Critical Book or Research Article Review

A Critical Review is a thoughtful discussion of a text's contents, strengths, and limitations. A book review
should reflect your capacity to read critically and to evaluate an author's arguments and evidence.
Compose your review as you would any essay, with an argument supported by evidence, and a clear,
logical structure.

Read the book or the article carefully (at least three times), taking notes on material that you think may be
relevant or quotable and on your impressions of the author's ideas and arguments.

Determine the author's principal argument, the chief themes of the text, the kinds of evidence used, and the
way in which the author uses them. (Total of 5 pages only)

Note: You can also add descriptive review by quoting striking passage from the text.

1 BASIC INFORMATION: Bibliographic information (half page)

a. author's name
b. book's full title
c. place of publication
d. publisher
e. edition
f. date of publication
g. format (hardbound, paperback or soft cover)
h. number of pages (for book minimum of 100; research article 10 pages)
i. picture of the book or article
j. other related details

2 OPENING PART (half page)

a. introduce the book and the setting
b. give your initial appraisal of the work, including your key observation on the text. This key
observation will be your thesis (the main idea)
c. try to avoid a flat statement such as "This book is interesting." Begin with an anecdote, a
challenging quotation, definition of terms, or a key observation

3 MAIN BODY: Follow with descriptive analysis and evaluation of the text. You may either treat these
topics separately, (3 pages)
a. describing the book's contents, the author's argument, presentation, and evidence, and then
offering your own evaluation, or you may weave the two together
b. clearly set out the author's purpose in writing the book, and whether or not you think the author has
succeeded
c. describe the author's arguments and the themes of the book
d. describe the sources and evidence the author uses to prove his case, and evaluate their
appropriateness and sufficiency. What are the author's sources? Should the author have used
more, or different, sources?
e. state new facts about the topic revealed in the book and the relationship of the topic to
contemporary issues and situation
 f. compare with other works by the same author or with different author with the same topic

4 FINAL JUDGMENT: Make more general remarks about the text and the ideas presented (1 page)
a. indicate whether you feel the book is worthwhile, and for what audience.
b. is the book outstanding?
c. will it make a lasting contribution to its field, or is it less satisfactory?
d. end the review with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the book