Submissions

Author Guidelines

Stylesheet for Contributors

• REVIEW TEMPLATE
• SUBMIT YOUR COMMISSIONED REVIEW
  

A. Content

Five Kinds of Reviewer

(adapted by Roger Shiner from Susan Swan, 'Nine ways of looking at a critic', Toronto Globe and Mail 30th November 1996. E23)

1.      The Spankers are out to administer discipline over anything from ill-conceived plot-lines to misplaced commas.

2.      The Young (and Old) Turk sees the review solely as an opportunity to demonstrate her or his own intellectual superiority and above-average intelligence.

3.      The Self-Abusers feel they could have written a better book on the subject, given half the chance, and describe it at great length.

4.      Gushers skip over discussion of the book; they just want to communicate the enjoyment of reading it.

5.      The Good Reviewer will represent the book (without lapsing into long-winded summaries) so the reader gets a sense of what the book is like whether the reviewer likes it or not. The good reviewer will also offer an interesting or revealing point of view from which the book can be perceived critically.

B. Length and Deadlines

Please keep to the length limit of 1500 words: it is only fair to the other contributors. In any case, if you do not, the review will be returned to you for further editing. Don't be neurotic, however. 1534 rather than 1500 is irrelevant, but 1704 rather than 1500 matters. There is a little more flexibility with the time deadline; we publish reviews as they come in, so that reviews that come in early will be published more quickly. However, we cannot retain credibility if we publish a lot of out-of-date reviews, and may reject reviews that are significantly late.

C. Heading

Please single-space the heading, using the following format and punctuation:

John Doe, Making Sense. University of Alberta Press 1997. 227 pp. $44.99 (Hardback ISBN 0123456789); $20.99 (Paperback ISBN 0123456023)

Note bold face for author, and italics for title.  If you don't have pricing information, please leave space for us to fill it in.

1. With multiple authors, put the names in bold face, and 'and' in normal, type.

2. If there are editors(s), abbreviate as 'ed.' or 'eds.':

e.g., John Doe, ed. or John Doe and Heidegger Jones, eds. Painting the Sky.

3. If you are reviewing a translation, use the format:

Robert Burch, Confessions of a Technophobe. Trans. Joe Ubersetzung.

4. If there are both hardback and paperback editions, use the following format:

[space for price] (Hardback ISBN 0123456789); [space for price] (paperback ISBN 9780123456789).

5. Spell out 'U.P.' etc. in full.

6. State the name of the press, e.g.: University of Virginia Press 

D. Layout

• Put page references inside parentheses as plain figures; put them inside final punctuation; use 'p.' only when it is part of the normal grammar of a sentence. So:

• Blogg says on p.21 or Blogg says (21) ...  or ... as Blogg says (21), ...

• Please use the reduced form for reference: e.g. 239-67 not 239-267, 235-9 not 235-39; but 112-17 - leave the 1 in for teens.

• Always use single quotes; use double quotes only for quotes within quotes.

• Normally, when quoting the book reviewed, put closing commas and periods inside any quote-marks. Otherwise, put punctuation outside quote marks, including the case where a page reference follows a quotation. Punctuation always goes outside the titles of parts, sections or chapters.

          So ' ... an invalid argument.' But ' ... an invalid argument' (21).

• For omissions in quotes, use space / three adjacent dots / space as in this sheet... .

• Put your own name and affiliation in caps & lower-case on the left of the page at the end of the review. Non-affiliated persons may put whatever they like.

E. Style

Avoid indenting quotations as far as possible; even a quote of 6-8 typescript lines can sit happily in the main text.

DO NOT use footnotes. Any references (which should be kept to a minimum) can be included in parentheses in the main text.

As far a possible refer to the author by unadorned surname (Wisdom, e.g.): if appropriate, abbreviations like 'W' are fine. Please don't use the expression 'the author', unless the context wholly demands it.

Please don't refer to yourself in the third person: 'This reviewer thinks ...' UGH! In fact, consider not referring to yourself at all. 'It seems to me on the whole that P' uses up eight more words than 'P'. Do you really want to use up eight words like that?

F. Revisions to Submissions

The editors will proof every review and may make small changes for reasons of clarity or to correct typos. Authors of reviews will only be consulted about these changes if the editors believe that they are major or if they are uncertain whether they capture authors' intended meaning.

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