Texas A&M OS/2 Users Group
Product Review Sheet
Use whatever writing style you like. Supporting tables and graphics are
fine. Length should be from 100 to 500 words. If submitted on paper,
double-space text with at least a 10 point font. E-mail submissions are
fine; be sure to uuencode all non-ASCII files. You may also submit your
material on disk either as an ASCII file or in the word processor format
of your choice. WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows is ideal. Disks submitted
will be copied and returned to you.
These items must appear somewhere in the review (at the top of the page
is fine):
- Name of item reviewed
- Price of item, if known
- Approximate date item was released. For software, note if it is a beta
version.
- Your name as you would like it to appear in the newsletter. E-mail
address is optional.
- Date product was reviewed
- Basic description of the product (i.e. It's a word processor.)
- Overall recommendation (Is it worth it? Did it meet your expectations?)
You may cover any aspects of the product you wish. If you cannot think
of what to write about, here are some points you may want to consider:
- Special features (What makes this product unique?)
- Limitations, flaws, bugs (How could it be made better?)
- Learning curve/help documentation [For books, how clear is the material?
What made it difficult? The technical level? Organization of the
material?]
- Installation
- Compatibility with other software/hardware
- Direct, specific comparisons with similar products.
This will incorporate
your own background with similar products. If this is the first
spreadsheet program you've ever seen, obviously your evaluation of it
will differ from someone who's used 20 of them.
- Product's intended audience. (Who is the typical user [reader]?)
- Speed, stability of operation
- Background of the company [authors] (Do they make [write] other similar
products?)
- Background of the item (Is this a newer version of a old product,
an OS/2
version of a DOS product, or completely new?)
For book reviews, in addition to a few of the above points, you might examine:
- What kind of book is it? (Reference book? Workbook?)
- How thoroughly was the material covered?
- Look at the table of contents. Are similar topics grouped together in
categories or are they arranged in order of difficulty? Order of
operation?
- Books can spend more than a year in the publication process. How timely
is the information? Is it current? Correct?
- Finally, did it come with any supporting software? If so, you'll also
want to comment on it.
These are only suggestions. Keep in mind that you are not required to
cover any (certainly not all) of the topics mentioned.
Good luck!
M. J. Mach, Editor
Maroon and Blue
os2@cs.tamu.edu
3/3/95
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