are broken. Also, it doesn’t scale well on mobile devices and old computers with all the animation going on with the layout.
Post Frequency: (2/2)
Mobile Site: No – Site desperately needs one since it gets a bit hectic. Either implement a responsive design or install a mobile site plugin.
Overall Grade: 22/30, C– The site looks good, but the design is not really that usable. Instead of making it look flashy, use a simpler design and build from there. Also, don’t forget to spellcheck
Shameful Otaku Secret
Accessed April 15,2012
Content (18/18): Their editorial writing is great, so not much to comment about.
Design: (10/10)
Post Frequency: (1/2)
Mobile Site: Yes
Overall Grade: (31/30), A – Not much to comment since it’s already a great editorial blog.
O-New
Accessed April 15, 2012
Content (15/18): Overall, I think the content looks good if you looking at certain posts as the quality varies a lot. However, you have to admit that the author has personality.
Design (8/10): The design looks hilarious
Post Frequency (2/2)
Mobile Site: Yes (WordPress.com default)
Overall Grade (27/30) A: It’s just a bad match. Still, the blog has a lot of potential.
Spherical Cows
Accessed April 15, 2012
Content (14/18): The blog is mostly a review blog and the post quality is decent.
Design: (7/10) – Layout needs a banner or something to set it apart.
Post Frequency: (1/2)
Mobile Site: Yes
Overall Grade (24/30) B: Content is all right, but you need to read over your post for lingering grammar mistakes. Also, don’t forget to put an overall grade in your review so your readers have some indication of how good the anime is.
Otaku Life: Anime Review
Accessed April 15, 2012
Content (14/18) – The content is good with some lingering grammar mistakes, but avoid using sentence fragments and watch out for the spacing after the comma.
Design (6/10) – Although the layout may look nice, I think the blog really needs a new one. First off, the banner looks kind of big. This can turn off some people because they have to scroll down more to read your content. Also, the links on the navigation bar is non-functional.
Post Frequency: (1/2)
Mobile Site: Yes (Blogger Default)
Overall Grade (23/30) C – The content looks good, but watch out for some lingering grammar mistakes. Also, I recommend getting a new design that is creative and not completely pre-made.
I don’t see much the point of grammar checks as long as its just “mistyping”. Its of minor value compared to the actual content. 😛
Still, I don’t think it should be overlooked as too many grammar errors can potentially make posts difficult to understand. Even so, grammar checkers aren’t always reliable, so the only foolproof way to proofread is rereading a post. As long the whole post doesn’t sound funny, I think it’s ok to overlook minor errors as long they aren’t obvious, although good grammar is reflective to the quality of a post.
having many grammar errors is definitely an issue, but I would just jump over one or two mispellings or bad verb usages in a otherwise good and interesting post.
Obviously this is coming from a non-native english writer so maybe I’m a bit biased. 😛
I admit that I am a bit over the issue since I’m trying to improve my writing and have been criticized in the past (it’s not a big deal now, but still). I don’t think a few mistakes would make much of a difference, unless it occurs frequently. Even with the effort I put into improving my writing, I still find Englsh grammar a bit tricky compared to Japanese.
Of course, I haven’t seen anyone write a whole blog post in Instant Messaging language… that would be a pain in the butt to read.
The mixture of my inner Canadian and incredulity at having a good review of O-New leads me to conclude that my score of ‘A’ should better be a score of ‘Eh?’!
I think you have a good sense of humor… just keep at it. 😉
Wow. Just wanted to say that it’s really nice what you’re doing here. This way even if you don’t win the tourney and don’t get far you’ll still get a chance to be read, critiqued, and you might just pick up a few extra readers. Even though I’m not in the tourney, I’d like to thank you for what you’re doing here.
You’re welcome…
Of course, I want to help the blogosphere out so others can improve. I do admit that reviewing blogs I’m not familiar with takes a considerable amount of time, but I’m glad to do it like I did in the first tournament. As they say, it’s not about winning, but more of a learning process. Given I have been blogging for three years, I have a good amount of experience.
Thanks mate, I will do my best to improve my typos and stuff. My posts can get long, so, I end up too tired to properly check -_-.
I will also try to update more frequently, but school and stuff man!
I understand the feeling because I’m a college student myself and time is always an issue. It usually takes 45 minutes ~ 1 hr to proofread, thus lengthens the writing process. If you write shorter posts get to the point, it will be a bit easier to check the post. It doesn’t have to be completely perfect, but good enough so that it gives the reader a good impression.
But anyways, good luck~