News and Events for Graduate Students

Centre for Criminology Student Book Review Competition

Each year, the Centre for Criminology runs a book review competition for MSc, MPhil and DPhil students. The best review wins a small prize and members of the centre help in finding somewhere to have it published. Recent reviews have been placed in Theoretical Criminology. Up to two awards of £100 are made, since DPhil students’ entries are considered separately. Interested students should contact Dr Jane Donoghue (jane.donoghue@crim.ox.ac.uk) for guidance on titles. If you want to have the review seriously considered for publication in a journal it must be of a recent book - no more than a year or two old at most. If you are just interested in writing a review as an academic exercise then you can select any text. You may also suggest a book of your own choosing.

Guidelines

Reviews should be 1000 – 1500 words. A good book review places the book in the context of issues in the literature to which it belongs, tells the reader what the book is about, and critically assesses its contribution to these issues and that literature. Please review the book the author has written, not what might have been written. Do not simply describe or list chapters and their contents; instead emphasize significant themes and issues in the volume. Readers appreciate reviews that are informative and critical, but fair.

General Notes

1. The reviewer should present the central thesis of the book at some point in the review; that is, it is not appropriate to criticize or praise a book without at some point in the review taking pains to present the central thesis of the book as comprehensively and fairly as possible.
2. In criticism, the reviewer should strive to do the following: avoid imputing to the author views, motives, or arguments that are not present in the text; to quote instances and locations in the text where general criticism are being made; in general, to assess the book the author has written; and to avoid superfluous criticism, e.g., concerning data which the author could not have obtained, or works to which the author could not possibly have made reference. The principle at stake here is the inability of the author to reply to unfair criticism immediately and the vulnerability of authors to charges of bias when defending their own works.
3. This, however, does not alter the reviewer’s right to assess the book in whatever terms and from whatever perspective the reviewer deems appropriate.
4. Please complete your review by Friday of week 6 in Trinity Term.