This article discusses the importance of manual code reviews in software development and provides eight proven best practices for conducting effective code reviews. The first practice is to add comments during source code creation to explain the intent of a code block, while the second practice involves not assuming something works without testing it. The third practice is to run test suites on proposed code to validate its functionality. Additionally, the article emphasizes the importance of ensuring pull requests are small and focused on a singular purpose, always running automated code checkers, reviewing all code and PRs, setting limits for review time and code lines checked, and conducting security code reviews. By implementing these best practices, development teams can ensure their software is properly tested before pushing it to production and deliver high-quality, secure code quickly.