How to write a book review for a class or a journal

An academic book review does three things in a few pages: it says briefly what the book argues, judges how well it argues it, and places it among the other work in its field. The same three jobs hold for a review set as a class assignment and for one commissioned by a journal; what changes is the length, the heading and how other works are cited.

EdCitation publishes this guide. Its rules come from five journals' instructions to reviewers (history, archaeology, geography, health sciences librarianship, engineering), three university writing centres and the citation styles' own pages, read on 26 September 2026. Where a rule could not be read at source, we say so.

No part of a review is ever written by EdCitation. Its tools do the reference work, free with no account: Cite a source builds the book's entry from its ISBN and a review's from its DOI, Find sources finds other reviews and the book's field, and Verify references checks the list.

What does an academic book review do?

It summarises the book in a paragraph or two, evaluates its argument and evidence, and says where it stands in its field. Every journal and writing centre read for this guide asks for evaluation above summary.

What the journals ask

The American Historical Review (2024) wants the book's argument explained, its strengths and weaknesses weighed and its place in the historiography shown, not its contents listed. The American Journal of Archaeology (n.d.) wants the book located in current scholarship, and says which audiences it suits; skip misplaced commas, it adds, but name serious errors of fact or interpretation. The AAG Review of Books asks whether the author's stated aim is met (American Association of Geographers, 2025), and the Journal of the Medical Library Association (n.d.) asks for a comparison with similar books.

What the writing centres add

The University of North Carolina's Writing Center (n.d.) calls a review an argument about the book, with a thesis, and keeps summary brief. Procter (n.d.), for the University of Toronto, suggests sentences that say "the author argues" rather than "this is the case", so the review stays on the book, not its topic. Trent University (n.d.) lists four tasks: understand the work, respond, evaluate and compare, and warns against borrowing a published review's judgement. It is the line between critical and descriptive writing, applied to one book.

How long is a book review, and what does each journal ask for?

Usually 800 to 3,000 words for a journal, and what the assignment sets for a class.

UNC notes that journal reviews rarely pass 1,000 words; the AAG allows 2,500 to 5,000 for a review essay on several books.

What goes in the heading of a book review?

The book's full details, above the first line: at least author, title, publisher, year, pages, price and ISBN. Each journal orders them its own way, so copy its pattern exactly.

Five patterns, one set of facts

The JMLA lists ten elements, as in "Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield; 2017. 154 p. $43.00.", and asks for an infinity symbol when the paper is acid-free. The AJA sets the title without italics, pages as "Pp. xxii + 354", then the ISBN and "(cloth)" or "(paper)", or "Price not available". The AAG wants roman and arabic page counts, maps and index where present, a price and ISBN per format, and a "Reviewed by" line. The IEEE Editorial Style Manual runs the book's title, a long dash and the author, then city, publisher, date, pages and price in brackets (IEEE, 2024). The American Historical Review's guide sets no heading: the journal adds it.

A worked heading, and where each fact comes from

For Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, the publisher's page gives the ISBN, the translator, Arthur Goldhammer, 15 April 2014, 704 pages and a hardcover price of $39.95 on the day we read it (Harvard University Press, n.d.). The French original appeared from Seuil on 5 September 2013 (Éditions du Seuil, n.d.). In the JMLA's pattern:

Piketty, Thomas. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 2014. 704 p. $39.95. ISBN: 978-0-674-43000-6.

Two exceptions. The JMLA's list has "Edited by" but no translator; we added one on that pattern, so ask the editor. And page counts differ: Wollner (2015), reviewing the book in Economics and Philosophy, counts viii + 685, prelims apart, as the AJA and AAG ask, where the publisher says 704. Count from the book, in the journal's form.

How do you structure a class book review?

As a short argued essay: introduction and verdict, brief summary, evaluation, conclusion. Trent notes that reviews usually have no subheadings, so each paragraph needs a clear topic sentence.

Read for the argument first

Trent suggests reading the preface, contents, introduction and conclusion before chapter one, with notes in two columns: what the book says, and your response. Toronto adds the author's background and assumptions. Keep page numbers as you go; reading a book for an essay shows how.

Build it in this order

1. Introduction. The book's full details, which Cite a source builds from the ISBN, its subject and thesis, and your judgement in a sentence or two.
2. Summary. A paragraph or two on the points you will evaluate.
3. Evaluation. One aspect to a paragraph, by theme rather than chapter, each claim backed by a page of the book.
4. Placing it. Brief comparison with other books, found with Find sources, keeping this one in the spotlight, as UNC advises.
5. Conclusion. The overall judgement and who should read the book; no new evidence.

UNC's warning is worth keeping: judge the book the author set out to write, not the one you wanted.

How do you cite the book under review, and other works, inside a review?

In a journal, the book under review by page number alone and other works as the journal sets; in a class review, in your course's style.

