Article: ‘Reviewing a Book’ by Prof. S Mohanraj

[ELTWeekly Volume 6, Issue 25 | October 13, 2014 | ISSN 0975-3036]

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“Reviewing a Book”

Prof. S Mohanraj
Department of Training and Development, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad – India

Abstract: 

Reviewing a book is an article that discusses the pedagogic aspects of teaching reviewing.  The article is divided into three parts.  The first part discusses the salient features of a review and its style.  The second part looks at how the learners need to write different parts of a review and the function each part performs.  This part further helps the learner with the necessary preparation they need to have to learn how to write a review.  The last part of the article discusses classroom activities that a teacher can undertake while teaching learners how to write a review.

1.0 Introduction:

How do we review a book? The question may seem a little intriguing.  Why does one choose a topic like this to write on? Here is my reason.  As teachers of English, we pay attention to various types of writing, but refrain from discussing teaching writing of book reviews. Here is an attempt to see how this can be done in our classrooms.

I am writing this with students at the undergraduate level as my focus. Almost all the Universities in our country have a course in Advanced Writing Skills at this level.  Topics discussed on this course restrict themselves to providing practice in writing paragraphs, letters – both formal and personal, reports including research reports and summarizing.  Reviewing which as an essential skill is ignored. Reviewing has a dual objective. It motivates the learners to read and at the same time hone their writing skills.  Hence I consider this a very important skill.

1.1 What is a Review:

Writing a review is very much part of the writing skills at the advance level. All writing should necessarily be simple. The reason for this is also simple. You should not strain your readers, or make demands on them to understand what you have written. In modern parlance we call this ‘writing in a reader-friendly manner’.  Who can dispute this? Here I am reminded of what A G Gardiner says in his essay ‘On Habits’.  “If you are speaking to someone, and if the listener asks you to repeat what you said more than three times, (in the course of a conversation and not necessarily in a sequence), it certainly indicates that you are a bad speaker wanting in manners.  (This is summarized from memory and not a quote.) While speaking to others, we need to observe some etiquette such as – not to speak too softly or too loudly (either of which could be a strain on the listener’s ears), not to speak too rapidly (when the listener has to be more than attentive to understand what you are saying), not to use too complex words and thoughts etc.  Exactly similar principles can be applied to writing especially when writing a review.

The word ‘review’ is both a verb and a noun.  It has totally 9 different meanings. I shall provide only one meaning that is relevant to us here from ALD (2005) ‘to write a report of a book, play, film/movie etc. in which you give your opinion of it.’  In writing a review we need to observe a set of ‘rules’ in the light of what is suggested in the earlier paragraph:

• Write clearly – so that someone can read it easily,
• Avoid a complex word and thought,
• Avoid repetition and rigmarole, and
• Organize your ideas properly

(With the invention of the typewriters and computers, we do not need to bother about our handwriting. In earlier days this was one more factor, which has become redundant these days.)

These features help a reader to understand you easily.  It is best that all our students adhere to these principles in the best possible way they can.

1.2. What do we do in a Review:

Now let me get back to the review.  A review comments on a work of art. The work of art could be a piece of writing, a painting, a dance recital, a film/movie or a music concert.  The list can certainly be longer.  What do we do when we look at a piece of art?

1.2.1 We appreciate it: The dictionary defines the word ‘appreciate’ as ‘to recognize and enjoy good qualities of somebody/something’. (ALD 2005) This is an essential aspect of a review and minimum courtesy the audience/spectator or a reader can give to the artist. So principle number one of a good review is APPRECIATE the work.  The creator has put in a lot of effort. Recognize that effort.  Also recognize the fact that not everyone can do this.

1.2.2 Look at it objectively: Objectivity is another essential feature of a review. Matthew Arnold, a noted critic, and a scholar of the last century observes in an essay called ‘The Function of Criticism at the Present Time[1]’ as follows. A critic should ‘look at an object as in itself it really is.”  This to me is the hallmark of objectivity, and a review should not be very different.  This again in some ways shows the respect we have for the creator or the artist. An artist, a creator, an author has his/her personal point of view.  He/she finds a medium to express it.  We as readers have the right to accept or reject it, but I am afraid, we have no right to say that something should have been added or deleted from the work of art. We neither have the right or propriety to offer such suggestions. The second principle of a good review is the objectivity.

