Book Review Guidelines

Book Review Guidelines

Reviews and review-essays are commissioned by the book review editors, but we welcome suggestions.

Publication Policies and Process

All book reviews and essay-reviews must meet the quality standards of the journal, which include both quality of prose and adherence to our style guidelines. Upon the review’s acceptance for publication, reviewers will work with the managing editor during the copyediting process. Please note that we reserve the right to silently emend non-substantive proofreading and stylistic errors. Reviewers will have a chance to review the copyedited manuscript.

Deadline

Reviews are due three months after the date of commission. Late reviews will be considered on a case-by-case basis, at the discretion of the editor.

Length

Reviews of single monographs should be no longer than 1,000 words. Essay-reviews should be no longer than 750 words per book. A three-book minimum is required for an essay-review.

Preparation of Manuscript

Essay-reviews:

  • Include ESSAY-REVIEW in your document at the first position of the cursor.
  • Provide a title for the essay-review.
  • Reference the books under review in an alphabetical list following the essay-review title and author’s name.
  • Include your affiliation at the end of the text, set in all caps.

All reviews:

  • For each book, include author, title, place (and, if necessary, state) of publication, publisher, year of publication, number of pages, book price, and binding, set in bold typeface.

LAST NAME, FIRST NAME. Title of Book. Place: Publisher, Date. ### pp. $00.00 hardcover/cloth/e-book. [Because books are published in multiple formats, we now list each available format in which the book is published, preceded by the price for each]

  • Double space everything, including text and off-set quotations.
  • Avoid line-end hyphens, except for hyphenated words.
  • Use the MLA Style Manual in preparing your review.
  • Leave ellipses unbracketed throughout the text.
  • We prefer that reviews not include endnotes or works-cited entries.
  • Double-check all quotations for accuracy prior to submission.
  • Use italics for titles.
  • Book reviews: At the end of your review, author’s name should be set in all caps, followed by his or her affiliation set in italics: AUTHOR’S NAME, Affiliation

Submission

When you receive a review commission from one of the book review editors, you will receive instructions to either submit your review through our online manuscript submission site or via e-mail to the editors. In either case, please prepare your review as a Word (or Word-compatible) document.

We appreciate your cooperation in preparing your typescript according to these guidelines. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at studiesinthenovel@unt.edu.