Lecture suggestions.
I'll go first:
How To Give Constructive Criticism.
I think it would be useful since some people have a rather poor grasp of what that actually means.
(I'm actually planning on writing this one. It should be up within a few days.)

3970835 Well, actually I'd be very interested to see how to properly evaluate grammar and style. I love giving advice and helping people, but considering my focus is engineering, I don't have a lot of knowledge when it comes to technical itty bitty writing stuff, which kind of removes all credibility I'd have if I tried.

Different types of Constructive Criticism.
There can be different types of criticism when reviewing stories, that's why we have editors, proofreaders, and pre readers. It's all based on what you're looking for. So with reviewing a story, it can all be based on what you noticed, or if requested by the author, it can be on specific parts of the story or writing in general.

3970861
It's perfectly alright to not have the greatest of knowledge in grammar. To be honest, English was my worst class in High School, simply because at the time I found it boring and not worth my time. As a consequence I now had to fight through the struggle of having week spelling and a average understanding in grammar. Now, I'm aiming for a degree in literature/English, and other things that will help me become better in the writing profession.

3970918

As a consequence I now had to fight through the struggle of having week spelling and a average understanding in grammar.

weak.

3970921
My point exactly.

3970918 It gets worse on my end because the grammar I learnt at school wasn't even English. Sure, I was born in Scotland and my first language is English, but all of my classical literature and language classes were taken in French.

But that's besides the point: if someone elses grammar is poor, I find it very hard to isolate exactly what about it is bad or wrong, and tell them their mistake. I'm willing to bet that when that constructive criticism lecture comes up, explaining why it's wrong is going to be on that list, and currently I can only give very general grammar advice, which isn't optimal at all.

3970835 How about basics for bigginers

3970835 I'll definitely be looking forward to that one. Here's another idea for a lecture: Find a way to express your feelings without JonTron.

3970835 I think this would go with constructive criticism, but how to give negative feedback. Essentially, how to tell someone that something is bad without being a total jerk about it. I'm sure we've all seen our fair share of bad stories by authors who want to do well and one thing that would help said author is to tell them when their story is bad.

3970835
3971737 The Alot Is Better Than You At Everything

A lot =/= alot

Most high school English programs do involve learning to write stories. At the college level, most of the instruction involves essays and research papers--i.e., nonfiction. However, the skill set is essentially the same--clarity, focus, organization, enough detail to provide support, and yes, good grammar.

You need to know the rules before you can intentionally break the rules. I bust them like crazy when I write for Pink Horse, but that's because I'm echoing her thought and speech patterns. I couldn't do that if I didn't know what I was trying to have her say.

3970861
3970918
The best thing is often just to look up grammar and writing guides and teach yourself, once you're past school/university. That and don't be afraid to ask for help when you know someone knows grammar better than you. When I'm doing PCaRG reviews, I'll often show a paragraph to my wife (who edits essays professionally) when it just reads badly and I can't place why, and I'll ask her "What's wrong with this?"

Also, resources like these are good for anyone, writer and reviewer alike.

3982290 Cheers for the resources. I know it sounds lazy, but usually I just don't have the willpower to look up grammar rules in great detail, especially when all I want to do is give a bit of friendly advice if I think a story is cool. I have to research just about everything else under the sun, so it gets a bit old.

I guess I was hoping for a magical technique to instantly be a boss at recognizing common errors and important principles. Probably a bit too much to ask.

I'll swallow the bullet and actually work at self improvement now, I think.

Pulling in resources and examples is fine, but it won't do much to help in the long run if you're running between these guides and the review you're trying to write. I'm a firm believer in the teaching school of "learning by doing" and given the idea of this group, I think that's what needs to happen.

I would suggest just starting a thread maybe once every month as a reviewing exercise. Post a story, ask for a review to be posted in the thread, and then provide a short set of questions to specifically answer in your review. Such as:
- How do the voices of characters X and Y compare to each other? Do they sound believable, or are they out-of-character? Give an example.
- If you were to tell the author there's something they could improve on, what would it be? Why?
- Do you think the story accomplished all that it needed to in the allotted word count? Why or why not?
- What is the aim of your review?

Of course, it should be more than simply answering those questions. The point should be to just get people to review. It doesn't matter how quick, shoddy, amateur, or grammatically upsetting the review itself is. Just get them to review. Get a few reviews in per thread, and then encourage the reviewers to look at each other's reviews and learn from each other. In time, people should be able to improve their reviewing prowess the more they review. Compare things like review structure, reviewer tone, the aim of the review, et cetera.

The stories chosen and corresponding questions should be uncontroversial, obviously, and perhaps up to the discretion of the group's admins. It'd also be great to somehow notify the author their story is getting all these feedback, perhaps in the form of bookshelf notifications (do people get notified if their story is added to a group they aren't in?).

I can only speak for myself, but I would often like to join these reviewing sessions myself if implemented. I see a number of experienced reviewers have already joined this group, such as Chris and Professor Plum, and they might join in these exercises as well. Who knows? The idea of experienced reviewers and newbies practicing alongside each other is entertaining to me.

For reference: I'm happy to help support this group in whatever way would be, well, supportive. A few thoughts:

1) To piggyback off of 3982660, some sort of regular reviewing "exercise" could be worth considering, and it might be worth looking at combining that with what Golden Oaks Book Club does; they're already pre-selecting stories for discussion, after all.

2) Griffon has a big old spreadsheet full of reviews. If comparing reviews, or seeing multiple reviews of the same story, is something that people find useful, this is a great tool; you can sort the list by number or reviews the fic's received, then check what different people said about the same story, how their presentation or style differed, etc.

3) Judging from the early activity, it seems like a lot of people have questions and/or concerns about what the audience/goal of a review should be, how not to be offensive, and how to be useful. If you're looking for lecture subjects, those (or subsets from those, e.g. "how to offer advice on characterization") seems like what people are most interested in.

I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of this group!

3970835
3982660
Seconding the importance of comparing reviews with peers, and also suggesting that you take said story-of-the-month from groups like Authors Helping Authors, where the authors are generally accepting of feedback. Inter-group activity could be powerful in getting the brand across.

For bonus points, get a mediocre fic. You know the kind - not outright terrible, but definitely not good, good grammar, where there are no easy shots and you gotta think hard why.

3982414

I know it sounds lazy, but usually I just don't have the willpower to look up grammar rules in great detail, especially when all I want to do is give a bit of friendly advice if I think a story is cool.

Heyas - "giving a bit of friendly advice" is the best way to start. A good detail to offer in your feedback is at which point in the story you got bored - that is, it gives the author an area to pin down and reassess on his/her own. Simply saying "I liked [character/event/description/word choice]/didn't like [character/event/description/word choice]/found [scene/section] boring" is a good start, because to be able to produce something more specific than a broad stroke requires a degree of self-reflection and self-awareness.

There are enough reviewers out there who can only give grammatical advice, I feel. Don't worry about it. There is something that only you can give, and that is your reaction.