Which tool you use it for writing your reviews

[MarkMueller]

I use MS word only, which s the easiest for me to edit with. Can't teach old dogs new tricks!

[moderntimes]

I'm a very old dog and I've learned lots. It's absolutely necessary in this world. When I was in my 40s I learned C++ and Unix and wrote many engineering programs using this. Had to burn the midnight oil, but hey.

But re. what I use, MS-Word of course. Tell me which other word processing software is accepted by professional publishers.

[anonanemone]

Apparently, I need to start using my highlighter/bookmark in my Kindle. I go to my computer and type up notes/comments as I go through the book and build the review around that for the most part. I pretty much stick to MS Word too. Thank god for cut and paste One time my Word program rebelled so I had to write the review in a text file. This was not my favorite experience.

@moderntimes why do you have a quote but no attribution? Really, what's up with that? On the upside, I learned a new word. I admit it. I did have to look up the word ineluctable.

[moderntimes]

The quote in my sigline is the opening from chapter 3, Proteus, from Joyce's "Ulysses" and is pretty famous, one of the great taglines in all of modern literature. Ulysses is my fave novel, and I've read it at least a dozen times, and I still pick up the "Gabler version corrected text" edition and read the occasional chapter, for fun.

Incidentally -- My P&J (pride and joy) book which I own? A true story.... some years ago I was dating this very nice gal -- we're still friends -- and she wanted to go to this estate sale one fine warm Saturday when I thought we could be more usefully spending the time drinking beer at the local Brit pub. But I relented and took her to the sale. She was looking at the furniture and I was just being polite, hanging around and spotted a big bookshelf with old books for sale from the estate. Naturally a started browsing, and saw this one book, and took it from the shelf "It can't be" I thought. But I saw the title and copyright page, and asked the guy running the sale, casually, "How much?" and he said, "Well, it's in very good condition. Twenty bucks." And friends, that $20 bill spun from my wallet so fast that the ink was left hanging in the air.

For twenty bucks, I'd just bought a FIRST edition of Ulysses. Haw! Gold was found!

Re. review notes, I review only printed books sent me by my editor. So I keep a bunch of little paper slip bookmarks in the book back cover and use them to mark places where I want to quote or otherwise reference. I do this while reading the book most likely in bed. Then the next time I get a chance, I type them into my laptop review notes, remove the marks for later use. Best I can do other than physically marking up the book, which I rarely do.

[Christine_B]

I've always used Microsoft Word it works and you can't argue with something that works. The other tool I use is a dictionary when I have a strong feeling that a word I've used is right if MS is telling me it's wrong.

[moderntimes]

Agreed. Despite the amount of freeware out there, reviews are generally submitted in MS-Word which is essentially the world standard nowadays for articles, books, reviews, etc.

I just finished a review of the new NYT #1 bestseller, Robert Crais' "The Promise" and my editor posted it yesterday on the website.

[5ngela]

Don't know that you need tools to write review. I write my review directly on goodreads page and then copy paste it into Amazon and my blog.

[SandraTWP-BRW]

I use a few tools.

If the book is hardcopy, and I'm taking notes (especially in non-fiction), I use a ton of post-it notes for my notes, and place them at the passage I'm referencing. If it's an eBook, I have found I *really* like the highlighting and note features of the Kindle. It saves me a lot of time when I'm ready to write.

As far as writing... most of the time, I either write the review in Google Docs or directly into the WordPress editor.

[MarisaRose]

I always use Word for mine, I think it is the easiest for reviewing/making changes.

[Jasmine M Wardiya]

I use some sort of online notebook - cintanotes or scrapbook. I find word a little cluttered for writing the initial review, but I c&p it in there later to do the editing - especially spellcheck. But the notepad I can tuck into a corner of the screen so then the rest of the screen has the book itself (if it's an ebook) and I can search through for quotes or something I need to check up on...

[Seopromotions5]

I use manual direct reading in most cases,write my review first after critical line by line readings

[LivreAmour217]

I've been keeping it basic and using Microsoft Word, mostly out of ignorance of other programs. Good to know they exist for future reviews

Lol, me too! I'm blown away by the software options being discussed here. Kinda feel like I've been living under a rock, but I'm grateful for the information!

[KL9999]

I use Microsoft Word (although I've been wanting to try Scrivener) and then use Grammarly to do my edits. I've been wanting to branch out from MS word, but there are so many new options I can't decide which ones are worth it.

[clint_csperry-org]

I've always used Word, and backed by Grammarly. I have tried a few other word processing programs but word does very well for me.

[KL9999]

Microsoft Word and Grammarly. I've been wanting to try out Scrivener for a while but I know it's going to take some time to learn a new program.