My Coaching Lens for Stazjia's Stars

Because I made the Giant 100 Club last time, Wiwon, the group I joined to help me, has made me one of the coaches for people hoping to make Giant or the Giant 100 Club next time, deadline September 30, 2009.

Stazjia’s Stars is one of the small coaching groups. I have six members, which is about average for each group. In SS we are still getting to know each other but have started reviewing each other’s lenses and that seems to be going well.

I think giving critiques on lenses helps the owner of the lens and the people doing the critique. Obviously, the owner gets suggestions for improvements but how does it help the other people?

They have to look at the lens with a critical eye. They need to assess it for attractiveness and how it reads. Does it encourage people to read it? Is the lens easy to read on a screen or are there great blocks of text that make it difficult? Are there enough illustrations to brighten it up, make it look attractive and help the meaning of the text. For example, a lens about a flower is always helped if the reader can see a picture of the plant in question.

The Wiwon Team

Sometimes the problem can be that the text doesn’t flow well from beginning to end. When writing about most things, there’s an optimum order to impart the information. If it’s written in the wrong order, it feels disjointed and jumbled. Sometimes we don’t always realize what’s wrong with the writing but we know there is something stopping us enjoying it.

When people write a critique, they have to assess all these things and others too, sometimes. They then have to formulate a way of writing their opinions of what’s wrong. Saying, “it reads funny” doesn’t help. You have to work out why before you can give the critique. Then the person doing the critique should make suggestions for improvements.

While they are doing all this, they are learning more about how to make good lenses.

Remember, lenses are just Squidoo’s name for web pages and so this method should apply to any page of content or even a sales page.