The Journal of Anglican Studies publishes book reviews. In you are interested in submitting a review, please contact the Review Editor using the details below.
The Right Rev’d Dr Stephen Platten
Email: stephen.platten@icloud.com
Guidelines for the Writing of Book Reviews
Purpose of the Book Review
The purpose of having book reviews in the Journal of Anglican Studies is to highlight quality scholarly works on Anglican studies or in an area related to Anglican studies. The process of selecting books is broadly interpreted and so may include books with an ecumenical or interfaith focus.
Length of Book Reviews
The word count should be between 600 and 1,000 words depending upon the nature of the book. In exceptional cases, the editors may be prepared to increase the word count by a modest degree.
Nature of Book Reviews
Book reviews should be scholarly assessments of a book related to Anglican studies and related areas. The review should begin with the bibliographic details of the book. These details should be in the following form:
Name of author, Title of the book in italics (Place of publication: Publisher, year of publication), number of pages in the book in Roman numerals in the format xlvi + number of pages in the body of the book in Arabic numerals.
£ cost in pounds sterling US$ cost of the book in US dollars
ISBN of the book
Then follows the body of the review. The reviewer should aim to present a fair and scholarly treatment of the book focusing on the book’s impact on Anglican studies but not limiting it to this one area. Impact for the wider Christian church and religion more generally should also be considered, where appropriate, in the interests of ecumenism or interfaith dialogue.
The review needs to be objective and critical. The review is not merely a summary of the book’s contents, although the review could include a brief summary of the book’s contents. The review is seeking to isolate what makes this book a worthy scholarly publication and how it contributes to Anglican studies and knowledge more widely interpreted. Personal taste and biased assessments are not suited to a book review. Criticism of the book, not the author, based on evidence and opinion is of course acceptable. If the reviewer cannot separate comments from a personal view then it may be appropriate for the reviewer to consider whether he or she should be doing the review at all. It is important for the reviewer to be positive about the book if it has qualities that recommend it to readers but at the same time the reviewer can criticise the book in a manner that is objective and based on evidence.
The review should not have footnotes although in text references could be used in the following format: ‘As Andrew McGowan argues in his book Ascetic Eucharists (OUP, 1999)’. Quotations from the book itself could be included but these should be limited in a short piece of writing such as book review. Quotations from other works should be avoided if possible.
At the end of the review write in italics your title and name with the name of your institution underneath.
In general the style of writing should be that set out in the Author instructions section on the Journal of Anglican Studies website.
Completion of Review
The Journal requests that you complete the review in about six months after receiving the book from the publisher. When you have completed the review please check your review thoroughly for any surface errors and then send it by email as a formatted attachment in Microsoft Word to the Review Editor, The Right Rev’d Dr Stephen Platten (stephen.platten@icloud.com).
Finally
Thank you for volunteering to write a review for the Journal of Anglican Studies. These reviews are very helpful to others and the Journal greatly values your time and expertise in writing the review.
Stephen Platten
The Right Rev’d Dr Stephen Platten
Review Editor
Journal of Anglican Studies