Guide to Write an Academic Book Review

(For the students of M.A. Pali and Buddhist Studies)

I. Bibliographic Entry
Give the appropriate bibliographic entry for the work. In the Microsoft Word, this
should be in APA / Chicago Format. For example:

Surname, First Name(s), Title of Book. Place: Publisher, Year.

Nakamura, Hajime, INDIAN BUDDHISM A Survey with Bibliographical

Notes.Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 5th Reprint, 2018,
pp.1-50.
ISBN: 978-81-208-0272-8
II. Summary of Contents
The purpose of this section is to give the reader a strong synopsis of the main
points of the book.
Generally, it is best to try to summarize the essence of the book in the first one to
two sentences of this section. Then, the rest of this section should be devoted to
describing the main arguments in more detail.
In drafting this section, it is important to focus on the "big picture" of the work.
In other words, what were the most essential arguments that the author made?
What arguments were novel or noteworthy?
What details stood out from the rest to make this a formative work in the academic
literature? In sum, you will want to give the reader a strong sense of what the
author of the work was intending to accomplish by writing the work.

III. Critical Evaluation

This is the most important section for any book review. Here, you are to critique
the work and make your own argument about the merits of the book. The key is
to show the reader of your review what you thought was most important,
compelling, or novel about the work and why. In addition, it is important to note
any holes in the author's arguments and state what you think could have been
better about the work
Good questions to ask yourself when writing this section are: Why is this book
important? What is novel about the work? How did this author contribute to this
field of research? What were the strengths and weaknesses of the work? What
was the main objective of the book (and, more importantly, did the author
convince me on that key point? Who would benefit from reading this work?

You may look at the Book reviews for Buddhist studies at the site below.
1. d282d8_26edac96d39b4e1e876e312fb9d7f583.pdf (usrfiles.com)
2. WBR 5.10 Buckingham–Flores Scriptures review (usrfiles.com)
3. WBR 5.8 Paramabandhu–Williams review (usrfiles.com)
4. WBR 5.15 Dhivan–Gombrich review (usrfiles.com)
5. WBR 5.14 Vishvapani–Wynne review (usrfiles.com)