Book Review on “America: A Narrative History “tenth edition
Book review
Identify:
Author’s content and purpose
Structure
Audience
Evaluate:
Accuracy
Up-to-datedness of the information
The sources used to justify the author’s stance
Respond:
What issues does it raise?
What issues are omitted?
The effect of the book
Your recommendation
Writing a book review
Before reading
Write some questions based on the list below:
Why has the book been written?
When was it written?
What is the scope of the book?
Who is the intended audience?
How accurate is the author’s content?
How (well) is evidence used?
Are there any omissions?
Find out about the author:
Qualifications
Background
Affiliations
Other works (if any)
Structuring the book review
The review should be 2 – 3 pages. (12 point font, double-spaced)
At the start, put the complete bibliographic information:
Title in full, author, place of publication, publisher, date of publication edition, number of pages.
Your introduction will usually include:
your overall impression of the book
a statement about the author
a statement on the purpose of the book
a statement of the significance of the work
a comment about the relationship between this work and others by the same author, the same subject and the same genre
The body of your review develops the points you want to make:
greater detail on the author’s thesis and a summary of the main points
evaluation of strengths, weaknesses, contribution or bias, and evidence provided by author
the evidence that is the basis of your critique – Quotes should be followed by the page the quote came from. Example “George Washington was from Virginia.” (49) Due to the length of these reviews use direct quotes sparingly.
The conclusion (last paragraph) includes:
your final assessment
restatement of overall impression
(re)statement of your recommendation
The book review will be graded based on the following rubric: Total possible points 25
Grade Background Summary Evidence Review Mechanical
5 Gives relevant information about author and intended audience, positions text in scholarly debate Clearly describes thesis, argument and conclusions of text. Shows good understanding of relevant main points and avoids extraneous detail. Perceptively describes and evaluates the kinds of evidence used to support the claims in the text, suggesting other potentially useful sources that would tend to confirm or refute argument. Thoughtful evaluation of strengths and weaknesses of text, pointing to other texts that seem to support or weaken argument. Few errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure and grammar.