1.2.3 Highlight strengths without underplaying weaknesses:  It would be perhaps more appropriate to begin a review with a good summary.  This gives a holistic view of the work to a reader who may not be familiar with the piece under review.  I would perhaps go to the extent of saying this obligatory, as such an introduction would facilitate understanding the review better.

1.2.4 Provide a summary: Having provided a summary one should attempt to list all the strengths of the work under review (for these could obviously be more in number – though there may be exceptions) and also illustrate them where necessary.  Weaknesses are part of any creation.  Nobody, other than the God can be perfect and as mortals we are subject to our trespasses. Therefore, a reviewer necessarily needs to look at the work more empathetically and perhaps reason out why these weaknesses could have occurred rather than come down heavily on them.  I wonder if any doctoral thesis has been produced in this world to date which is 100% error free!!   If the highest academic document can have errors, why can’t a piece of creative/academic writing have errors? I do admit that all efforts should be put in to proof read properly and eliminate all errors.  This exercise may minimize errors but may not make the work totally error free. The third principle of good review is be empathetic with the author and highlight strengths.  Don’t ignore the weaknesses, but don’t overplay them.

1.2.5    A reviewer is an observer – not an examiner:  I would not like to elaborate on this point for I also belong to the genre of examiners.  Examiners are a breed who inherit qualities of nitpicking.  Suffice it to say reviewers belong to a more noble tribe.  In other words, a reviewer cannot make demands on the artist and dictate terms. A work of art on the other hand can make demands on the reviewer and can give a direction to the review.  The relation here is that of a mother and a child.  A child would not be a reality unless the mother exists.  Principle number four is “be a reviewer and not an examiner.’

I have tried to elaborate on four principles a reviewer should bear in mind.  Having done this, the reviewer should thank the author for having been given an opportunity to go through his/her work.  Gandhiji said, “Welcome a customer in your premises. He is not interference in your work, but he is the cause of it.”  How true!

1.3 Types of Reviews:

In the next part of this write up let us take a look at the types of reviews.  Reviews can be basically of three types:  Academic, critical and journalistic.  Let us look at each one of them separately.

1.3.1 Academic reviews which belong to the tribe of teachers, examiners and, researchers largely provide a detailed summary and a couple of comments. These are often exercises undertaken to fulfill obligations rather than written out of commitment. The motivation is more instrumental than integrative.  The type of answers one writes in the examinations is a good example of such reviews.  However, these can be better, and provide insights to a reader who is not familiar with the book. Of late the academic review is undergoing change. It borders closely with critical review as seen in research thesis.

1.3.2  Critical reviews are in the form of treatises which can change the course of our thinking. Sankara Bhashya [2] is one such example.  Since this is not a familiar example, let me give you other examples.  Dalton the great scientist said “Atoms are indivisible”.  But Rutherford who came later, critically reviewed his theory and said, “Atoms are divisible”. The result was the invention of atom bomb and nuclear power plants.  This also changed the history of atomic studies and our understanding of Physics and Chemistry.  Similarly, Skinner’s theories of language learning as stated in his book Verbal Behaviour [3] was critically reviewed by Chomsky and today our understanding of language learning has changed drastically. These are the most difficult types of reviews and perhaps difficult to be taught in a classroom. The motivation here is largely integrative.

1.3.3 Journalistic reviews are perhaps the most popular form of reviews. These are published in newspapers, magazines and journals.  These reviews help readers become familiar with the books published recently.  In today’s world the number of books published is quite a few, but the number of books we can read are just a few.  We can become familiar with what is happening in the publishing world by reading reviews published in newspapers, journal or even on the net. This has relevance to all of us, and we need to learn this in our classroom.

Writing a review of any type is an academic exercise. It demands certain amount of discipline. It is a useful exercise in comprehension and criticism for students interested in the art of writing (Barrass R 2003). The attempt made here is to help you, the young learners to cultivate good habits of reading and also reviewing.  Nothing is said about how to teach the writing of a review so far, we shall take it up in the following section.

2.0 Focus on the Learner:

What should the learners do?  Let us now get to the pedagogic part.  In today’s world of Communicative Language Teaching, learner is more important than the teacher. Therefore, let us begin with the learner and see what he/she should do in order to review a book.

2.1: Learner responsibilities

2.1.1 Review demands a high level of comprehension.  Therefore the first and foremost requisite to write a good review is to read the book thoroughly.  Read the book perhaps twice or three times and make sure you have a proper understanding of the book.

