Topic Category: Common Writing Assignments

Introduction

Every so often, instructors ask students to write either a very short essay or a long paragraph (say roughly 250-500 words). For convenience’s sake we’ll call this a mini-essay.

The purpose of such an assignment is not merely to shorten the pain of marking student papers. A mini-essay is like a miniature painting or an intricate sketch–it forces you to concentrate on a few select details that capture a single impression.

Obviously most of the rules of essay writing will apply to a mini-essay. Nevertheless, mini-essays have a few unique features worth emphasizing.

Key Features

A Snappy Introduction

Don’t waste time introducing your thesis. If you’re writing a longer paragraph (of say 250 words), use just a sentence or two to state your argument. Even if you’ve got a bit more space, keep it short. The art of a mini-essay is to let the details do the talking.

Compare the following two sentences:

Many of us don’t like to be told how to behave, and Friedrich Nietzsche was no exception.

The son of a Lutheran minister, Friedrich Nietzsche came to despise Christian moralism.

The second is much more specific. So make sure you zoom in as quickly as possible.

A Nuanced Argument

Just because your essay is super short, it doesn’t mean that you should settle for a simple thesis. Although mini-essays often require you to take one side of an argument, it’s important to avoid generalizations or black and white arguments. Try at least to recognize the existence of other perspectives:

Weak: It would be too dangerous to allow robots to develop their own code of ethics.

Better: While we might like to treat robots with respect–and even grant them some level of autonomy–it would be too dangerous to give robots the right to develop their own code of ethics.

Your teacher will be pleased to know that you’ve thought about the issue from all sides.

Variable Paragraph Structure

In a mini-essay you’re not restricted to the classic essay format (introduction–body–conclusion). You can write one long paragraph (if your word count is quite low), or you can blend in your intro and conclusion with your first and last paragraph. You can also use very short paragraphs–say if your intro or conclusion consists of just one or two sentences.

While paragraph breaks are still useful, don’t waste too much time with elaborate topic sentences, summary statements, or transitions. Let your ideas flow naturally so that the reader gets as much quality content as possible.

Short Quotations

As a rule of thumb, three to four short quotations are better than one long block quotation. Choose your quotations carefully and make sure each one makes a unique and essential point.

Listing

To add depth to your mini-essay, try list a number of other details or examples that further prove your point.

Other fairy tales that use a “restoration” plot are “Snow White” and “The Frog Prince.”

After revolutionizing the vacuum cleaner, James Dyson invented (among other things) the Airblade hand dryer and a fan without blades. He is now working on creating an electric car.

Garth Williams’ illustration of the stereotypical schoolhouse is part of a larger attempt to depict a kind of American identity. The schooner Stuart Little sails on has an American flag, there’s a Cornell flag on George’s bedroom wall, and the little town of Ames’ Crossing represents the laid back attitude of rural America.

Do make sure, though, that these details illustrate your main point, and are not just a meaningless digression.

Concise Conclusions

In a short essay, your reader really does not need an elaborate reminder of what you’ve argued. If you do want to repeat your main point, at least try to vary your word choice. Your final sentence or two should create closure, but in a way that remains detailed and specific.

Introduction

There are few reviews as detailed and critical as academic book reviews. You might have spend half a lifetime writing your magnum opus only for some prickly professor to ridicule your ideas. However, in an ideal world, an academic book review should contain constructive criticism, an honest appraisal of the good and the bad. The reviewer should set aside his or her own ego and explain what the book contributes to the overall conversation.

Formatting Rules

Most academic reviews follow a very similar format. They typically start with some bibliographic information about the book, along with the reviewer’s name and affiliation:

Fudge, Phoebe, et al. The Theology of Chocolate. Chicago: Epicurean Publications, 2013. pp. xi, 192. $19.99 (softcover). ISBN: 978-0-18-9874111-1.

Reviewed by:
Marilyn Squirrel
University of Nuttingham
m.squirrel@nuttingham.ac.uk

Notice that the page count includes roman numerals to refer to the number of pages that precede the start of official pagination. For the price, consult a major retailer such as Amazon or give the publisher’s RRP (recommended retail price).

The rest of your document consists of the review itself, neatly organized into a series of paragraphs.

Basic Structure

Most book reviews follow a fairly simple structure, with each section being any number of paragraphs long:

Introduction	Context + Author’s thesis + Your opinion
Middle	Summary of author’s individual arguments + Your response
Conclusion	Final implications + Your opinion

In other words, most introductions begin by explaining how the book fits in with current scholarship in the field. Why is this study important? Why should we care about it? Then the reviewer will explain the author’s main argument and give some general assessment of the quality of the book.

The middle paragraphs provide summaries of the various parts of the book. A lot of academic reviewers like to do this chapter by chapter, but you can also use a topic based approach. For instance, if you’re reviewing a translation, you might deal separately with the quality of the translation, the value of the notes and apparatus, the volume’s introduction and conclusion, and so on.

