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[Reflect] Make connections: Evaluating sources of reviews.

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Yelp is one source of ratings and reviews of businesses, products, and services. Other crowd-sourced reviews can be found on Amazon, TripAdvisor, GoodReads, and IMDb. Non-crowd-sourced professional reviews can be found in many print publications, such as the book and movie reviews in many newspapers and magazines as well as the ratings of products that appear in publications like Consumer Reports, PCWorld, and Guitarist magazine.

Consider what makes crowd-sourced reviews more or less persuasive than professional reviews. Your instructor may ask you to post your thoughts on a class discussion board or to discuss them with other students during class time. Use these questions to get started:

Which online or print sources do you turn to most often for reviews? Why? (If you do not consult reviews, consider why you don’t.) Is your preferred source based on the “wisdom of crowds”? What are the advantages of crowd-sourced reviews over expert reviews and vice versa?
What features of a review do you find most helpful in making decisions about what movies to see, what restaurants to go to, what products to purchase, and so on? Do you find ratings with stars, grades, or other at-a-glance features useful or oversimplified?

[Reflect] Make connections: Evaluating sources of reviews.

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