November 25, 2012 - 8:41pm
From the Arts Editor: A Change to our Rating System
BY LEAH BURGIN
Starting today, all reviews printed in the Arts section will no longer be qualified by a star rating. Instead, we are switching to a letter-based graded system (A+, A, A-, etc.) for reviews.
When the Arts editors and I discussed this change, we decided a graded system will allow more flexibility for our writers and provide more accurate coverage for you, our readers. As revealed through our monthly qualitative analyses of Arts content, a consistent problem with reviews has been that the tone of reviews does not match assigned star ratings. We believe this issue stems from the difficulty of conceptualizing the qualitative properties of “stars”: For example, what makes a film, album, TV show or videogame worth three stars instead of three-and-a-half stars?
We chose a graded system because we thought it apropos to our University audience and our role as a student newspaper. We also found letter grades an easier system to conceptualize: As students, we can relate to the difference between a C+ and a B-, where as the difference between a three and a three-and-a-half star review is a harder to understand.
This is a significant change to the way the Arts section has worked, and we’d appreciate your thoughts, questions or criticism. Feel free to e-mail me at lrburgin@michigandaily.com if you have any thoughts.
