How to Write the Book Review:

Your book review should be separated into three main sections: an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Introduction: The introduction should provide a road map to the reader as to what information they will find in the body of the paper.  It should include your position on the contribution the book makes to the topic at hand asking whether the author succeeds in achieving what he set out to do by writing the book.  This will be the basis of the thesis for your book review.

Body: The body of your paper should be divided into three sections.  The first should review the main ideas put forward in the book.  The second section should provide reasons why the book makes a worthy contribution to the topic at hand.  The third section should provide criticisms of the ideas the author supports even if you strongly agree with his findings.  (These sections should not be written as enormous paragraphs but should not be a series of two sentence paragraphs either.  As a rule of thumb a paragraph should be a minimum of 3-4 sentences and should not be longer than a page.  Of course there is the rare exception).  Each section should be of equal length.

Conclusion: The conclusion should tell the reader what you just told them reiterating your thesis and the ideas put forward in the body of your paper in support of your thesis.

Paper Length: 1500 words minimum.

Citations: Any time you make a claim it must be cited including the source and page number whether you choose to use in-text citations or footnotes.  You can never have too many citations.

Bibliography: You can use as many sources as you like but it is ok to have the book as your only source (as long as you do not draw on ideas you found elsewhere in the course of writing your book review).  Any academic style is fine.

Worth: 15% of overall grade.

Due: 27 March 2014 by the stroke of Midnight.  Assignment is to be handed in electronically through OWL.

Help:  Those who ask for help are much more likely to receive it! Do not hesitate to drop me an email (Jskinner@uwo.ca) or stop by during office hours if you have a question.