GUIDELINES:

Professional Review Writing Assignment of the book <Hug Your Haters: How to Embrace Complaints and Keep Your Customers> by Jay Baer

The idea of a “book review” may bring you back to your days in high school when, perhaps, you were asked to write a book report. This was, most likely, a simple summary of a book. While this ensured (more or less) that you read the book, the task was pretty mindless and boring. That is NOT what this book review assignment is about.

You are being asked to prepare a professional review; the idea is to briefly summarize the ideas of the book, but mainly to give your opinion about the book’s merits – it is a critical analysis of the book. ‘Critical’ does not imply that you are going to be mean or harsh in your review. It means that you are going to evaluate objectively whether the author(s) have fulfilled their objectives in the book, and whether they have used persuasive and unbiased evidence to support their claims. Did you find the book engaging? Persuasive? Did you agree with it? Did you enjoy it? Would you recommend it to others? What is the intended audience of the book? Does it succeed in reaching this audience?

Spend considerable energy on making your book review very readable to a general audience. You will be posting your review on a book site of your choosing (e.g., Barnes and Noble, Amazon). In consideration of what makes a review helpful to others, the review should flow nicely and be well-written. You should have an introduction, discussion of the book, and clear conclusion (although these don’t have to be broken into explicit sections – you can write this like an essay). Include:

The title and author of the book you are reviewing

The author’s objective(s) and audience

The author’s main arguments

Your evaluation of the author’s support of his arguments (provide examples)

Your evaluation of the author’s interpretation and success with his/her objectives in writing the book (provide examples)

Comparison with other books or sources if appropriate

Your conclusions about the book

You can rate the book using a rating system provided by the site host [like a number of stars] if you’d like, but this isn’t mandatory.

Be sure to put any quotes from the book in quotation marks and to cite any sources used.

You will turn in a word document containing your name, the text of your review and a link to your review. It should ideally fall between 2-3 double-spaced pages.