McCall's CV

Elements of a Book Review

Elements of a Book Review

(with thanks to Fred Grissom)

The book reviews should be styled after the reviews found in scholarly journals.  Each review should contain the following elements.  Page numbers refer to double-spaced typed pages.  The total length of a review should be 5-7 pages.

 

  • Bibliographic entry.  At the beginning of the review, you should specifically identify the book being reviewed.  The most efficient way to do this is by including a bibliographic entry for the book.  You can find examples of such entries in Kate Turabian’s A Manual for Writers.

 

  • Biographical sketch.  You should include a brief, not more than 1/2 page, biographical sketch of the author.  The purpose of this is to demonstrate the author’s competence or incompetence for writing the book.  You should include information about where he was educated, where he teaches, what other books he has written, and anything else about him, which is relevant to a critical judgment of the book. Sometimes church affiliation is relevant because it can be an indicator of possible bias on the part of an author.  Our library has a number of sources of biographical information about authors.  Biographical information is just like any other kind of information.  If you get it from a source, including the book jacket, you must identify it by a parenthetical notation.  If you quote from the material, put quotation marks around it.

 

  • Summary.  This section should be relatively brief, 2 or 3 pages and should concentrate on describing the contents of the book.  A frequent problem with book reviews is that students make the summary much too long, making the review seem like a friend’s account of a movie he went to the night before.  Do not try to include all the details.  Concentrate on giving a clear indication of the principal concerns of the book and the major conclusions of the author.  Use specific details only to illustrate your general comments.  Caution: What I am asking for is a summary of the book and the author’s conclusions, not a précis of the subject matter the book contains.  For example, if you review Lightner’s The Death Christ Died, you are not just reviewing a certain theology of the atonement, but a book about that particular viewpoint. The focus of the summary should be the book itself and the author’s conclusions.  It is not necessary to write “Wells says,” or “Erickson argues,” or some similar phrase in every sentence, but your summary should indicate throughout that what you are reviewing is a book and an author’s conclusions.  Beware of the trap of treating an author’s arguments as facts.  One of the reasons for doing book reviews is to sharpen critical skills.

 

  • Critical Evaluation.  The critique is by far the most important part of the review.  It should be at least half the length of the entire review.  Just as students often make the summary too long, they make the evaluation too short.  Sometimes they are not only short, but very shallow: “This is a good book.  It was easy to read . . .” Your evaluation should reflect some serious thought about the strengths and weaknesses of the book, what the book did or didn’t do for you, and whether or not what it did was what it intended to do.  Students often complain that they cannot evaluate a book because they do not know as much about the subject as the author.  Although that is true, all students can describe their reactions to a book, and can assess its value for them.  The contents of the evaluation will, of course, vary with the book being reviewed, but often some or all of the following areas should be treated:

 

  • Purpose. Attempt to assess the degree to which the author fulfilled his purpose.  Sometimes this assessment may also involve describing some apparent purpose that is different from the stated purpose.
  • Value. Saying a book is “good,” or “bad,” is very vague.  Try to be specific about what the book’s value is.  Not all good books are good for the same reasons, or for the same purpose.  Precision about its value will help potential readers of the book make an intelligent decision about whether it would be worth their time to read it.
  • Strengths and weaknesses. Strengths and weaknesses are, of course, relevant factors in assessing value.  Sometimes, however, there are particular elements, which should be highlighted.
  • Bias. Every book is written from a particular perspective.  That perspective is the author’s “bias.”  When that bias leads to a distortion of facts, a slanted approach to an issue, or an unwillingness to deal with some relevant aspects, the book is said to be “biased.”  When reading a book always be aware of the powerful influence of perspective, and make some assessment of the author’s bias. (Note: Remember that readers also have a bias and can be misled by that perspective into making biased judgments of a book.)
  • Audience. Not all books are intended for the same audience.  Some are more popular than others; some are intended only for serious scholars.  Delineating the audience that might profit from reading the book is a valuable service a reviewer can perform.
  • Extrapolations. Often a book will stimulate new ideas or cause a reader to make connections that he had not thought of before.  A discussion of such connections, and ideas, even though they may be somewhat tangential, is in order in a critical evaluation.  Be careful though, and do not to go too far afield. The fact that a book is bound in a red cover does not warrant a discussion of the dangers of totalitarian communism or the virtues of Anselm’s views of the atonement.
  • Miscellaneous. Do not be limited by this brief list in deciding what to include in your evaluation.  There are other items that might be included.  Use your imagination and creativity.

 

  • General Remarks:
  • Other Reviews. It is permissible, sometimes even advisable, to consult other reviews of a book.  Our library has several periodicals that contain reviews of books in theology.  Feel free to consult them.  If you get an idea from them that you use in your evaluation, be sure to credit the source.  More than likely your professor has read that review, also, and will detect plagiarism!  This should be done in a parenthetical note.  Too much dependence on other reviews is not good; it robs you of the opportunity of evaluating the book using your own resources.
  • Examples. If you need to see what a good book review looks like, read some of the ones in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society or the Evangelical Quarterly.  Remember, however, that often these reviews are much shorter than yours will be.  Also, not all of them are equally good.
  • Style. Reviews should be written in clear, grammatical English prose.  I had much rather read a well written five-page review than a verbose and obtuse seven-page review.