As you analyze the specific arguments made in the book, relate what you think of them and whether they adequately prove the book’s main thesis. Some reviewers like to save their own opinion for the end of the book review, but it’s best to let the reader know what you think all the way through. Often you can split these middle paragraphs into two parts: a careful summation of the argument, followed by your opinion.

The conclusion sums up the overall value of the book. Explain to your readers why this book will be worth their time (or not). Try to be generous and gracious in your final assessment.

Tips

Points to Critique

The following is a partial list of the kinds of things you might focus on in your review:

Major Details:
Author’s main argument
Individual chapters and arguments
Author’s methodology
Accessibility (reading ease and jargon)
Factual errors
Relevance
Appropriateness for the intended audience
Relationship to other work in the field
Originality
Implications for future research

Minor Details:
Spelling and grammar mistakes
Cover art
Visual appeal and formatting
Author’s background (avoid ad hominem arguments)
Quality of notes and apparatus (bibliography and index)
Accuracy of foreign language translations

To avoid nitpicking, make sure that you focus primarily on the major details.

Tone

Academic book reviews can be surprisingly personal in tone. In most disciplines you don’t have to adopt some oddly impersonal tone. Here are some sample sentence starters:

I enjoyed …

I, for one, will be assigning this book to my students …

In my experience, few scholars have adequately demonstrated that …

At the same time, you should not overuse “I.” We know this is your review.

Reviews are also a matter of tactfulness. Here is an example of how you might phrase the same point in two different ways:

Harsh: Although the author clearly does not know the basic distinction between a friar and a monk, such an egregious error does not invalidate some of the book’s conclusions.

Tactful: Despite a few minor errors (e.g., some confusion about the differences between friars and monks), the main argument is sound.

Be careful though. If you’re constantly hedging (this is great, but …), you may come across as insincere. If something is bad, just say it.

Going Above and Beyond

If you want to excel as a reviewer, here are some further tips:

• Read some other important studies in the field and see how the book you’re reviewing fits in.
• Follow up quotations and references and determine if the author’s interpretation is fair.
• Reread the book and look for inconsistencies in the argument.
• Determine if there are gaps in the argument. What could have been said, but was omitted? Be careful, though, not to put too much weight on this in your review. Some reviewers constantly blame the author for not saying what they wanted to hear.

Sample Book Reviews

If you have access to a university library, you can access book reviews through many of the more popular databases (e.g., JSTOR or MLA Database). Just type in the book title and author and your search results should include reviews. If you want to consult open access review sites, we suggest you start with the following two websites. They should give you plenty of examples to emulate (or avoid):

• H-Net Reviews (click on Browse Reviews to see the latest reviews of books in the humanities and social sciences)
• The Medieval Review (click on Archives to access hundreds of reviews)

Introduction

It may be helpful to explain that most academic reviews tend to follow one of the following five strategies or patterns. The reason is that academics have a lot to lose by writing a negative review about one of their colleagues.

Common Strategies

1. The Summarizer

The summarizer simply tells you what the book is about, but does not evaluate the quality of the book. The summarizer will use words such as new, intriguing, interesting, or detailed, to give the appearance of providing a critique. However, this reviewer plays it safe by avoiding any qualitative assessment. This may be because the reviewer is not an expert in the field or because he or she is too scared to make a judgment.

2. The Sycophant

The sycophant continually flatters the author, using words such as groundbreaking, brilliant, tour de force, and so on. Any criticism is limited to a brief comment or two about minor details (the odd typo, the size of the font, etc.).

3, The Sandwich Artist

The sandwich artist wants to criticize, but does not want to offend. His solution is to create what may crudely be termed a shit sandwich. All the criticism is sandwiched between a generally positive introduction and conclusion. He’ll finish his introduction with something like Generally speaking, then, this is an important piece of scholarship, only to tear the book to pieces in the middle paragraphs. Then he’ll transition to the conclusion with a line such as These minor quibbles aside, this is a tremendous addition to our knowledge of X.

4. The Honest, yet Tactful Appraiser

The best approach, and the one we recommend, is to be honest and to show that you care. Convey that you are genuinely interested in the author’s ideas. Don’t just keep harping on those subjects that you’ve been studying. Explain how the world looks from the author’s point of view. Be generous when you do criticize, and don’t nitpick over the details. Demonstrate to the reader why this book matters, or if it’s a lousy volume, put it down gently.

5. The Scornful Pedant

Some reviewers always feel the need to prove that their own expertise is greater than the author’s. They seem to take any new book in their field of study as a personal affront. How dare somebody suggest a new perspective! You can recognize a scornful pedant by his mean-spirited tone and excessive nitpicking. Pedants tend to go off on tangents, prefer to talk about their own hobby horses, and enjoy putting others down.