Description
6 Pages double spaced 14 Font [You do not need a title/cover page] I will provide details on how to
reference the book review in Class 6, Book Review Session.
This assignment is a book review. It is an assignment that asks you to critically analyze Mark Andrejevic
& Neil Selwyn’s Facial Recognition and tells the reader what the point it is trying to make; and, how
convincingly it makes this point. Writing a critique achieves three purposes. First, it provides you with
an understanding of the information contained in a book; and a familiarity with other information written
on the same topic. Second, it provides an opportunity to apply and develop your critical thinking skills as
you attempt to evaluate critically a political scientist’s (or other thinker’s) work. Third, it helps you to
improve your own writing skills as you attempt to describe the book’s strengths and weaknesses within a
specific page length so that your reader can clearly understand them.
This book review assignment has four areas: Thesis Statement; Methods; Evidence; and,
Recommendations. Before you start your critical review, you should provide the reader with a short
summary of what the book is about. This should be no longer than ½ page. Consider this as your
introduction to the review. Next, you should turn your attention to the four requirements of the critical
review. The following are guides to help you write your paper.
Thesis Statement: Your first task is to find and clearly state the thesis in the book. The thesis is the main
point the book is trying to make. Quote Andrejevic & Selwyn’s Thesis Statement in the body of your
review and tell me which page or pages you believe it is found on. Many authors, however, do not present
their thesis clearly. Do you have to hunt for the thesis of the book? If you believe you found it, quote it
in our review; and, tell me which page(s) you believe you found it on. Comment about the clarity of
the author’s thesis presentation. If you do not believe they had a thesis statement than indicate this in
your answer to this section of the book review.
Methods: What methods did the authors use to investigate her topic? In other words, how did the authors
go about supporting their thesis? In your critique, carefully answer the following two questions. First,
were appropriate methods used? In other words, did the authors approach to supporting the thesis make
sense? Second, did the authors employ the selected methods correctly? Did you discover any errors in
the way the authors conducted their research?
Evidence for thesis support: In your critique, answer the following questions: What evidence did the
authors present in support of their thesis? What are the strengths of the evidence presented by the authors?
What are the weaknesses of the evidence presented? On balance, how well did the authors support their
thesis?
Recommendation: In this section, summarize your evaluation of the book. Tell the readers several things.
Who would benefit from reading it? What will the benefit be? Be specific. Don’t for example say
something generic like “everybody should read this book” or “students taking political science courses
should read it”. How important and extensive is that benefit? Finally, clearly state your evaluation of the
book – whether you liked or disliked it and why?
Think of your paper as a construction requiring planning (an outline) and careful thinking of concepts,
issues, problems etc. It is helpful to state the objectives and the plan for the paper in the opening paragraph
(introduction). The introduction should conclude with a concise, coherent summary of the argument to
be developed. Despite having major components in the paper, you do not need subheadings as they tend
simply to be space filler and I will call you out on it and deduct marks. Instead, you should use
paragraphs as building blocks. To effectively use the book in your paper, try to identify the main
argument(s) of the author and select examples carefully to bolster your argument. Do not use too many
long, direct quotations. You can summarize the argument(s) in your own words, but make sure to cite the
source of the information as an indirect quote.
Your paper will be evaluated on the following criteria:
• A clear, coherent, and systematic presentation.
• Correct spelling and a competent writing style which allows you to express your views and ideas
clearly.
• Proper citation [refer to the documentation posted to D2L on how to reference this assignment.]
• Adequately and fully addressing all aspects of the assignment
• Any review, which is simply a chapter-by-chapter summary, will automatically receive at
best a grade of 50%; and the grade may be lowered based upon the other grading criteria.
• Do not use any other sources other than the book under review. If outside sources are used, I will deduct a substantial grade.
Unformatted Attachment Preview
POL 507 Power and Change in Technological Society
Class 6: Book Review
©Robert Marshall
Politics/Public Administration
Toronto Metropolitan University
2
• This is a critical book review which means it is not a simple chapter summary of the chosen book. I do
not want to read “In chapter one Andrejevic & Selwyn says….in chapter two they say…. etc.” Any
review that does this will, at best, get an automatic grade of 60%.
• And the grade could very well go lower depending on the quality of the work pushing it into the D or F
range.
• Don’t forget, as the class has been informed, as an upper-level Liberal Arts elective I expect everybody
to have the reading, writing and critical analysis skills of senior university students. And I will grade to
that expectation.