While reading a book, you should go through all parts of the book.  A book has the following ten parts: (I have taken the ideal number, there may be some books without some of these parts, and there may be others with a few more added to the list.)

• Title page – gives the name of the book, author and the publisher
• Press line – gives the details of the publisher’s address, year of publication, and the ISBN (International Standard Book Number)
• Acknowledgements – a space for the author to express his/her gratitude to people and organizations who have helped him/her in producing the book.
• Contents page – tells us what the book includes (number of chapters, stories, essay topics, poems, articles etc.)
• Introduction – gives us the author’s point of view, purpose for writing the book, what is the major theme, how it is dealt with, who are the target readers and how to use the book etc.
• Preface or Foreword – is generally written by a well known scholar in the field or a well wisher of the author.
• This is followed by the main book
• Index – gives a list of important concepts and ideas used and discussed in the book and also the names of people referred to and where to find information about these concepts, ideas and people in the main body of the book.
• Bibliography – gives a list of books the author has referred to.
• There could be besides these, appendices, notes, glossaries of terms etc.

Besides all these, the book has a blurb. The blurb carries opinions expressed by different people about the book and this is generally carried on the back cover of the book.  Certain books have a jacket (which can be removed) and often the blurb is carried on the inner flaps of the jacket. It is also possible that the blurb is in the form of a brief summary of the book the publisher prints on the back cover such that the reader has a quick glance at it before deciding to buy the book. Occasionally, the blurb provides some details about the author and mentions other works by him/her.

It is necessary for you to read all these parts while reviewing a book, for each part has a function to play and your review needs to be holistic.  But a word of caution, please do not choose a shortcut by lifting a few sentences from the introduction and the blurb and pass it off as your review.  This is not appreciated.

2.2 Parts of a review:

Having gone through a book thoroughly (every part of it) this is how you can organize your review in six parts.  I have offered only a few details, and you can supplement this with more information either through experience or in consultation with your teacher.

2.2.1 Title of the book: This should include as many details as possible. Name of the book, name of the author, place of publication, publisher, year of publication, number of pages, ISBN and the price.  Here is an example to make the point clear.

The Lexical Approach – The state of ELT and a Way Forward,  Michael Lewis, London, Thomson Heinle: 2002 (pp viii + 196) ISBN 0 906717 99 x (price not stated)

The title of the book is always written in italics or underlined.  Please also look at the punctuation marks used, these are very essential to follow. This is because of the convention followed internationally. Information on this is given in style manuals, and these days such information is available on your system readily.  There are different style formats available and you may choose any one consistently.  APA (American Psychological Association) Style sheet is the most popular one used by students of Humanities and social sciences.

While providing information on the number of pages in the book, the convention uses two different types of numbers: small Roman and Arabic.  Small Roman numbers refer to the pages where introduction, preface and acknowledgements are written.  These are sometimes not considered as part of the main book and hence numbered differently.  Nevertheless, they are important and we need to indicate them while reviewing a book.

2.2.2 Relevance: State why you are reviewing the book.  In this section you can state your reasons for choosing a particular book for reviewing. Normally, the books under review are contemporary publications. But as students, you may choose any book you like as you are practicing the art of reviewing.  What could be some of the reasons for reviewing a book? Let us look at some possible reasons:

1. The book may be a very new one (you could be one of its first readers),

2. The book could have created a history or a controversy (e.g. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover),

3. You might have liked the book very much,

4. It could be the author’s first book, (Chetan Bhagat’s Five point someone)

5. You may like the author,

6. The book may give some new information hitherto unknown (The Lexical Approach),

7. You may be commissioned to review by an editor, or

8. A book may be reviewed for no obvious reason

Look at the following paragraph which tells you why someone has reviewed the Lexical Approach.

In the last few years serious-minded applied linguist and practitioners have started expressing doubts about the success of CLT. Keith Johnson, one of the pioneers to advocate CLT, in an article in ELTJ (April 2003) has expressed his apprehensions about its usefulness today. Stephen Krashen in his address at the TESOL Convention at Minneapolis (2001) has suggested the need for an alternative approach.  The book under review offers a new approach – which to a certain extent seems to be in response to Krashen’s suggestion.  (Mohanraj S 2004)

The reviewer has chosen to review the Lexical Approach because it is a new approach and seems to be the need of the day.  Each of us may have a different reason, but state clearly why you are reviewing a particular book.  This makes the purpose or objective very clear, for we cannot write without a purpose.

