Julianne Nyhan How to Session at InterFace 2011

Book reviewing and the postgraduate
Interface
29 July 2011
Julianne Nyhan
Dept Info Studies / UCL Centre for DH

Editor: Willard McCarty, (King's College London, UK and University of Western Sydney, Australia) http://www.maney.co.uk/index.php/journals/isr/?back=1
Book 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/

Why write book reviews?

Book reviewing: some pros and cons

Perspective of postgraduate
Productive working method?
Start getting your name and area of expertise out there
Experience of working with editors and publishers
Free books!
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
Write a short email to Book Reviews Editor that includes:
Research area
Details of previous reviews or publications
Books requested / suggested
Agree on a realistic date for submission and keep to it
Iterate with Editor about corrections and finally proof copies of work
See your name in lights!

The hallmarks of a good review …
Not simply a summary but contextualisation of research:
How does book relate to others in field? Does it advance knowledge in some way?
Discussion of work in a wider intellectual context:
Opportunity for you to make interesting connections and bring your personal viewpoint to the review
Fair and balanced with well justified and accurate criticisms / points of approval
Never use a big word where a small word will do; never use two words where one will do
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, to
either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending
upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is
interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart,
with the discussion still vigorously in progress.

Julianne Nyhan How to Session at InterFace 2011

by interface2011 on Jul 31, 2011

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

2 Embeds 595

Statistics

Julianne Nyhan How to Session at InterFace 2011 — Presentation Transcript

http://www.interface2011.org.uk	591
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	4