This Friday you have to post your first of three book reviews to Amazon.com. I wanted to highlight my expectations for the reviews, and to provide some instructions for both 1) how to compose the reviews and 2) how to post the review.
In simplest terms, I am asking you to post a short (200-300) word review to Amazon.com. You should submit a link to your review via Canvas.
Your review needs to address some fundamental questions / areas of concern. Note that you don’t have to answer every question listed below, but answering the questions will likely help you generate material for your review. Also, I do not want to read a bunch of reviews that are simple answers to these questions strung together.
Before you begin to write your review, you should take the time to skim 2-3 others. This will help you identify what other responses to the book have been. You might agree with one of these responses; conversely, you might disagree–regardless that provides you material for a review.
Purpose
What is the purpose of the book? What is the author trying to get people to think or do differently? Why does the author think the book is important?
Evidence
How does the author prove their point? What kinds of research do they do? Surveys? Interviews? Anecdotes (stories)? Maths?
Furthermore, with what other writers, scholars, scientists, politicians, ideas, theories, does the author align herself?
Author
Sometimes it is important to highlight who the author is, especially if her identity helps us to establish the credibility of the work, or if we can highlight other books on a similar subject.
Audience
Who is this book written to? Most authors will explicitly establish the intended audience for a book in its introduction?
Relatedly, how accessible is the book? In order for this information to be useful, a reader likely needs to know your familiarity with the topic. Are you new to the material? As a newcomer did you find the book accessible or arcane?
Specifics
Finally, I think strong book reviews often point to a particular part of the book to exemplify either 1) the book at its best or 2) the book at its worst. Don’t just tell me that the prose is often too-jargon laden and impenetrable, provide me an example of a moment in which you were overwhelmed by jargon. As a reader, this allows me to get a sense of whether I agree with your assessment.
Similarly, you can highlight a particular idea that caught your attention–one that stands out.
The grading rubric for this assignment:
- Does the review address the books’ purpose?
- Does the review assess the books’ evidence
- Does the book adequately address the author’s ethos without sounding like the bio off the book jacket?
- Does the review identify the books’ intended audience?
- Does the book supply sufficient specifics to support its generalizations? Does the review highlight the books strengths? Does it point to any weaknesses?
- Does the review avoid the “good / bad” terms discussed below?
- Is the review free from grammatical error?
Finally, I want to avoid a particular kind of response. If you use one of these words, then I will deduct a letter from your grade: good, great, excellent, bad, awful, terrible. The spirit here is that I don’t want generalizations, but specifics. Instead of writing, “the book does a good job introducing people to discussions of income inequality,” aim for something like the book provides a thorough introduction to income inequality,” or, even better, “the book’s detailed overview of the perilous effects of income inequality will likely help anyone new to the discussion.”
Here is a link to wikiHow.com instructions for posting a review to Amazon.com. Once you have completed the review, you should post a link to the review to the assignment in Canvas (Amazon Review1).