3
• Something to keep in mind that can have a negative impact on the grade: do not use any other
sources except the Andrejeciv/Selwyn book.
• This is not a research paper but a critical review.
• If other sources are used, I will deduct grades.
4
Introduction to the Review:
• You should start your review on page one with a ½ page summary of the overall book in the first
opening paragraph. Introduce the author’s names and the book title in your first sentence before you
proceed to the short summary.
• If someone unfamiliar with the book wanted to pick it up and read it, you need to tell them what it is
about. This helps to build their expectations for it. Keep it to the ½ page summary.
• Avoid a Chapter x Chapter summarization. That’s not review but summary and grades will be deducted
if this occurs.
5
Thesis Statement:
• The second paragraph on page one is where you get into the actual book review by addressing the
Thesis Statement component of the assignment. This should only take up approximately a ½ page.
While this is the shortest part of the review it is the most important part of it. The remaining three
sections of the review are built on the thesis statement.
• A Thesis Statement is the main point an author is trying to convey to a reader. By the time
you finish reading a book you should be able to say to yourself whether you agree, or disagree,
with an author’s argument. But to be able to do this you have to know what that argument is.
6
Thesis Statement Continued:
• So…where you able to locate the author’s Thesis Statement? If you believe you have found it, I
want you to quote/cite it directly in your review and tell me the page (or pages) you believe you
found it on. [Discussion of referencing system below]
• Conversely, if you do not feel that the author’s had a clear Thesis Statement, or you were unable to
locate it, then say that in this section.
7
Methods:
• Methods is a short form for Methodology. What types of research tools – or methods – do the
authors use to gather the evidence to support their Thesis Statement? Methods tell a reader a lot
about whether to trust an author.
• I would recommend 2 pages to discuss the author’s Methods.
• Give concrete examples of their research tools.
• And don’t forget to properly reference them.
8
Evidence:
• Evidence is related to methods. You should devote 2 pages of your review to this section.
• Evidence is the facts, information etc. that an author has gathered to support their Thesis
Statement. Give some concrete examples of the kinds of evidence used in the book; and again,
don’t forget to reference them.
• This section asks you not just to describe the evidence an author uses but also to inform their
reader [i.e., me] whether they were provided with enough evidence to convince you of the Thesis
Statement?
9
Recommendations:
• So, if you are keeping a tally of the page length you have now completed 5 of the 6 full pages
assigned. The last page of the assignment is for your Recommendations.
• This is where you tell the reader [again me] your overall feelings about the book. But justify your
opinion. Tell me: did you love it, why or why not? Or did you abhor it, why or why not? Be
specific and be honest with your opinion.
• As rude as this sounds, I don’t care what your opinion of the book is. This is your book review and
your opinion. But you must justify it.
10
Recommendations Continued:
• The other thing this final section is requiring you to do is tell me who do you think would benefit
from reading this book? Whether you personally loved or hated it, an author is always trying to
reach a specific audience whom they believe will benefit from reading their book.
• Be specific. Don’t be general or generic. I don’t want to read statements such as “Everybody
should read it” or “Anybody taking a political science course should read it”.
• You can use first person in this section of the review.
11
Book Review Referencing:
• To keep the referencing process simple use the following system in your book review. As I do not
want you to use other sources, your only source is the book itself under review.
• Do the referencing in the body of the paper itself. Do not use footnotes or endnotes.
12
Book Review Referencing: Direct Quote
• When you take an author’s words and quote them in your review exactly as written, this is called a direct quote. It
must be put into quotation marks and page reference(s) must be provided:
1. A quote from a single page looks like this: (p. _).
2. A quote that is taken from two pages looks like this: (pp. _-_). So, for example, if a direct quote starts at the bottom
of one page and continues onto the top of the next page (for example pp.4-5) this is the style to use. Try not to use
too many lengthy direct quotes. They should be used to support your argument, not make them for you.
3. If a direct quote is more than three lines in length, put it into Block Quote Formation: indented and single-spaced
– and some formatting styles recommend using a smaller font. Block quotes do not need to be put into quotation
marks as it is implied by the formatting itself.
13
Book Review Referencing: Block Quote
14
Book Review Referencing: Indirect Quote
• If you take the authors words but put them into your own words in the review, this is called an
indirect quote. You must still provide a page reference using the same system as above [p. or pp.].
