Julianne Nyhan How to Session at InterFace 2011
- 1. Book reviewing and the postgraduate Interface29 July 2011Julianne NyhanDept Info Studies / UCL Centre for DH
- 2. Editor: Willard McCarty, (King's College London, UK and University of Western Sydney, Australia) http://www.maney.co.uk/index.php/journals/isr/?back=1Book Reviews Editor: Julianne Nyhan (UCL )A “quarterly journal that aims to set contemporary and historical developments in the sciences and technology into their wider social and cultural context and to illuminate their interrelations with the humanities and arts”. (http://www.isr-journal.org /)Blog http://isr-journal.blogspot.com/
- 4. Why write book reviews?
- 5. Book reviewing: some pros and cons
- 6. Perspective of postgraduate Productive working method?
- 7. Start getting your name and area of expertise out there
- 8. Experience of working with editors and publishers
- 9. Free books!
- 10. Don’t publish more than 2 reviews per year How to go about publishing book reviews Identify appropriate journals, establish their scope and mission and review their reviews
- 11. Write a short email to Book Reviews Editor that includes:
- 12. Research area
- 13. Details of previous reviews or publications
- 14. Books requested / suggested
- 15. Agree on a realistic date for submission and keep to it
- 16. Iterate with Editor about corrections and finally proof copies of work
- 17. See your name in lights!The hallmarks of a good review … Not simply a summary but contextualisation of research:
- 18. How does book relate to others in field? Does it advance knowledge in some way?
- 19. Discussion of work in a wider intellectual context:
- 20. Opportunity for you to make interesting connections and bring your personal viewpoint to the review
- 21. Fair and balanced with well justified and accurate criticisms / points of approval
- 22. Never use a big word where a small word will do; never use two words where one will do
- 23. Be careful of jargon – ask a colleague in another field to read Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (1941)Imagine that you enter a parlour. You come late. When you arrive,others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heateddiscussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell youexactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begunlong before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualifiedto retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen fora while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of theargument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defence; another aligns himself against you, toeither the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion isinterminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.