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Posts Tagged ‘Polishing the Book Review’

After you’ve completed your review, be sure to proofread it carefully for errors and typos. Double-check your bibliographic heading—author, title, publisher—for accuracy and correct spelling as well.

A book review tells not only what a book is about, but also how successfully the book explains itself. Professors often assign book reviews as practice in careful, analytical reading.

As a reviewer, you bring together the two strands of accurate, analytical reading and strong, personal response when you indicate what the book is about and what it might mean to a reader (by explaining what it meant to you). In other words, reviewers answer not only the what but the so what question about a book. Thus, in writing a review, you combine the skills of describing what is on the page, analyzing how the book tried to achieve its purpose, and expressing your own reactions.