The only difference is that indirect quotes are not put into quotation marks. This lets the
reader/grader/me know that this is not your own idea but has been derived from the original source
material (i.e., the Andrejevic/Selwyn book) but put into your own words.
15
Next Class:
Politics & The Internet
•
S Salem “Creating Spaces for Dissent. The Role of Social Media in the 2011 Egyptian
Revolution.” In D. Trottier ed., Social Media, Politics and the State NY: Routledge, 2015, pp.
171-188.
•
W. Wong & P. Brown “E-Bandits in Global Activism: Wikileaks, Anonymous, and the Politics of
No One.” Perspectives on Politics Vol. 11, No 4 (December 2013): 1015-1033.
16
POL 507 Power and Change in Technological Society
Class 6: Book Review
©Robert Marshall
Politics/Public Administration
Toronto Metropolitan University
2
• This is a critical book review which means it is not a simple chapter summary of the chosen book. I do
not want to read “In chapter one Andrejevic & Selwyn says….in chapter two they say…. etc.” Any
review that does this will, at best, get an automatic grade of 60%.
• And the grade could very well go lower depending on the quality of the work pushing it into the D or F
range.
• Don’t forget, as the class has been informed, as an upper-level Liberal Arts elective I expect everybody
to have the reading, writing and critical analysis skills of senior university students. And I will grade to
that expectation.
3
• Something to keep in mind that can have a negative impact on the grade: do not use any other
sources except the Andrejeciv/Selwyn book.
• This is not a research paper but a critical review.
• If other sources are used, I will deduct grades.
4
Introduction to the Review:
• You should start your review on page one with a ½ page summary of the overall book in the first
opening paragraph. Introduce the author’s names and the book title in your first sentence before you
proceed to the short summary.
• If someone unfamiliar with the book wanted to pick it up and read it, you need to tell them what it is
about. This helps to build their expectations for it. Keep it to the ½ page summary.
• Avoid a Chapter x Chapter summarization. That’s not review but summary and grades will be deducted
if this occurs.
5
Thesis Statement:
• The second paragraph on page one is where you get into the actual book review by addressing the
Thesis Statement component of the assignment. This should only take up approximately a ½ page.
While this is the shortest part of the review it is the most important part of it. The remaining three
sections of the review are built on the thesis statement.
• A Thesis Statement is the main point an author is trying to convey to a reader. By the time
you finish reading a book you should be able to say to yourself whether you agree, or disagree,
with an author’s argument. But to be able to do this you have to know what that argument is.
6
Thesis Statement Continued:
• So…where you able to locate the author’s Thesis Statement? If you believe you have found it, I
want you to quote/cite it directly in your review and tell me the page (or pages) you believe you
found it on. [Discussion of referencing system below]
• Conversely, if you do not feel that the author’s had a clear Thesis Statement, or you were unable to
locate it, then say that in this section.
7
Methods:
• Methods is a short form for Methodology. What types of research tools – or methods – do the
authors use to gather the evidence to support their Thesis Statement? Methods tell a reader a lot
about whether to trust an author.
• I would recommend 2 pages to discuss the author’s Methods.
• Give concrete examples of their research tools.
• And don’t forget to properly reference them.
8
Evidence:
• Evidence is related to methods. You should devote 2 pages of your review to this section.
• Evidence is the facts, information etc. that an author has gathered to support their Thesis
Statement. Give some concrete examples of the kinds of evidence used in the book; and again,
don’t forget to reference them.
• This section asks you not just to describe the evidence an author uses but also to inform their
reader [i.e., me] whether they were provided with enough evidence to convince you of the Thesis
Statement?
9
Recommendations:
• So, if you are keeping a tally of the page length you have now completed 5 of the 6 full pages
assigned. The last page of the assignment is for your Recommendations.
• This is where you tell the reader [again me] your overall feelings about the book. But justify your
opinion. Tell me: did you love it, why or why not? Or did you abhor it, why or why not? Be
specific and be honest with your opinion.
• As rude as this sounds, I don’t care what your opinion of the book is. This is your book review and
your opinion. But you must justify it.
10
Recommendations Continued:
• The other thing this final section is requiring you to do is tell me who do you think would benefit
from reading this book? Whether you personally loved or hated it, an author is always trying to
reach a specific audience whom they believe will benefit from reading their book.
