Guidelines for Book Reviewers

Reviewed books become property of the reviewer and need not be returned. Please send your book review within FIVE MONTHS after receipt of the book. A length of 500-1000 words is acceptable. Thank you, and we look forward to your review!

Please observe the following guidelines when preparing your review.

General Guidelines

  • Font = Times New Roman, 12 point
  • Be careful to differentiate between O (oh) and 0 (zero), as well as between 1 (el) and 1 (one)
  • Use left justification (not full justification)
  • Indent the beginning of all paragraphs except the first, but do not leave an extra line between paragraphs
  • Avoid esoteric fonts like Greek if possible
  • Fuer deutsch abgefasste Beitraege: bitte folgen Sie den seit August 2006 gueltigen Regeln der neuen Rechtschreibung (Duden 24. Auflage) in Ihrem Text! Anmerkung: Alle Zitate aus Quellen werden unveraendert in originaler Orthographie wiedergegeben.

Do Not

  • Use hyphenation
  • Paginate
  • Use extraneous coding (tab settings, centering, etc.)
  • Use headers and/or footers of any sort

Note for new reviewers

For the information of your readers, you should:

  • Include an overview of the book’s contents
  • Situate the volume with respect to existing and current research on the topic in question
  • Provide a fair assessment of its strengths and weaknesses
  • Specify what kind of audience it addresses and who would benefit from reading it

 

Specific Guidelines

Review Heading

Please follow the examples below, noting arrangement and punctuation:

  1. German title
    Walter Benjamin—Die Rettung der Nacht. Sterne, Melancholie und Messianismus.
    Von Wolfgang Bock.     Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2000. 474 Seiten. €88,00.[or EUR 88,00.]
  2. English title
    Adalbert Stifter’s Late Prose: The Mania for Moderation.
    By Helena Ragg-Kirkby. Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2000. x + 137 pages. $55.00.
  • Omit the series title, e.g. “Abhandlung zur”
  • For edited works, please use the following format:
       Works in German: “Herausgegeben von...”
       Works in English: “Edited by...”
  • Other examples of currencies include: sFr 55,00; £45.00 [or GBP 45.00.]

Quotations and Citations

  • References should be incorporated into the text. Do not use end- or footnotes.
  • When quoting or referring to specific pages within the work under review, cite the page number(s) within parentheses, omitting the abbreviations “p.” for page or “S.” for Seiten.
  • Mark material you have omitted in a quote by a bracketed ellipsis [...].

Punctuation

  • Place commas and periods inside quotation marks [= MLA usage] in both English and German reviews.
  • For English reviews: place a comma before the final item in a series:
    e.g. Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe
  • For German reviews: do not place a comma before the final item in a series:
    e.g. Lessing, Schiller und Goethe

Name and Affiliation

[Your name and affiliation should come at the end of your review in the following form. Please note that you need not include the location of your institution unless there are several campuses.]

Southern Illinois University-Carbondale

—Frederick Betz

Proofing, Copies, and Reprints

  • Generally, proofreading of reviews is done by the book review editor and editorial staff.
  • One complimentary copy of the issue in which the review appears will be sent to the reviewer via mail within a few weeks of publication.
  • Two copies of the review will be sent to the publisher of the book under review.
  • Reprints are available in lots of 100. They must be ordered in advance from the University of Wisconsin Press.

 

Submitting your Review

Please submit all reviews by email as either .rtf (rich text format) or .doc (MS Word) attachment to: office@monatshefte.org

We will acknowledge your review promptly by email. If you haven’t heard from us within two weeks after receipt (3-4 weeks during summer or Dec./Jan. break), please contact us. Thank you!