History 201.01
Spring 2002

On February 25, you should turn in a book review. For this assignment I want you to review the book that currently seems the most central to your topic. Before you do, reread pp. 73-81 of The Craft of Research.

Specifically for this assignment I want you to follow the guidelines for book reviews that V. Brown provides in her classes. Accordingly, your review should do three things: (1) Accurately and fairly report the author's argument; (2) Tell the reader what evidence is in the book and how well the evidence supports the book's argument; and (3) Give an honest assessment of your opinion of the author's argument and presentation.

This is what V. Brown tells her students to do: Figure that your review will be about 4 pages long (that way, if you go over a bit, no problem). Budget the first two pages to describing the book's purpose, its thesis, and its supporting evidence. Then budget another 2 pages for your assessment of the book's effectiveness and your reaction to the author's thesis, style, and argumentation. Note that illustrative quotes are always useful in a review, but choose them carefully so that they make the point you mean to make and also accurately represent the point that your author was making in the context of the book.

Do that for this review.

The title page should provide the title of your review, your name, your mailbox, the class and the date. You only need to turn in one copy of this review along with the marked up copy of your topic assignment.

Back to research paper overview
Back to the syllabus
Email J.P. Silva with comments
Last Modified: 16 January 2002