• Be specific. Don’t be general or generic. I don’t want to read statements such as “Everybody
should read it” or “Anybody taking a political science course should read it”.
• You can use first person in this section of the review.
11
Book Review Referencing:
• To keep the referencing process simple use the following system in your book review. As I do not
want you to use other sources, your only source is the book itself under review.
• Do the referencing in the body of the paper itself. Do not use footnotes or endnotes.
12
Book Review Referencing: Direct Quote
• When you take an author’s words and quote them in your review exactly as written, this is called a direct quote. It
must be put into quotation marks and page reference(s) must be provided:
1. A quote from a single page looks like this: (p. _).
2. A quote that is taken from two pages looks like this: (pp. _-_). So, for example, if a direct quote starts at the bottom
of one page and continues onto the top of the next page (for example pp.4-5) this is the style to use. Try not to use
too many lengthy direct quotes. They should be used to support your argument, not make them for you.
3. If a direct quote is more than three lines in length, put it into Block Quote Formation: indented and single-spaced
– and some formatting styles recommend using a smaller font. Block quotes do not need to be put into quotation
marks as it is implied by the formatting itself.
13
Book Review Referencing: Block Quote
14
Book Review Referencing: Indirect Quote
• If you take the authors words but put them into your own words in the review, this is called an
indirect quote. You must still provide a page reference using the same system as above [p. or pp.].
The only difference is that indirect quotes are not put into quotation marks. This lets the
reader/grader/me know that this is not your own idea but has been derived from the original source
material (i.e., the Andrejevic/Selwyn book) but put into your own words.
15
Next Class:
Politics & The Internet
•
S Salem “Creating Spaces for Dissent. The Role of Social Media in the 2011 Egyptian
Revolution.” In D. Trottier ed., Social Media, Politics and the State NY: Routledge, 2015, pp.
171-188.
•
W. Wong & P. Brown “E-Bandits in Global Activism: Wikileaks, Anonymous, and the Politics of
No One.” Perspectives on Politics Vol. 11, No 4 (December 2013): 1015-1033.
16
POL 507 Power and Change in Technological Society
Class 6: Book Review
©Robert Marshall
Politics/Public Administration
Toronto Metropolitan University
2
• This is a critical book review which means it is not a simple chapter summary of the chosen book. I do
not want to read “In chapter one Andrejevic & Selwyn says….in chapter two they say…. etc.” Any
review that does this will, at best, get an automatic grade of 60%.
• And the grade could very well go lower depending on the quality of the work pushing it into the D or F
range.
• Don’t forget, as the class has been informed, as an upper-level Liberal Arts elective I expect everybody
to have the reading, writing and critical analysis skills of senior university students. And I will grade to
that expectation.
3
• Something to keep in mind that can have a negative impact on the grade: do not use any other
sources except the Andrejeciv/Selwyn book.
• This is not a research paper but a critical review.
• If other sources are used, I will deduct grades.
4
Introduction to the Review:
• You should start your review on page one with a ½ page summary of the overall book in the first
opening paragraph. Introduce the author’s names and the book title in your first sentence before you
proceed to the short summary.
• If someone unfamiliar with the book wanted to pick it up and read it, you need to tell them what it is
about. This helps to build their expectations for it. Keep it to the ½ page summary.
• Avoid a Chapter x Chapter summarization. That’s not review but summary and grades will be deducted
if this occurs.
5
Thesis Statement:
• The second paragraph on page one is where you get into the actual book review by addressing the
Thesis Statement component of the assignment. This should only take up approximately a ½ page.
While this is the shortest part of the review it is the most important part of it. The remaining three
sections of the review are built on the thesis statement.
• A Thesis Statement is the main point an author is trying to convey to a reader. By the time
you finish reading a book you should be able to say to yourself whether you agree, or disagree,
with an author’s argument. But to be able to do this you have to know what that argument is.
6
Thesis Statement Continued:
• So…where you able to locate the author’s Thesis Statement? If you believe you have found it, I
want you to quote/cite it directly in your review and tell me the page (or pages) you believe you
found it on. [Discussion of referencing system below]
• Conversely, if you do not feel that the author’s had a clear Thesis Statement, or you were unable to
locate it, then say that in this section.
7
Methods:
• Methods is a short form for Methodology. What types of research tools – or methods – do the
authors use to gather the evidence to support their Thesis Statement? Methods tell a reader a lot
about whether to trust an author.
