WANTED!
Your reviews of and about Doctor Who
Send A Review!
Just email Stacey at smithr (at) math.mcmaster.ca with the word
"Review" in
the title of the email.
Submission Information
Just about everything to know about sending reviews to the Guide:
Attitude: As a reviewer, you have the right to believe that
your critical assessment is right, true and good, regardless of what
others believe. Polite criticism of other points of view is not only
acceptable but also part of the reason to write reviews in the first
place. However, trashing or flaming another reviewer or review is
unacceptable.
Length: Consider the minimum to be 250 words and the maximum to
be 1000 words. That's not absolutely strict, however - but if you're going
to write something outside these boundaries, it should be very
well-written. Bear in mind that if it's too long it may get edited down,
but if it's too short I'll ask you for a rewrite.
Format: Reviews should be sent in plain text, in the body of an
email (not an attachment). I can't read anything even vaguely complicated,
so forget about word documents or anything like that; I can just about
handle HTML in a pinch, but it's a pain in the neck to reformat. I'd also
appreciate it if you could configure your email program so that text wraps
around. Please use the word 'review' in the title of the email, so I don't
mistakenly delete it thinking it's spam.
Story Titles: Please refer to the titles of stories in regular
text, with only the first letters of key words capitalised. Please don't
capitalise titles or put them in any punctuation whatsoever. So it's
Pyramids of Mars, not PYRAMIDS OF MARS or 'Pyramids of Mars'. This makes
my life much simpler...
...however, the titles of the sixties' stories are
completely up to you. I'm definitely not going into that minefield.
Names: Please submit reviews with your name attached somewhere.
That sounds obvious, but there are a surprising number of people who
forget this. If it's automatically in your email program, that's fine, but
if not you really have to put your name somewhere on the review.
The Guide maintains an air of formality slightly higher than
elsewhere on the net, so please use your real name. We no longer accept
pseudonyms.
Copyright: All copyright remains with the original reviewer. If
you wish to use someone's review, please contact them directly, or myself
and I'll direct your request to the appropriate person.
Mini-FAQ
- Can I link my page to a review in the Guide? Please
don't; link to the main page http://pagefillers.com/dwrg instead.
- Can I submit a review to this site and to other review sites?
Absolutely! As far as we're concerned, you maintain the copyright on
your reviews. However, make sure to check
with the webmasters of those sites before sending them duplicate reviews,
just to make sure of their policy on the matter.
- I've sent in a review. Now what? Wait for it to appear in
the Guide. Usually, you won't receive e-mails unless you write
with a specific question or comment or unless the review is rejected. Bear
in mind that sometimes we just get busy, though.
- What's the difference between this Guide and other
sites?
Here there are several limits, including length, content, spoiler-free
for a year etc. The Guide also archives all the reviews and
cross-links pages.
- Why do some people have so many reviews in the Guide?
Because they send quality reviews on a regular or semi-regular
basis. That's the only trick involved.
- The Guide's editor, Stacey Smith?, has written some Doctor
Who books (some under the name Robert Smith?). Can I review them? Will she be upset if I hate them?
Absolutely you can review them! To avoid any conflict of interest,
Matthew Kresal has agreed to act as handling editor on any books Stacey
has written or edited. All such reviews will be sent to Matthew for
approval, and he has complete veto power over them (or you can email
Matthew directly at timdalton007 at yahoo dot com). And no, Stacey will not be upset in the slightest. She's made of tougher stuff than that.
Posting Reviews:
- Obviously there can be no guarentee that every review sent to us
will be posted. However, the Guide's acceptance rate is estimated
at over 99%.
- The goal of the Guide is to post reviews most days
per week. When this does not occur, it's usually due to personal matters.
Quality:
- The Guide is run by people just like you: extremely busy.
In order to help us get your reviews posted in a timely manner, please
spell-check, grammar-check and learn how to use apostrophes
before sending your reviews to us.
- Avoid reviews that are mere lists. (i.e. "I like Hartnell, but I
didn't like Susan. Ian was good, so was Barbara. The Daleks were
frightening!" etc.) A good review states what was pleasing and/or
unpleasing and why. The more a reviewer concentrates on these
questions, the better the review.
- Avoid summarizing whenever possible. At times, limited
summarization is necessary in order to familiarize your readers with a
specific incident: this is the only case when it is acceptable.
Common errors:
- Incorrect use of apostrophes. Please learn how to use these,
especially the difference between "its" and "it's" and the difference
between a possessive apostrophe and a contraction. I highly recommend the
book "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" for this and other punctuation matters. Or
check out The
Apostrophe
Protection Society for a simple and clear explanation.
- Inappropriate capitalisation. Only proper nouns and words at the
beginning of sentences should be capitalised. Fixing these errors takes a
great deal of work. Occasionally, select words may be capitalised for
effect... but you'd better be an extremely good writer to begin with
before you attempt this.
- Inappropriate italicisation. This is a hallmark of bad writing. If
the construction of your sentence doesn't indicate which word should be
emphasised, then putting that word in italics isn't going to improve your
sentence. Try rewriting the sentence instead.
- Leaving your name off the review. Please include your full name with
your review. You'd be surprised how many people forget to do this.
Spoilers: The Guide will enforce a one-year rule on
spoilers. No exceptions. If what you are reviewing is less than a year
old, no spoilers are allowed. After a year, spoilers are acceptable, but
please keep them to a minimum: some fans have not seen or read what you
have. This includes your humble editor, so for my sake as well, please
don't spoil me either!
The definition of a "spoiler" for review purposes constitutes anything
significant in a book/audio/video not mentioned on the back cover. This
includes surprise villains, giving away the ending and mentioning spoilers
from previous books/videos/audios. For the new series, a spoiler
constitutes anything that you found especially surprising during the
episode, as well as its ending. For example, in the episode The End of the World, this would include the
identity of the villain, as well as the Doctor's revelations about his
home planet.
Editing: The Guide reserves the right to edit reviews
that do not conform to these guidelines (such as removing spoilers, fixing
typos etc). Usually, this just means minor edits, but if you have a
problem with the review as posted, drop us a line and we'll discuss it.
Our policy is: we'll treat your reviews with respect, so we don't
anticipate too many problems on this score.
Topics: Any relevent topic concerning Doctor Who is
accepted. If you have an idea for a review that won't fit into one of the
Guide's categories, let us know. We'll find a way to include your
review, even if we have to start a new section to the Guide.
Updates. There are two options for you to amend a previous
review:
- Update the review. You may completely rewrite the review. This
version will entirely replace the existing review. You may repeat sections
from the previous review, or write an entirely new review.
- Supplement the review. In this case, a supplementary review will
appear below the original review. A supplement should not repeat portions
of the original review, since both will be visible.
Typos or mistakes made by the editors will be fixed as soon as we are
made aware of them (and as soon as we can break away from that hulking
distraction we call "life"). If you notice a typo anywhere, please let us
know.
Deleting a review: Unfortunately, this is not possible. Once a
review has been posted, it become interlinked with other reviews, as
people address points you may have made (even in reviews of completely
different topics). For this reason, we cannot delete reviews once posted.
This doesn't mean we're insensitive to errors or changes. If there are
minor errors that need correcting, drop us a line and we'll fix them as
soon as we can. If you're really desperate to delete a review for some
reason, you can write an updated review of that topic and send it in. The
new one will then replace the old version, with a separate announcement in
the New Reviews section.
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