: Re: How can I become better at formulating my feedback when critiquing a writer's work as beta reader? As a beta reader, I sometimes find myself frustrated at trying to find the right words and

@Phylliss352

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Read a writing guide. If you were trying to better your own writing, I'd suggest reading several of them, but that's probably overkill here. The aim isn't for you to accept every "do this instead of that because this example shows why the former's preferable" rule as correct; it's just for you to get into the headspace of people who are used to saying things that sound well-informed. If you could somehow read the text of such a guide in a peculiar order, whereby you saw the examples before the discussion of what they did well/badly, you would see the guide's author achieve more or less what you would have tried to, had those extracts been from the work you're beta-reading.

Also, if the work reminds you of something else you think might be making similar good or bad steps, even if you're not sure why or what they are, find someone reviewing that work, whether it's a YouTuber or a professional in a newspaper. (I suppose that may depend in part on what sort of work it was.) Maybe you can use similar phrases or ideas to pinpoint how you feel about the work in front of you. But even just "it reminds me of X" can be useful feedback, because beta reading is all about helping the reader see whether the effect was what they intended, rather than just whether it was "good".

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