• I would recommend 2 pages to discuss the author’s Methods.
• Give concrete examples of their research tools.
• And don’t forget to properly reference them.
8
Evidence:
• Evidence is related to methods. You should devote 2 pages of your review to this section.
• Evidence is the facts, information etc. that an author has gathered to support their Thesis
Statement. Give some concrete examples of the kinds of evidence used in the book; and again,
don’t forget to reference them.
• This section asks you not just to describe the evidence an author uses but also to inform their
reader [i.e., me] whether they were provided with enough evidence to convince you of the Thesis
Statement?
9
Recommendations:
• So, if you are keeping a tally of the page length you have now completed 5 of the 6 full pages
assigned. The last page of the assignment is for your Recommendations.
• This is where you tell the reader [again me] your overall feelings about the book. But justify your
opinion. Tell me: did you love it, why or why not? Or did you abhor it, why or why not? Be
specific and be honest with your opinion.
• As rude as this sounds, I don’t care what your opinion of the book is. This is your book review and
your opinion. But you must justify it.
10
Recommendations Continued:
• The other thing this final section is requiring you to do is tell me who do you think would benefit
from reading this book? Whether you personally loved or hated it, an author is always trying to
reach a specific audience whom they believe will benefit from reading their book.
• Be specific. Don’t be general or generic. I don’t want to read statements such as “Everybody
should read it” or “Anybody taking a political science course should read it”.
• You can use first person in this section of the review.
11
Book Review Referencing:
• To keep the referencing process simple use the following system in your book review. As I do not
want you to use other sources, your only source is the book itself under review.
• Do the referencing in the body of the paper itself. Do not use footnotes or endnotes.
12
Book Review Referencing: Direct Quote
• When you take an author’s words and quote them in your review exactly as written, this is called a direct quote. It
must be put into quotation marks and page reference(s) must be provided:
1. A quote from a single page looks like this: (p. _).
2. A quote that is taken from two pages looks like this: (pp. _-_). So, for example, if a direct quote starts at the bottom
of one page and continues onto the top of the next page (for example pp.4-5) this is the style to use. Try not to use
too many lengthy direct quotes. They should be used to support your argument, not make them for you.
3. If a direct quote is more than three lines in length, put it into Block Quote Formation: indented and single-spaced
– and some formatting styles recommend using a smaller font. Block quotes do not need to be put into quotation
marks as it is implied by the formatting itself.
13
Book Review Referencing: Block Quote
14
Book Review Referencing: Indirect Quote
• If you take the authors words but put them into your own words in the review, this is called an
indirect quote. You must still provide a page reference using the same system as above [p. or pp.].
The only difference is that indirect quotes are not put into quotation marks. This lets the
reader/grader/me know that this is not your own idea but has been derived from the original source
material (i.e., the Andrejevic/Selwyn book) but put into your own words.
15
Next Class:
Politics & The Internet
•
S Salem “Creating Spaces for Dissent. The Role of Social Media in the 2011 Egyptian
Revolution.” In D. Trottier ed., Social Media, Politics and the State NY: Routledge, 2015, pp.
171-188.
•
W. Wong & P. Brown “E-Bandits in Global Activism: Wikileaks, Anonymous, and the Politics of
No One.” Perspectives on Politics Vol. 11, No 4 (December 2013): 1015-1033.
16
POL 507 – Winter 2024
Power & Change in Technological Society
Class 6 Book Review
©Robert Marshall
Dept of Politics & Public Administration
Toronto Metropolitan University
1
The copyright to this original work is held by Robert Marshall and students registered in
POL 507 can use this material for the purposes of this course but no other use is permitted,
and there can be no sale or transfer or use of the work for any other purpose without
explicit permission of Robert Marshall.
Introduction
At this point in the term, you should have completed or being
nearing completion reading the Andrejevic/Selwyn book Facial
Recognition for your graded book review assignment. Details on the due
date etc. are found in the course syllabus and on D2L. I want to take this
opportunity to go over the assignment with the class to make sure you
understand what is being asked of you.
This is a critical book review which means it is not a simple chapter
summary of the chosen book. I do not want to read “In chapter one
Andrejevic/Selwyn says….in chapter two they say…. etc.” Any review
that does this will, at best, get an automatic grade of 60%. And the grade
could very well go lower depending on the quality of the work potentially
pushing the grade down into the D or F range. Don’t forget, as I informed
the class, as an upper-level Liberal Arts elective I expect everybody to
have the reading, writing and critical analysis skills of senior university
students. And I will grade to that expectation no matter what year you are
currently registered in.