2.2.3 Information about the author: This is an optional part. Not all of us know the author personally. We can get some information from the blurb. But that may not be adequate. Information about the author becomes essential when we review certain books only. e.g. A book on Methods of Teaching English written by a practicing teacher of English. Suppose this book were written by a medical practitioner, then talking about the author may seem really necessary. (e.g. Devadatta Patnayak[4], a medical practitioner by qualification, a Chartered Accountant by profession, and mythologist as an author deserves to be talked about when we review his books.) Information about the author may help us substantiate certain points we would like to make or show how the author has brought his experience to bear upon what he/she says.  Let us not elaborate on this too much.

2.2.4 Summary of the book: This is necessary to show that you have read and understood the book.  Give the summary briefly, perhaps an outline or listing of the major events or concepts mentioned in the book.  Besides proving that you have read the book, it is a reader friendly approach to reviewing.  Your reader, who may not be familiar with the book, should be prompted to read the book by reading your review.  The reader should also be able to understand the points you make about the book, for which the summary becomes useful. If it is a novel you could provide a summary, but in the case of other books, mention the number of chapters and their titles, how they are organized, whether they are properly linked and developed.  If it is a collection of stories, mention how many stories are included, whether the stories are written by a single author or whether it is an anthology, whether the stories are organized according to themes or according the year they were published chronologically, or whether they are organized according to the authors, cultures, themes, regions etc.  Providing a good summary or an introduction makes your review highly readable.

2.2.5 Your opinion: State clearly why you liked the book. Did you like the book totally or in parts? Which parts of the book appealed to you and why? If there are some parts of the book you did not like, mention clearly why you did not like these parts. (Generally, we tend to dislike things we don’t understand.) Before you express your opinion either way, be sure you have understood what you are saying.  Be very objective in stating your reason.  Avoid reasons that can be too personal (like the author is a friend of yours)

2.2.6 Conclusion: Conclude your review by saying whether you enjoyed reading the book or not. Perhaps you could add a sentence or two to suggest who may find this book useful and whether you would like to recommend it.  Here is an example:

The book is a good source of theory, a guide to syllabus design, a source book of materials (with its exercises and ample illustrations), and also a training manual.  The book thus serves as a good input on a course in teacher education. (Mohanraj S 2004)

These are the essential tasks one should take up while writing a review.  It will not be out of place to suggest here that writing can be learnt only by writing and that you can learn to review a book by reviewing.  So why don’t you get set and start.  Begin with a small book you really like – perhaps a novel or a play that you have read as part of your course either now or earlier.

3.0 Classroom tasks:

So far we had a focus on the learner and I have stated my reasons earlier for giving precedence to the learner.  In the concluding part of this write up, I like to talk about teacher responsibilities.  I shall be very brief, for teaching like life has a variety and each one of us may do our job differently, yet efficiently.  There is no single method proven to be universally good or bad.  Hence what is said here needs to be taken more as a suggestion rather than taken as a recommendation.

A learner while reviewing a book is expected to produce a review in six steps.  These steps have been enumerated in some detail in the previous part of this write up. As teachers, it is our duty to facilitate the learners to complete each of these six tasks as successfully as possible.

3.1 The first step in writing a review relates to stating the title. Here we need to make it clear that the title as given in a review differs from the bibliographic entry.  It may be useful to introduce to our learners, style manuals. Copies of style manuals can be made available or books with bibliographic entries could provided to students.  Students may also be encouraged to use the system and download style manuals, or learn to use the tool bar in a computer, or use to zotero [5] Students may be encouraged to compare entries for the same book/source in more than one style sheet and make a list of similarities and differences.   Look at the following example:

Bibliographic entry:  Lewis, M. (202) The Lexical Approach – The state of ELT and Way Forward. London, Thomson Heinle.

Review entry:  The Lexical Approach – The state of ELT and Way Forward, Michael Lewis, London, Thomson Heinle: 2002 (pp VIII + 196) ISBN 090671799 x [price not stated]

To help our learners we could ask them to look at the order of entries, punctuation marks used, details of information etc. Practice can be provided using books they are familiar with, perhaps the books that are prescribed for them.  It would be more helpful, if this exercise is carried out in pairs and groups for discussion makes learning better.

