Guidelines for Writing a Book Review

1. The review should offer a description, not a summary, of the book.
2. The review should interweave your commentary / evaluation with a description of the book.
3. The review should take into consideration the genre to which the work reviewed belongs (e.g., novel, short story, biography, poetry)
4. The review should include the research question addressed by the book.
5. The review should present the main idea of the book. The main idea is probably an answer to the author’s research question.
6. The review should state for whom the book is intended. Who is the assumed audience? (e.g., specialists, undergraduates, North Americans, persons with knowledge of US history, persons familiar with the subject at hand, readers familiar with the author’s prior work)
7. The tone of the review should describe how different parts of the book: shape the author’s methodology and contribute to answering the author’s research question.
8. The tone of the review should be professional and academic. It should be written in clear and precise languages.
9. The review should be an “independent document.” It should make sense as a document that is read alone.
10. The review should contain 2-3 quotes from the text being reviewed.
11. The review should not discuss your research paper. In fact the reader should not know that you are writing the review in conjunction with a research paper for this class.
12. The review should not assume that the reader has read the book you are reviewing.
13. The review should not focus on only 1 or 2 chapters of the book.
14. The review should not be a “long annotation.” The reference here is to the annotations done for the annotated bibliography.
15. The book review should not contain irrelevant biographical information about the author.
16. The review should probably briefly point out the goals that the author has in writing the book (i.e., what does the book aim to achieve). In evaluating the book, the review should state how successful the author is in achieving these goals. In offering an evaluation, you should provide evidence for any positive and negative remarks that you offer. In offering appraisal, you should keep in mind the aims and purpose of the author; as discussed in class, we want to evaluate the book on what it aims to do.
17. The book review may describe how the book is organized. Often this can help organize the review.
18. The review should be 2-3 long and double-spaced.
19. The review may comment on the wider significance of the book.
20. The review may compare the book briefly to similar, relevant works.
21. The title of the review should be “Review of ________” This title should not be in quotes, nor should it be underlined. It should be centered at the top of the review.
22. The review should include the MLA citation in bold and single-spaced at the top of the page (one space below title). After the citation there should be one line space, then the first word review. It is not necessary to include a paragraph indent on the first line of the review. It should be flush left. Subsequent paragraphs should be indented.
23. Consult the MLA Handbook for guidelines on how to quote and citation forms.