Essentially, I’d really like to start writing reviews, but I am not very sure on how to write them.
Does anyone have any advice?
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When you finish the story you are watching, reading, listening to, etc. If you immediately record a voice note with all your thoughts and feelings about it, it helps you get all your thoughts out of your head. You can then just transcribe them and adjust them into a readable shape afterwards. 
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I mean, my reviews are less reviews more just quick rambling about my thoughts on the story which happens to include my thoughts on the quality of the story, they can be as much or as little as you’d like!
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I think it depends on what you want to say. I would just sit down and write and see what comes out. It’s not getting marked by a teacher (I will, of course, silently judge it, especially in terms of spelling, punctuation and grammar, but don’t let that worry you 
). Your style will develop. When I look back at the reviews I wrote at the start of my marathon blog, I cringe because they are 90% plot synopsis, which does not make a good review! But over time I found my groove - I’d say my reviews are actually getting a bit worse lately because I often leave it too long before actually writing it, therefore forgetting some of the things that struck me, and I can take 4 or 5 attempts to get through a whole review meaning they can be a bit disjointed.
So, just have a go and see what works for you.
(But please, for the love of English, use capital letters correctly - drives me insane when I see people online not using them!!)
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I tend to make notes as I rarely listen in one go.
But what do you want to know? Quite often I look for reviews for information.
What do you feel worked in a story and what didn’t? What expectations were or weren’t met?
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Main thing, which I see a lot of reviewers do & that includes professional journalists, do not just tell us the plot! Giving yourself a maximum word limit can also be a good idea, helps to focus & be concise.
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Good question, @DontBlink!
I’m by no means an expert, and I find most of my reviews somewhat clumsy (mostly because English isn’t my first language), but since I have written a fair few of them, I feel that I can offer a tip or two.
Remember that there is no right or wrong way to write reviews. They can vary in structure, length, and content; the most interesting thing is that you find a style that works for you. You might want to be funny, serious, or informative—or perhaps some mix. Some people spend a lot of time rambling about small details in the story and the various technical aspects, but if that’s not your cup of tea, its perfectly fine to just bring forward the main things you liked or disliked about the story. You can go and read some other users’ reviews for inspiration and just to see how different people review stories.
My most important tip has been mentioned already: unless you have an exceptional memory, I recommend that you take notes while you watch, listen, or read. They can be anything—things you like, dislike, or find interesting; important lines of dialogue; an interesting character; a scene that made you laugh, cry, or be angry. This helps you remember the story later on and gives you a base to work with as you write the review. This is very handy if you devour a lot of stories and don’t have the time to sit down and write the review directly. What to do with the notes is up to you; you can publish them as is or edit them into a different format.
Some people like to watch/listen to/read the story twice before writing the review. I don’t do that because I don’t have the time, but feel free to do that if you wish. This allows you to notice things the second time around that you initially missed. The beauty with this site is that it allows you to edit your reviews; even if you rewatch an episode years later, you can simply edit your old review and rating to reflect your changed opinions or point out new things you’ve noticed.
Last, but not least: have fun and don’t worry about it! My reviews vary greatly in length and quality. Sometimes I simply don’t feel that I have a lot to say about a story and only jot down a couple of lines. And that’s completely fine! It’s also fine to just watch or listen to something without reviewing it if you don’t feel like it. Reviewing should be a fun hobby, which is why you should allow yourself time to find the style that fits you best and go with it.
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I generally agree with this. But when I don’t get the plot of some audio or short story, I look up reviews on TG in hope that someone may have recounted the plot. So it can be helpful sometimes.
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Personally, I tend to write quick and dirty notes while watching/listening, nothing more than bullet points, and generally not caring about typos or punctuation (sorry, Delta). Then, once the episode is over, I try to organise my notes base on how I think the review will flow better: commenting chronologically, a positive/negative sandwich, or sections for different things (such as characters, plot, costuming/sets, ect.). The style I choose depends on what I have to say. Once I settle on that, I take those points and turn them into a clear review, but it’s not an essay. I don’t always have a good setup and conclusion.
I don’t really like to spend more than about half an hour on a review, simply because I have better things to do with my time and I don’t feel the need to be super professional with this. What I have is good enough. In general, I use reviews more as a way to help me remember episodes after I finish them (since I have to go over them in my head a few times) rather than something I think other people will use. It takes the pressure off.
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I tend to write a few quick notes too as I’m listening or immediately after - my issue is finding time to write it all up later, because if I leave it too long, I forget what I was talking about and what happens in the episode 
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Yeah, I do it immediately. I go into new episodes with the expectation that I’ll write a review, so I make sure to allot time for it. If something happens and I can’t do it immediately, I keep the notes until the next time I rewatch.
