24 words on how to write a restaurant review

In higher education, we tend to assume that students all know how to communicate online: that they instinctively know the right genre, register and tone for the context. And then we're surprised when forum communication either fails to take off or goes up in flames.

The Qype website makes no such assumptions. Beside the box allowing you to post a review of, for example, a restaurant, it carries the following instructions:

Write as if you were talking to a good friend (in front of your mother) No spam, no self promotion and no offensive language.

No long guidance document, no course in study skills. Just 24 words, which anyone about to make a comment is bound to see. Neat!

Seen and heard October 2011

Obituaries and memories of Steve Jobs (1955-2011), including a quote on design as not merely surface veneer but the soul of a device
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (the 1979 TV series with Alec Guiness as George Smiley) - after rewatching this on DVD, the new film seemed pretty trite and superficial
"Copenhagen" (play by Michael Frayn about Werner Heisenberg's mysterious 1941 visit to Niels Bohr in German-occupied Denmark) - repeat of the tremendous TV film version
"Mixed Britannia" (on the history of mixed-race people in Britain) - sensitive and moving TV documentary series by George Alagiah
"Strictly Come Dancing" and "Merlin", new seasons - so that's Saturday evenings sorted then
"Lavinia" by Ursula Le Guin (novel telling the story of the Latin woman married by proto-Roman Aeneas) - lovely re-writing of Virgil, more about household gods than battles
"Downton Abbey", second series - increasingly-soapy, but still hugely compelling
The Plenary Producer - wonderful resource with zillions of ideas for group activities by schoolteacher Mark Gershon