northstar magic canoe at sunset

Review Policies

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PaddlingLight works with public relation firms and manufacturers to review gear. We also buy gear and often review it if we like it. We only review items that we’re interested in, and if we receive something from a PR firm or manufacturer that we were interested in but don’t like it, we give the firm or manufacturer the option of us either publishing the review or withdrawing the item from consideration. As stated in our disclosure, “Occasionally, a company will send us a free product to evaluate. We may write a review about the product or mention the product. When we do you can count on it being an unbiased opinion. If we like the product, we’ll tell you. If we don’t, we either won’t publish a review or we will tell you in the review.”

From 2016 until further revision, reviews will take the following form:

First Look: When we receive an item for review or buy an item that we think we may want to review, we’ll publish a first look. This will generally be a statement of what the item is designed to do and what the manufacturer says about it. It may also include our first opinions.

First Impressions: After we use the product a few times, we may write a new article about our first impressions. These impressions may change overtime, so consider this a snapshot of the initial testing.

Review: A review is our finally statement on the product. It will cover in detail what we think is important from a user perspective.

Disclosure

When we receive an item for free or on loan, we will state so. We will also let the reader know who sent us the product.