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It’s fine if it’s in your private notes. Just use them in public spaces 
.
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Be mindful of having fun.
I began writing reviews (in my native language for another IP) as a teen, so around 40 years ago. It was great fun. So I wrote more. I felt compelled to deliver more and more, first for printed “fanzines” of the time and then for digital. What started as a fun activity in my free time became like a job, just without getting money. (In case you are a gamer: It’s similar to getting ever more salty in an achievement grind, destroying all the fun but still keeping on playing.)
But it was not only the amount of reviews that killed the fun. I also tried to get better and better, making more and more notes while reading/watching. As others said: it’s a good practice to make notes. But there is a balance, and it is easy to overdo it and destroy the fun of reading/watching stuff.
In a similar vein: as soon as you start analyzing something, you begin to see flaws you would have overlooked just enjoying the book/film/… And negative aspects just lend themselves better to write about, I feel, so it gets harder to keep the balance.
From this experience: all the stuff others already said is great. Add being mindful of actually having fun, and you will be just fine.
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I’m gonna step outside the lines and say that it also really depends on what you want to get out of the experience as a writer. If you want to improve your baseline writing ability, write every day. I trot out at least 200 words on an episode that I don’t publish just to make sure that I’m in the habit of doing so. It might sound tired, but “You become a writer by writing” is still some of the most succinct advice I’ve ever read on the subject.
Beyond that though? The advice given above about making sure to do more than just summarize the plot is good advice, but there are also a lot of reviews that don’t push the boundary further than “I liked this - x was good, y was less good, arbitrary numbered score.” There’s nothing wrong with that sort of reviewing, I think especially if you’re just keeping a personal record of your likes and dislikes. If you want to go further though, and write something that people are not only going to read, but perhaps think about after they’ve read, you also need to identify how you watch episodes of the show. Are you watching with a critical eye? How many times are you watching, and what are the differences of opinion between those viewings? Are you looking to give us your unfiltered first impression, or are you wanting to be more analytical? All the best reviews have hooks, things that will keep your reader interested but also tell them interesting things about the episode.
Walk a fine line between developing your own style, including advocating your own tastes and making your views on Doctor Who distinctive and making sure your personal biases don’t entirely inform your writing. Engage with countering opinions wherever you can.
Read, read, read, read. Go back to episodes you’ve already watched and reviewed, and find the reviews written about it both at the time and in retrospect. Read the unauthorized handbooks, and the histories. We benefit so much from there being a surfeit of amazing writing about this show; at some point soon those writers will age out and a new generation will stand on their shoulders. My hope is that kids whose first Doctor was Ncuti Gatwa will, in five years, have as much great work to read about the 2005-2024 period as we did about Classic Who (even if there is also some absolute dogshit. But you get to write about that too, and prove them wrong!).
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Well, I’ve started writing my first review, and it’s on a story that I have watched quite recently!
Towards the embarkation!
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As the person who has somehow written more reviews than anyone here, I have a few suggestions. First, don’t overthink it. Nobody should think less of you for having feelings on something designed to make you feel things. I agree with others that it also depends on what you want out of the experience. For me, it is to literally keep track of what I listened to and my reaction to it, since this franchise is too big for me to consistently remember these things otherwise.
Since nobody is paying you nor do these things have professional expectations, I would suggest focusing on the personal. How did this story make you feel? What did it make you think of?
More technical stuff like story structure or technical quality only really matter if they affected your experience of the story, in my opinion. James Cameron’s Avatar is certainly competently made, but it makes me feel nothing, and so I generally focus on that when thinking or talking about those movies.
Some of my reviews are a couple of sentences long, and others are full-blown rants that span several paragraphs. There is no wrong way to do this and not every story is going to merit the same level of reaction, especially when it comes to the complexity of my thoughts on the matter. For example, I just don’t have as much to say about an episode like 42 compared to something like Turn Left.
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I definitely agree on the personal aspect - some of my favourite reviews I’ve written are ones where a story might trigger an anecdote or a memory about an aspect of my fandom.
I also am not great at commenting on direction or writing or even necessarily acting unless, as you say, it makes me feel something (either positive or negative).
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At last!
I have completed my first review, and you can read it here:
Please give it a look and let me know what you think!
I really enjoyed writing this, and I am working on my second review already.
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Nice review!
One request I have is that you don’t include spoilers for other stories in your reviews - as someone may read it on their first viewing and have no idea that Adric dies in Earthshock so we try to avoid spoilers when we can!
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That’s a good point and not one I’d noticed as, of course, that’s just something I know so it didn’t register with me.
A good first review though @DontBlink - keep at it. 
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