Guidelines
for
Writing a Book
Review
Before beginning your review, identify your books completely: author,
full title, publisher, and place and date of publication using Turabian.
The first of your
twelve paragraphs should present an idea of interest to your audience. The opening statement takes the reader
from where they presumably stand in point of knowledge and brings them to the
books under review. The briefest
possible description of their aim, scope, and place in the world therefore
follows the baited opening sentence and completes the first
paragraph.
The second
classifies the book: what thesis, tendency, bias does it uphold, suggest,
evince? Paragraphs 3 to 5 go into
the authors’ main contentions and discuss them. Do not repeat anything you said
in the second paragraph.
Paragraphs 6 and 7
may deal with additional or contrary points to be found in the authors. In 8 and 9, you deliver your chief
objections and summarize shortcomings.
In 10 describe what you learned from the books,
in 11 identify any questions you still have on the subject. In 12, tell
something about the authors.
Adapted from The Modern Researcher. Jacques Barzun and Henry F. Graff and Writer’s Guide: Psychology, Lynne A.
Bond.
It is appropriate
for you to locate, read and use appropriately other reviews of your books. The most common sources for book reviews
are:
Book Review
Digest
Book
Review Index
Index
to Book Reviews in the Humanities
If you use another
reviewer’s words or ideas, it is crucial that you give credit to your
source. To do otherwise is to
commit plagiarism, the fastest way I know to fail this class. If you are in doubt, please refer to
either of these two websites:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html