When the Sahara Was GreenMartin

Williams Princeton Univ. Press (2021)

Book review assignment

Autumn Semester 2021
AENV1310 Environmental Issues 1
Sophia University
Faculty of Liberal Arts
Dr. Nathalie Cavasin

The book review to be done for this course

is more a critical review rather than a
descriptive review.

This assignment has two tasks:

① The summary (deadline is Class 20)
② The critical review (deadline is Class
25)

- A book review gives a description and a critical

evaluation of a book. You will need to support
the evaluation with evidence from the text in the
book.
- The purpose of the critical book review is to
show after reading the book that you can think critically about its contents.
- It is an evaluation about the positive and eventually negative aspects of the book.

Format: The book review should be written on two A4 pages1. Single space. Fonts:
Time New Roman and size is 12. The book review is expected to be free of grammatical
and spelling errors.

1. The deadline to submit the book summary: Class 20 – Thursday December

9th 2021
2. The deadline to submit this book report will be in Class 25 – Thursday
January 6th 2022

You will need to send a digital copy to the professor before or on the day of the
submission at the following email address: n-cavasin-5t2@sophia.ac.jp

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Please insert absolutely the book reference (when not written 1 point will be deducted)
Bibliographic information (author, title, date of publication, publisher, number of
pages, type of book)

Before your text, include all the details related to the class for the task 1 and for
the task 2:
Autumn Semester 2021
AENV1310 Environmental Issues 1
Sophia University
Faculty of Liberal Arts
Your name and your Student ID
Date

While reading the book: you can take into consideration the following elements:
- When you read the book, you will need to consider the author’s main goal. How the
author explains the background of an event or raises awareness of a particular issue
that can be explained from an environmental science perspective.
- What are the author’s main points?
- Is the book well written? Is it easy to read and why? Or was it difficult to read and
understand and why?
- To who this book will be useful?

The components of the book review (Task 2):

Please insert absolutely the book reference (when not written 1 point will be deducted)
Bibliographic information (author, title, date of publication, publisher, number of
pages, type of book)

- Introduction
An overview of the theme of the book, the purpose and your evaluation.
- Summary of the contents: summary of the key points of each chapter or group of
chapters or group of ideas.
- A critical review with evaluation:
Give your opinion about the book. You need to present your judgment about the
book. In order to do so, you need to understand the text from different perspectives.
You may make references to the theories or contents from the course in
Environmental Issues.
What are the book’s strengths and weaknesses?
- Conclusion:
It is a very short paragraph that restates your opinion about the text. Critical reviews
do not always need a conclusion. If you think a conclusion is necessary you have to
summarize your arguments.
References:
If you have used different sources (in you review) you should also include them in a
list of references at the end of your review.

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Students will be asked to present the contents of their book review in the class in
January (it will be a short presentation of 2 minutes only!)- Additional information will
be provided later.
Additional Notes:
Do not read on Internet book review (about the book you have chosen) already
written published in academic journals or newspapers and so on.

I need a critical book written by you with your own thoughts not something that has
been borrowed.

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