Book Review Guidelines

As part of our mission and purpose, we encourage community college practitioners to review current books and to share those reviews with our readers. Reviews should be fair, objective, accurate, and sensitive. The following guidelines assist in writing the reviews.

  1. Provide a general description of the contents of the book and include brief, relevant examples that illustrate the subject matter. Explain the book’s purpose and note its intended audience.
  2. Make a statement as to the research quality of the publication, i.e., whether the book contains primary research and whether the references are relevant and up-to-date.
  3. Evaluate the book:
    • How well did the author carry out his or her intent?
    • How accurate is the book? Consider the source material and timeliness.
    • How well is the book written? Does the writing style help or hinder?
    • What are the author’s qualifications?
    • Do you, as the reviewer, recommend the work? If so, why? If not, why not?
  4. Conclude with a summary statement of your assessment of the book in terms of quality, value, style, and appropriate reader audience.

Book Review Format

Provide a citation, title, name of author(s), city in which the publisher is located, name of publisher, year of publication, number of pages, and price.

Double space all materials. All quoted statements from the book should have parenthetical page references.

Reviews should be between 500 and 750 words long.

Please attach your manuscript to an email as a Microsoft Word document.

With the review, please send the name of the reviewer, title, affiliation, and address. For example:

Jane Smith, Faculty Chair, Electronics Department
Blue Skies Community College
156 Cougar Rd.
Aspen, Colorado 23456

The staff may make minor grammatical and style changes in the manuscript during copy editing prior to publication. The editorial staff reserves the right to make changes it deems necessary and will forward page proofs for the reviewer’s approval prior to publication.

Please direct questions to:

Brian Goedde
Book Review Editor