2
Something also to keep in mind that can have a negative impact on
the grade: do not use any other sources except the Andrejevic/Selwyn
book. This is not a research paper but a critical review. If other sources
are used, I will deduct grades.
You don’t need a title page. Save some formatting time. And you do
not need to have headers or footers with your name or student number in
them. I mark blind [or as much as possible given the reviews are being
uploaded to D2L which does give instructors the option of blind marking]
and having this info on each page makes that very challenging. Do not
use subsection headings [Thesis, Methods, Evidence, Recommendations].
They tend to be nothing more that space filler and disrupts the “flow” and
“continuity” of your review. They are included in the assignment
instructions so that everybody is aware of the 4 components of a book
review; but, do to use them in your submitted version for the reasons
outlined above.
You should start your review on page one with a ½ page summary
of the overall book in the first opening paragraph. Introduce the authors
names and the book title in your first sentence before you proceed to the
short summary. If someone unfamiliar with the book wanted to pick it up
and read it, you need to tell them what it is about. This helps to build their
3
expectations for it. Keep it to the ½ page summary. But again, avoid
chapter x chapter summarization.
The second paragraph on page one is where you get into the actual
book review by addressing the Thesis Statement component of the
assignment. This should only take up approximately a ½ page. While this
is the shortest part of the review it is the most important part of it. The
remaining three sections of the review are built around the thesis
statement. A Thesis Statement is the main point or argument that an author
or authors is/are trying to convey to their reader. By the time you finish
reading a book you should be able to say to yourself whether you agree,
or disagree, with an author’s thesis statement and hence overall argument.
But to be able to do this you have to know what that argument is.
So…where you able to locate the author’s Thesis Statement? If you
believe you have found it, I want you to quote it directly in your review
and tell me the page (or pages) you believe you found it on. [Discussion
of referencing system below] Conversely, if you do not feel the authors
had a clear Thesis Statement, or you were unable to locate it, then say that
in this section. I’m not asking you to come up with your own Thesis
Statement. It’s the authors thesis statement that this component of the
assignment is focused on.
4
The next two components of the review – Methods and Evidence –
are interrelated; and I would recommend 2 pages for each.
Methods is a shorter version of Methodology. What types of
research tools – or methods – do the authors use to gather the evidence to
support their Thesis Statement? Methods tell a reader a lot about whether
to trust an author or authors. Suppose I set out to write a book about
Brazilian labor relations. But I sat in my university office in downtown
Toronto and just surfed the net for information and web-based materials.
Would that make me an expert on the topic? Probably not. Most readers
would question my ‘expertise’. Readers might ask ‘why didn’t Marshall
go to Brazil and interview labor leaders or business owners or government
officials or knowledgeable academics? Why didn’t he use primary
government or statistical documents?’ Etc. Every author is trying to
convince you that they are the expert on the book’s subject matter, and
you should believe what they are writing. One way they try to do so is
through their research methodology. It can give validity to their overall
thesis. Think about how you have researched written essays for other
courses – perhaps other liberal arts courses. How have you gone about
gathering the information, facts or data to support your argument? That’s
what methods refers to. Not the actual evidence itself; but the different
types of research tools employed to gather the evidence. Give examples
of their research tools; and don’t forget to properly reference them.
5
Evidence is related to methods. You should devote 2 pages of your
review to this section. Give selective but representative examples of their
evidence; and don’t forget to properly reference them. Evidence is the
facts, information and data itself that has been gathered to support their
Thesis Statement. It’s the details and the content of the book. Give some
concrete examples of the kinds of evidence used in the book; and again,
don’t forget to reference them. Was there evidence missing that you
believe could have strengthened the argument? Did the authors make any
obvious errors in their book? You don’t have the time to fact check
everything in the book, so when I say obvious errors, I mean they have to
be something that jumps right off the page, and you know immediately it
is mistakenly wrong. Going back to my Brazilian labor example, if I wrote
that the capital of Brazil was Portlandia most readers would immediately
see that error. If a book is full of errors you start to question the authors;
and, the argument they are trying to convince you of. “Maybe Marshall’s
not the expert on South American labor relations that he thinks he is…?”
