Restaurant Reviews: a Genre that Rants and Raves
Restaurant Reviews: a Genre that Rants and Raves
Introduction
For the past century people have turned to restaurant reviews to guide their culinary experiences. More and more we see this genre becoming apparent in our every day lives. With iPhone apps like Urbanspoon, Yelp, Forkly, Foodspotting, and the New York Times, reading restaurant reviews has become accessible by the touch of a button. However, this new generation of discussion forums and rating systems has made it difficult for the general public to distinguish reliable restaurant reviews from reviews written by nonprofessionals.
The study of restaurant reviews is important because these reviews carry information that a rating or a recommendation alone may not have. For instance, food critics talk about the aura of a restaurant, how it is decorated, the type of people that work there, the cost, and more. Exploring this genre and its patterns is valuable for readers of restaurant reviews because it gives them the “low down” on which reviews provide more helpful information. It’s also important for people who want to write them or entrepreneurs looking to enter into the restaurant business. In this study I will compare food critic reviews with blogger-type reviews using the Food and Wine Magazine and websites like Gayot and Urbanspoon. From these reviews I examine, I hope to gain a better understanding of what makes an effective restaurant review by asking questions like: what patterns are present in both types of restaurant reviews? Are there patterns (rhetorical or linguistic) that distinguish between the two types of reviews? If so, what are the implications of these differences?
Methodology
I gathered a total of eight restaurant reviews; 4 professionally written ones and 4 “foodie” reviews. All of these were easily accessible online from different websites. I used the Food and Wine magazine along with a website called Gayot [the guide to the good life] for the reviews written by
Introduction
For the past century people have turned to restaurant reviews to guide their culinary experiences. More and more we see this genre becoming apparent in our every day lives. With iPhone apps like Urbanspoon, Yelp, Forkly, Foodspotting, and the New York Times, reading restaurant reviews has become accessible by the touch of a button. However, this new generation of discussion forums and rating systems has made it difficult for the general public to distinguish reliable restaurant reviews from reviews written by nonprofessionals.
The study of restaurant reviews is important because these reviews carry information that a rating or a recommendation alone may not have. For instance, food critics talk about the aura of a restaurant, how it is decorated, the type of people that work there, the cost, and more. Exploring this genre and its patterns is valuable for readers of restaurant reviews because it gives them the “low down” on which reviews provide more helpful information. It’s also important for people who want to write them or entrepreneurs looking to enter into the restaurant business. In this study I will compare food critic reviews with blogger-type reviews using the Food and Wine Magazine and websites like Gayot and Urbanspoon. From these reviews I examine, I hope to gain a better understanding of what makes an effective restaurant review by asking questions like: what patterns are present in both types of restaurant reviews? Are there patterns (rhetorical or linguistic) that distinguish between the two types of reviews? If so, what are the implications of these differences?
Methodology
I gathered a total of eight restaurant reviews; 4 professionally written ones and 4 “foodie” reviews. All of these were easily accessible online from different websites. I used the Food and Wine magazine along with a website called Gayot [the guide to the good life] for the reviews written by
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