How to Write an Academic Book Review [604578]

How to Write an Academic Book Review

As with writing essays, there is no simple formula for writing good academic book
reviews. Reviews are usually brief (500 – 1000 words) and provide some scope for
you to develop your writing style.

THE trick to writing effective book reviews is being a ble to comment on the text as a
whole piece of work, and being able to succinctly summarise the main content
without losing meaning. So in general you need to:

 Get an understanding of the essential purpose and overall thread of the book
 Provide an accura te summary of content
 Offer some critical judgement on parts and the whole of the book.

Ideally, you should also be able to comment on where the book fits into a bigger
body of literature on the same subject, but this is not always possible if you are new
to a discipline area.

What to include

A book review should include all of the following:
1 Statements about what the author is attempting to achieve by writing the
book
2 A brief summary of what the book covers
3 An evaluation of whether the author achieve s what he or she sets out to
achieve
4 Statements about where the book fits into its field

1 Statements about what the author is attempting to achieve by writing the book
Authors almost always include statements about why they have written an academic
book and what they hope to achieve. These statements can usually be found in
prefaces, and/or introductions, and in conclusions. Try to discover if the author is
starting from a particular theoretical or ideological base, developing a particular
argument, usi ng a particular method to explore an issue, or a combination of these.
Try to provide the academic context in which the book has been written.

2 A brief summary of what the book covers
Outline the main sections or components that develop the text. Don’t t ry to cover
everything. A summary of key development is far more useful than a blow -by-blow
account of chapters. Aim to be succinct and accurate. Your summary should only
take up one of two paragraphs.

Education Drop -in Centre 2013 3 An evaluation of whether the author achieves wha t he or she sets out to
achieve
Having identified the author’s intentions, you are now in a position to judge whether
he or she achieves them. This section forms the body of the book review. Support
your arguments with examples from the book, but mostly put these into your own
words. You might want to include a few direct quotations for important points, but
keep these short and to the point, and remember to reference them accurately. You
can comment on the author’s style and presentation in this sectio n. Resist the
temptation to digress into your own subject knowledge or to suggest that the author
should have written a completely different book. Keep to the job at hand.

4 Statements about where the book fits into its field
This is probably difficult to do if you are new to the subject and/or discipline. But, if
you are in a position to comment on how the book does or does not make a
contribution to the subject area, go ahead.

How to structure a review

Here is one suggestion for a structure, taken fr om Cuba (1993). It includes all of the
items outlined above.

1 An introductory paragraph identifying the work and its author, presenting the
thesis of the book, and giving some indication of whether the author achieves
the stated purpose of the book.
2 A par agraph or two summarising the book and relating it (where possible) to
other books in the field.
3 A paragraph noting the strengths of the book (if any).
4 A paragraph noting the weaknesses of the book (if any).
5 A concluding paragraph that conveys, on balance, your assessment of the
strengths and weaknesses of the book (does the book succeed in fulfilling its
purpose?)

References and further reading:
Cuba, L. (1993) A short guide to writing about social science . New York: Harper Collins.