Writing book reviews is a good way of keeping up one's scholarly base. There are, however, some traps here. I will try to answer some questions posed recently by Clarissa. (I'm rephrasing some of these questions.)
(1) Should all reviews be positive?
I've written some negative reviews, so I would be hypocritical if I said all reviews should be positive. For an untenured person, the risk is high, since the author reviewed or some friend of the author might not like it. I would say that all reviews should be balanced and honest, generous with the strengths of the book. I'd prefer to write only positive reviews, but sometimes I say yes thinking that the book will be good, and then it's not.
(2) How much do reviews count for tenure / promotion?
Very little. A 1,000 word review might count about 1/6 of the 6,000 word article, but you can't just write six reviews in place of an article. Only write reviews if you already know you will have more than enough articles and other more solid publications. Don't write encyclopedia entries at all. The perfect tenure case would have 6-10 articles, 1 book, 3 reviews, and zero encyclopedia articles.
(3) Why do people send me their books? Does this imply that they want me to review them?
No. Most requests for reviews come from the journals, not from the authors. If someone sends you their book it usually means they think you are someone important enough to have some influence on their career (or a close personal friend).
(4) What other reasons are there for writing or not writing reviews?
You get free books in your field. You are doing a book review editor a favor. / On the negative side, it can be time-consuming.
4 comments:
Thank you so much for answering! This is very enlightening. If I may, I'll bug you a little more with questions. feel free to disregard if it gets too much. :-)
I heard highly respected people in the field say the same things you do about the low prestige of encyclopedia articles. Why are they held in such low esteem? The reason I ask is that a friend of mine, who is a young academic, concentrates on publishing encyclopedia articles to the exclusion of anything else.
As for the reviews, should I just sit tight and wait for the moment I become important enough for journals to send me books to review? Or should I start volunteering?
Thank you for your doubly proverbial intellectual generosity. :-)
Clarissa: I wrote my first book review after making an inquiry to a journal. (It was negative. I was a grad student. I regret doing that.)
However, since then, I have received more requests than I can accept. I tend to do them only when I feel obliged to do so: The journal my dept publishes asks me or a friend to whom I owe some kind of obligation asks me. The other times I accept is when I don't know the author, but think of them as someone I'd like to connect with. By the time I go up for tenure, I will have done six, which is more than I think I should have done.
My suggestion is to sit tight. I am sure the requests will come. But, you can always send an inquiry.
The problem with encyclo articles is that they aren't considered original scholarship. I wrote a few but I have never heard of anyone citing them. It's kind of a scholarly black hole. You should tell your friend to stop immediately.
I end up having to do book reviews by obligation, but I am trying to cut down on them now.
Thank you, Tanya and Jonathan. This is very helpful.
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