3.2 The second point talks about the relevance of the book under review. This would perhaps be difficult for the learners to arrive at.  Help the learners read reviews of books published in journals and magazines and identify parts which relate to the relevance.  In the previous section, some reasons which could prompt a person write a review are suggested. The list is not exhaustive.  By undertaking the type of exercise mentioned, learners can come out with an inventory of reasons and the list can be formidable.  Collect some reviews published and share them among the learners.  Let them read these reviews and become familiar with different parts of the review.  This could once again be a group task. A review could be shared among six to eight learners for analysis and discussion.

3.3 The third section which should give information about the author is optional. However, in the class, to make the task useful, it would be appropriate to choose authors who are well known and about who we could give some information to the learners.  A better task could be to ask the learner to look up encyclopedias or surf the net to glean information about some authors.  Let them get some information about Keats and Shelley or Shaw and Galsworthy, Milton and Marlowe.  The list of authors we can provide them can come from different fields as well.  Some famous names are provided here to help one to start the work:  Milton, F; Myrdal, Gunnar; Kant, Emmanuel; Sartre, J. P; Kafka, F; Coelho, P; Calvino, I; Ray, Bradbury; Jung, C; Watson; Crick; Hoyle, F; Hawkins, S; Mandela, N; Patai, R; Firdaus, K etc.  These are names chosen from different fields of work like economics, psychology, science, sociology, criticism, creative writing, ELT and other fields.  Once again pair work may be more profitable than students working alone on a task like this.

3.4 The fourth section of the review deals with providing summary. This is in fact an exercise in comprehension. But let us attempt at eliciting learner understanding without our intervention.  Let us help our learners with some small stories, essays and reports (not over two pages in length) and ask them to read independently and summarize for the whole class. A pool of materials (stories, essays and reports) can be gathered with student cooperation.  We could ask each student to ring a story or two (or a piece of some published writing) and this could be pooled and distributed randomly to the students for summarizing.  Certain guidelines can be offered to develop summaries and later discussed in the class with peer correction.

3.5 This section deals with offering opinions and comments. In fact, this will be the spillover of the task offered in the previous section (writing summaries). When students share their summaries in the class, and their write up is open for discussion, comments will flow-in in abundance.  One could monitor this discussion by helping the learners to sift the chaff from the grain.  We may sensitize them to identify the relevant points and discard the not very relevant ones.  Further, a lot of training can be provided in observing the etiquette of group discussion, and using language that does not hurt others while offering criticism.  It is time our learners become familiar with the nuances of the language use for they are at a stage when they need to say good bye to their student life and enter real life.

3.6 The last section related to the writing of the conclusion and offering suggestions on relevance and usefulness of the book. This is an open exercise, and much depends on the type of book chosen. Perhaps this is best left to the learners to learn on their own.

After reading this, one may have a relevant question to ask.  The tasks suggested here take a long time to work through.  Do we have the luxury of eternity to teach in our class? And at that teaching one topic such as writing a review on a course? Indeed, the question is relevant, and the following suggestion may help you to some extent.

When we read literature available on the Teaching Writing (called process writing) most of the scholars express an opinion that the classroom time should not be utilized for the actual writing.  Classroom should provide inputs, and the actual writing task should happen outside the class either as assignment or a home task.  If this is accepted in principle, and the classroom time is used for discussions and sharing views, the tasks suggested here will not occupy more than two weeks of teaching time.

Let us hope this will work.

References:

ALD (2005) Wehmeier, S [Ed], (2005). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, Oxford, OUP

Barass, R. (2003) Writing at work, London, Routledge.

Mohanraj, S. (2004) ‘Book Review: The Lexical Approach’ in Journal of English and Foreign Languages, Number 33, June 2004, Hyderabad, CIEFL. (pp 117-122)

[1] This essay can be found in his well known book Essays in Criticism published in 1865

[2] Shankara Bhashyam is Commentaries on Upanishads by Adi Shankara after which the interpretations of Upanishad has undergone a substantial change.

[3] In Leon A. Jakobovits and Murray S. Miron (eds.), Readings in the Psychology of Language, Prentice-Hall, 1967, pp. 142-143

[4] Devadatta Patnayak is author of books like Jaya, Mythya and Mythology, A very Indian Approach to Business etc.

[5] Zotero is a freely downloadable software that helps build not only a good bibliography, but provides help in making and storing notes while reading books.  This is a recently introduced software and one needs to have firefox web browser loaded on to the system to download zotero.