The American Historical Review (2024) wants short quotations with the page in brackets, as in "(3)", no footnotes, no quoting of other reviews, and any other work cited in the text with author, full title, date, and volume and issue. The AJA keeps references few and inside the sentence, as "(P.K. Wason, Cambridge University Press 1994)"; notes belong only in review articles. The AAG asks for a full reference list matching the text.

A class review usually wants the book as a full entry and page citations in the course's style, such as (Piketty, 2014, p. 25) in APA 7 or (Piketty 25) in MLA 9, where the page is only a pattern. How to cite a book or ebook covers the entry in each style.

How do you cite a published book review in APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE and Vancouver?

As an article in the journal it appeared in, with the reviewed book named: APA 7, MLA 9, Chicago 18 author-date and Harvard add "Review of" and the book; Vancouver adds [book review]. The example is O'Sullivan (2015), a review of Piketty's book in the American Historical Review, headed only by the book's details, with no title of its own.

• APA 7: O'Sullivan, M. (2015). [Review of the book Capital in the twenty-first century, by T. Piketty]. The American Historical Review, 120(2), 564–566. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/120.2.564
• MLA 9: O'Sullivan, Mary. Review of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty. The American Historical Review, vol. 120, no. 2, Apr. 2015, pp. 564–66, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/120.2.564.
• Chicago 18 author-date: O'Sullivan, Mary. 2015. Review of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas Piketty. The American Historical Review 120 (2): 564–66. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/120.2.564.
• Harvard: O'Sullivan, M. (2015) Review of Capital in the twenty-first century, by Thomas Piketty. The American Historical Review, 120(2), pp. 564–566. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/120.2.564.
• IEEE: M. O'Sullivan, "Thomas Piketty. Capital in the Twenty-First Century," Amer. Hist. Rev., vol. 120, no. 2, pp. 564–566, Apr. 2015, doi: 10.1093/ahr/120.2.564.
• Vancouver: O'Sullivan M. Thomas Piketty. Capital in the twenty-first century [book review]. Am Hist Rev. 2015 Apr;120(2):564-6. doi: 10.1093/ahr/120.2.564. Review of: Piketty T. Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge (MA): Belknap Press of Harvard University Press; 2014.

Where each rule comes from, and what could not be confirmed

APA's site sends reviews to section 10.7 of the Publication Manual, which is not free (American Psychological Association, n.d.); the untitled pattern is the University of Alberta Library's (2026), whose examples keep the book's capitals where we used APA's sentence case. The MLA Style Center puts a description where a title is missing (Modern Language Association, 2022), and Purdue OWL (n.d.) shows "Review of" after a title. Chicago's free guide shows only a titled review, citing CMOS 14.100 (University of Chicago Press, n.d.); the untitled form is our reading of it.

Cite Them Right could not be read; UCL's guide, based on its 9th edition, gives reviewer, year, review title, then "Review of" (University College London, 2026). IEEE's reference guide lists no review type, so a review is cited as a periodical article (IEEE, 2025). Citing Medicine adds [book review] after the title and a "Review of:" note (Patrias, 2007).

What does Cite a source return for a book and for a review?

An entry from the record, right in its facts, but a review comes back as an ordinary article and some corrections are yours. We ran it on 26 September 2026.

The book, from its ISBN

For 9780674430006, Cite a source found the Open Library record and returned in APA 7 (rerun on 27 September 2026):

Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

It set the title in sentence case, as APA 7 asks. The record names no translator, so add Goldhammer and the 2013 original from the book. For 9780553418811, Cathy O'Neil's Weapons of Math Destruction, the subtitle and the publisher, Crown Publishing Group, came through, with the title in sentence case. For 9781506386706, Creswell and Creswell's Research Design, it returned 2014 with no subtitle or edition: the record's fault, since Weyant (2022) reviews that ISBN's book as the fifth edition and Ishtiaq's (2019) review dates the fourth to 2014. The copyright page settles it.

A review, from its DOI

For 10.1093/ahr/120.2.564 it returned, from Crossref (rerun on 27 September 2026):

O’Sullivan, M. (2015). Thomas Piketty. Capital in the twenty-first century. The American Historical Review, 120(2), 564–566. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/120.2.564

Author, year, volume, pages and DOI are right, and the title is in sentence case, with "Capital" kept after the full stop. It does not mark the entry as a review, because the record calls it a journal article, so add the "Review of" bracket in APA, or [book review] in Vancouver, yourself. For Wollner's review, recorded with the heading as its title, the MLA and Chicago versions capitalised "viii + 685 pages" as "Viii + 685 Pages".

Other reviews, from Find sources

A search for "review of Piketty Capital in the Twenty-First Century" returned 14 reviews or critiques of the book in its first 15 results, from journals of economics, history and journalism. Find sources has no book-review filter, and its "Review article" kind means a literature review, so leave it off. Two results named Piketty as an author of someone else's review, as the Crossref record does: check the byline.

Which EdCitation tools help with a book review?