So, if you are keeping a tally of the page length you have now
completed 5 of the 6 full pages assigned. The last page of the assignment
is for your Recommendations. This is where you tell the reader your
overall feelings about the book. But justify your opinion. Tell me: did
you love it, why or why not? Or did you abhor it, why or why not? Be
specific and be honest with your opinion. As rude as this sounds, I don’t
6
care what your opinion of the book is. This is your book review and your
opinion. But you must justify it. Don’t worry what mine is and try to shape
your review into something you think I want to read. In this section you
can most definitely use first person. Put your voice into it. The other thing
this final section is requiring you to do is tell me who do you think would
benefit from reading the Andrejevic/Selwyn book? Whether you
personally loved or hated it, authors are trying to reach a specific audience
whom they believe will benefit from reading their book. Be specific.
Don’t be general or generic. I don’t want to read statements such as
“everybody should read it” or “anybody taking a political science course
should read it”.
Review the syllabus for the specifics on font size, margins, spacing
etc. But note the assignment is only 6 pages in length. This may appear to
be a short assignment, but my guess is that for many in the class this may
be the first time you have written a book review for a graded assignment.
Writing a short assignment can be trickier than you might think! It means
you must be exact with your wording; and, you don’t have the space to go
off on tangents. Finally writing to the terms of an assignment contributes
to the grading alongside content. That means meeting due date/time,
assigned length etc. If you find when you have finished your first draft of
the review it is longer than 6 full pages, you will need to edit it to meet
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the assigned length. If it’s shorter than 6 full pages, you need to revisit it
and expand on the content.
Book Review Referencing:
To keep the referencing process simple use the following system in
your book review. As I do not want you to use other sources, your sole
source is the book under review itself. Do the referencing in the body of
the paper itself. Do not use footnotes or endnotes.
When you take an author’s words and quote them in your review exactly
as written, this is called a direct quote. It must be put into quotation marks
and page reference(s) must be provided:
1. A quote from a single page looks like this: (p. _).
2. A quote that is taken from two pages looks like this: (pp. _-_). So,
for example, if a direct quote starts at the bottom of one page and
continues onto the top of the next page (for example pp.4-5) this is
the style to use. Try not to use too many lengthy direct quotes. They
should be used to support your argument, not make them for you.
3. If a direct quote is more than three lines in length, put it into Block
Quote Formation: indented and single-spaced – and some
formatting styles recommend using a smaller font. Block quotes do
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not need to be put into quotation marks as it is implied by the
formatting itself.
In the example above the Block Quote is highlighted but only for
demonstrative purposes. This in not done in your review. Note how the
quote in indented and single spaced. And don’t forget to include the
page(s) reference at the end of the quote.
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If you take the authors words but put them into your own words in the
review, this is called an indirect quote. You must still provide a page
reference using the same system as above [ignoring Block Quotes as it
does not apply in this situation]. The only difference is that indirect quotes
are not put into quotation marks. This lets the reader/grader/me know that
this is not your own idea but has been derived from the original source
material (i.e. the Andrejevic/Selwyn book) but put into your own words.
Unfortunately given the enrolment size of the course and that I am
also teaching 2 other courses this term, I do not have the luxury of reading
drafts of your review. If you have any specific questions however, please
contact me.
Good luck with your reading and writing.
Robert Marshall
[email protected]
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https://lthj.qut.edu.au/
Volume 5 (1) 2023
LAW, TECHNOLOGY AND HUMANS
https://doi.org/10.5204/lthj.2908
Book Review
Mark Andrejevic and Neil Selwyn (2022) Facial
Recognition. Cambridge: Polity Press
Pedro Zucchetti Filho
Australian National University, Australia
ISBN: 150954732
Authored by leading experts in facial recognition in Australia, Facial Recognition presents a comprehensive account of the
diversified facial recognition technology (FRT) applications in multiple scenarios. Andrejevic and Selwyn draw on interesting
contemporary examples, such as FRT usage by employers seeking to analyse a job applicant’s compatibility, retail stores aiming
to detect clients’ satisfaction and preferences, and law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
The book is neatly structured, consisting of a preface, the main body (comprising seven chapters) and an epilogue. The authors
helpfully address FRT’s main characteristics in the first two chapters, in addition to clarifying its historical development and
delineating its essential concepts.1 The third chapter focuse
