Textbooks. Reference books. Specialized monographs. Trade books for the public. And many journals, magazines, and other publications include reviews of books on science. As well as helping readers choose books to obtain or consult, book reviews can inform readers by sharing content from the books. They also can provide useful feedback to authors and publishers and help guide future authors. Reviews of other media, such as journals and electronic resources, can serve similar functions. Regardless of whether a book or other item is reviewed, the principles are much the same. Thus, guidelines for writing book reviews apply in general to other reviews.

At journals, book review editors typically take the initiative in recruiting reviewers. However, they usually are glad to have potential viewers volunteer, either to be approached as needed or to review specific books. Of course, if you have a conflict of interest (for example, because a book is by a close colleague), you should not offer to review the book or accept an invitation to do so.

Our book reviews both describe and evaluate the book. Among questions it may address are the following (Gastel, 1991): What is the goal of the book, and how well does the book accomplish it? From what context did the book emerge? What is the background of the authors or editors? What is the scope of the book, and how is the content organized? What main points does the book make? If the book has special features, what are they? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the book? How does the book compare with other books on the same topic or with previous editions of the book? Who would find the book valuable?

Normally, answering these questions entails reading the book thoroughly. For a reference work, however, sampling the content is more feasible and better reflects the intended use. If we do take such an approach, they consider drawing their own skills in research design in determining how to proceed.

To facilitate writing, we take notes as they read or mark passages of interest in the book. They write down ideas for points to make as they occur to us.

Although some journals feature structured book reviews, with standardized headings for specified types of content, we choose how to organise the book review. One format that we do use is IMRAD (introduction, methods, results, and discussions) structure commonly used for scientific papers. In this format, the “introduction” presents an opening comment on the book, the “results” describes the book, and the “discussion” evaluates it. No “methods” section is used if we read the book from cover to cover. But if, for example, our writers systematically sampled content in a reference book, we would summarise our procedure in the “methods”.

Our book reviews are not advertisements and do not gush with praise. Neither it nitpicks or ridicules. Rather, it has a reasoned tone. By presenting information about the book and drawing careful conclusions, we serve well the readers of our review.