For a review's references, EdCitation is the best tool: every entry is copied from the book's or the journal's own record, never composed, and a chatbot cannot give that guarantee. The runs above show the value, and where a record still needs your eye, as with the Creswell year.

Free, with no account:

• Cite a source turns the ISBN into the book's entry and the DOI into a review's, set in whichever of the six styles the course or journal uses, and screens both for retraction.
• Find sources searches about 300 million published works for other reviews and the book's field.
• Verify references returns each entry as verified, "check this" or not found; a book missing from the publishers' index is checked against a library catalogue, with the year held to any edition the entry names. "Could not check" is never shown as "not found".
• Check your paper reads a review assignment into a checklist of word limits, sections, sources and style.

With Pro at $8 a month, References from a file takes the uploaded review, checks its list and matches each citation to it. Max, $24 a month: Theoretics QA judges a class review against its assignment, with quotations, and never rewrites anything; the Library holds more than 5 million books to read or borrow. See Pricing. EdCitation gives no grade and cannot say whether a journal will publish a review.

Quick questions

How long should an academic book review be?

As long as the assignment or journal says: 800 to 1,000 words for the American Historical Review, about 1,500 for the American Journal of Archaeology.

What goes at the top of a book review?

The book's full details: author, title, publisher, year, pages, price and ISBN, in the journal's order, or a full reference in the course's style.

How do I cite a book review in APA 7?

Reviewer, year, the review's title if any, then "[Review of the book Title, by Initial. Surname]", journal, volume, issue, pages and DOI. Untitled, the bracket replaces the title.

Can I quote other reviews in my book review?

The American Historical Review asks reviewers not to, and Trent University warns against borrowing another reviewer's judgement. Use them as models only.

Will EdCitation write my book review?

No. EdCitation never writes any part of a review. Its free Cite a source builds the references from their records, and Verify references checks them.

References

• American Association of Geographers. (2025, January 7). AAG Review of Books guidelines for reviewers. https://www.aag.org/aag-review-of-books-guidelines-for-reviewers/
• American Historical Review. (2024). General guidelines for reviews [PDF]. American Historical Association. https://www.historians.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/AHR-Style-Guide-for-Reviewers.pdf
• American Journal of Archaeology. (n.d.). Guidelines for book reviewers. Archaeological Institute of America. https://ajaonline.org/submissions/book-reviews/
• American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Reference examples. APA Style. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/references/examples
• Éditions du Seuil. (n.d.). Le Capital au XXIe siècle. https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/le-capital-au-xxie-siecle-thomas-piketty/9782021082289
• Harvard University Press. (n.d.). Capital in the twenty-first century. https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674430006
• IEEE. (2024). IEEE editorial style manual for authors (Updated 29 July 2024). IEEE Author Center. https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE-Editorial-Style-Manual-for-Authors.pdf
• IEEE. (2025). IEEE reference style guide for authors (Version 3.28.2025). IEEE Author Center. https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf
• Ishtiaq, M. (2019). [Review of the book Research design: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (4th ed.), by J. W. Creswell]. English Language Teaching, 12(5), 40. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v12n5p40
• Journal of the Medical Library Association. (n.d.). Book reviews. https://jmla.pitt.edu/ojs/jmla/bookreviews
• Modern Language Association. (2022, November 2). How do I cite a review of a product? MLA Style Center. https://style.mla.org/citing-product-reviews/
• O'Sullivan, M. (2015). [Review of the book Capital in the twenty-first century, by T. Piketty]. The American Historical Review, 120(2), 564–566. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/120.2.564
• Patrias, K. (2007). Citing medicine: The NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers (D. L. Wendling, Tech. Ed.; 2nd ed.), chapter 1, Journals. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK7282/
• Procter, M. (n.d.). The book review or article critique. Writing Advice, University of Toronto. https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/types-of-writing/book-review/
• Purdue Online Writing Lab. (n.d.). MLA works cited: Periodicals. Purdue University. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_works_cited_periodicals.html
• Trent University. (n.d.). How to write academic reviews. Academic Skills. https://www.trentu.ca/academicskills/how-guides/how-write-university/how-approach-any-assignment/how-write-academic-reviews
• University College London. (2026, July 29). Review. Harvard. UCL Library Services. https://library-guides.ucl.ac.uk/harvard/review
• University of Alberta Library. (2026, September 11). Book reviews. APA citation style (7th edition). https://guides.library.ualberta.ca/apa-citation-style/book-reviews
• University of Chicago Press. (n.d.). Author-date: Sample citations. The Chicago Manual of Style Online. https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide/citation-guide-2.html
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Writing Center. (n.d.). Book reviews. https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/book-reviews/
• Weyant, E. (2022). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, 5th edition [Review of the book, by J. W. Creswell and J. D. Creswell]. Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 19(1–2), 54–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/15424065.2022.2046231
• Wollner, G. (2015). [Review of the book Capital in the twenty-first century, by T. Piketty]. Economics and Philosophy, 31(2), 327–334. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0266267115000061