What is a review?

We explain what a review is, its objective and what topics or objects it can address. In addition, literary reviews and critical reviews.

1. What is a review?

A review is a type of expository-argumentative text , consisting of a critical evaluation of an object, document or investigation , by an expert in the field, or even a simple user . Reviews of books, films, records, plays, but also academic research, articles and virtually anything can be done.

Of course, depending on the author’s path and argumentative capacity, the reviews differ greatly from each other. They can be very technical texts, aimed at experts in the field, or informative texts that expose a point of view for the general public to read.

Anyway, the purpose of a review is usually to provide an interpretation, an evaluation or a look at the thing, according to the author’s criteria. You can even rate it or give the public some kind of appreciation system that recommends it, or not.

2. Literary review

Literary reviews are part of the literary genre of essay or criticism, in the sense that they are part of written texts to speak about other texts (fiction or poetry , for example). That is, a literary review is one that offers an evaluative look at a literary work

Literary reviews are governed by very free criteria, but usually they usually have an expository part, in which information is provided from the book, and then they enter into an argumentative, where they offer the reviewer’s vision of its content, often offering textual quotes. or third party judgments, in order to compose a generally short opinion about a literary work.

3. Critical review

Critical reviews are generally called those texts that, although thought of as a review of some kind, go much deeper into the argumentative content and support their opinion or criteria based on citations, verifiable arguments and other forms of validation they aspire to objectivity, or at least to the critical sense.

They are usually more extensive, require a more informed audience and can become very specialized, such as scientific reviews or academic reviews that appear in refereed, university or technical journals.