BOOK REVIEWS IN THE

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE REVIEW

     The International Social Science Review is the journal of the Pi Gamma Mu international honor society for the social sciences.  The Review accepts proposals of articles for possible publication, after peer review.  The Review also publishes book reviews written by scholars about books in their respective fields of interest.

THE EDITOR -- AND PROPOSING ARTICLES

     The editor of the Review is Dean J. Fafoutis of Salisbury University in Maryland.  If you would like to send an article to him for possible publication, his mailing address is:

          Dean J. Fafoutis
          Department of History
          1101 Camden Avenue
          Salisbury University
          Salisbury, Maryland   21801-6837
               dxfafoutis@salisbury.edu

For information about style, formatting, etc., refer to any edition of the Review or refer to the Web page at this URL address:

     http://www.pigammamu.org/how_to_publish.html .

THE BOOK-REVIEW EDITOR -- AND SUBMITTING BOOK REVIEWS

     The book-review editor of the Review is Dr. Barry D. Friedman of North Georgia College & State University.  His mailing address is:

          Dr. Barry D. Friedman
          NGCSU Political Science
          82 College Circle
          Dahlonega, Georgia   30533

     Ordinarily, Dr. Friedman has a number of books that publishers have sent to him in the hope that a book review will eventually appear in the Review.  If you would like to know what books are in his "inventory," send an E-mail message to bfriedman@NGCSU.edu .  It is also possible to review a book that you choose yourself; however, we suggest that you check with Dr. Friedman before undertaking the work involved in preparing the review:  Tell him, for example, the author and title of the book that you are planning to read and about which you would like to write a book review.  Ordinarily, the editors will not be interested in a review of a book that (1) has been published more than 1 1/2 years earlier or (2) is not a monograph that constitutes a contribution to the scholarly literature of social science.  (As a general rule, we do not publish book reviews about textbooks.)

     There are eight basic features of a suitable book review.  While the list of basic features is not intended to be inflexible, on the other hand the editors do not want to receive a non-critical, non-analytical summary of the book's "story."  It is not necessary, or even desirable, that a book-review essay have eight sections to address the eight basic features in sequence.  Normally, there is some integration of treatment of the features within the essay.  For example, in discussing a particular chapter of the book, the book-review author might compare that chapter with other literature in the field, thus integrating two of the features in the same sentence(s).

     The eight basic features are:

     (1) SCOPE:  The topic addressed in the book should be stated in the book review.

     (2) THESIS:  The author's main argument(s) should be identified in the book review.

     (3) CONTENT:  Some summary of the "story" (facts, anecdotes, other empirical evidence, and other content) should be provided (in moderation).

     (4) CRITIQUE/EVALUATION:  This is the reviewer's evaluation/analysis, both positive and negative, of the author's arguments, the book's content, evidence used by the author in making her argument, and the author's conclusions.  This feature is the heart of the book review.

     (5) OTHER LITERATURE IN THE FIELD (or HISTORIOGRAPHY):  This is a description of the relationship of the book being reviewed to other literature previously published about the topic or closely related topics.

     (6) CHARACTER OF RESEARCH:  The reviewer takes note of the primary and secondary sources used by the author to make his argument.

     (7) LITERARY QUALITY:  Some attention, although brief, should be given to how the book reads as literature.

     (8) CONCLUSION:  At the end of the book review, the reviewer should offer a summarized positive or negative assessment of the book.

     Please avoid the practice of structuring your book review with statements that "Chapter I begins with . . .," "Chapters 2 through 4 tell about . . ."  The table of contents is ordinarily of little interest to ISSR readers.  Let the substantive content structure your essay.

     The need to cite direct quotations leads to another guideline, which is that book-review authors should rely as much as possible--almost entirely, if possible--on their own words and limit the use of direct quotations.  Repeated use of direct quotations is rarely necessary, but, as stated above, will necessitate repeated citations, which will be very distracting.  There may be instances where direct quotations are really necessary to make the point, and the book-review author will need to use his or her judgment about the necessity.  In general, the guideline is:  Whenever possible, use your own words.

     The length of the book review should be no more than 1000 words.  At the top, the reviewer should reproduce the book's bibliographic entry (author's name, book title, edition if any, place of publication, publisher, year, number of pages, price of book), as this sample shows:

Ducatel, Ken; Juliet Webster; and Werner Herrmann, eds.  The Information Society in
Europe:  Work and Life in the Age of Globalization.  Lanham, Md.:  Rowman and Littlefield,
2000.  viii + 324 pp.  Cloth, $81.00; paper, $27.95.

At the bottom, the reviewer should provide his name, title, and institution, as follows:

          Barry D. Friedman, Ph.D.
          Professor of Political Science*
          North Georgia College & State University
          Dahlonega, Georgia

     * If you have more than one title (e.g., one academic title and one administrative title), write the title that you would prefer that we print in the Review.

     Any reviewer who has access to a computer should submit her book review electronically.  The review essay may be submitted as an E-mail message to bfriedman@NGCSU.edu , or as an attachment to an E-mail message (in that case, please submit the review as a Microsoft Word document).

     Once a reviewer has accepted a book provided to the ISSR  for the purpose of having it reviewed, the reviewer is expected to read the book and submit the essay within a period of 5 months.

     When a reviewer submits a book review to the ISSR  for possible publication, the reviewer implicitly warrants that the book review is not being considered by any other publication and that she will not submit it to any other publication unless and until the ISSR  returns the book review to her as unsuitable for the Review's needs.  The reviewer should not send a copy of the book review to anyone other than the Review's book-review editor; do not send a copy of the draft review, for example, to the author of the book, the publisher of the book, etc.  After the book review appears in the ISSR, the reviewer may, of course, send a photocopy of the published review to the author or just about anybody else, with the understanding that reprinting of the book review in any other publication is prohibited unless express written permission is obtained from Pi Gamma Mu.  It is unnecessary for the reviewer to send a photocopy of the published book review to the publisher, in so far as the publisher receives a copy automatically from our press.

     The editors limit any one reviewer to one review per issue.  Currently, there are two issues being published annually.  That works out to two reviews per year per reviewer.

     The book-review editor will consider offers by a reviewer to do a comparative review of a plural number of books (usually between two and five) that are closely related to each other.  In such cases, the 1000-word limit may be relaxed.  But contact the book-review editor in advance, before undertaking any such project.

     Home page of the Pi Gamma Mu social-science honor society

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11/17/2003, rev. 12/19/2007