Search the Anthropology Review Database

Instructions for Reviewers

General Instructions

  • Please complete your review within TWO MONTHS. If you cannot meet this deadline, let us know as soon as possible so we can make alternative arrangements.

  • Please stay in contact with the Review Editor who commissioned your review. They are the person to notify of any delays, and to whom you should send the completed review. To verify their address, consult our staff page, http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/staff.shtml. And please remember that we conduct 90% of our project online, so if your email address changes, let us know!

  • Please notify us when the item for review arrives and contact us if it has not arrived within a month. Special shipping arrangements may need to be made for some items.

  • If you have not already submitted a short personal biography for our reviewer database, please do at http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/modbio.cgi. This information will be available to those who read your review, and will also facilitate our selection process for future review items.

  • Format your review in Microsoft Word (ver. 6/95 or later), WordPerfect (ver. 5 for Windows or later), or ASCII/text. MAC users, be careful not to encode or binhex the file! (Other formats may be possible, but will delay or even prevent processing your work your work.)

  • Proofread your work carefully! Please check for spelling and grammatical mistakes, as well as citation errors.

  • Email your review to your Review Editor for approval. (This is the preferred medium for all communications.) If any changes are needed, the review editor will let you know. Then, once it is accepted, the review will be added to our database and made available through our Web site.

    If it is impossible for you to send your review by email, please contact us and we will make arrangements for you to send it by regular mail. In this case, use PC-formatted 3.5 inch diskette accompanied by a printed version. Use the following address:

    ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW DATABASE
    Hugh Jarvis, Editor
    c/o Department of Anthropology
    380 MFAC, University at Buffalo
    Buffalo, New York, USA 14261-0026
  • Nota bene: reviews are viewed as works-for-hire and become the exclusive property of the Anthropology Review Database. However, we readily grant you the right to reprint or distribute your review in any format which does not compromise our project, provided you give proper credit to the original publication in ARD. Additionally, be aware that ARD only allows use of its reviews for non-commercial purposes, and only if full credit is given to the original author and to ARD. Please contact the editors if you have any questions about these conditions.

Style Guide

  • General content and style should be suitable for serious students and scholars (i.e. adequate for publication in American Anthropologist, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, American Antiquity, or Archaeometry).

  • A good review will describe the work in its broad context, explaining its content and significance to scholars. Consider the work's stated purpose and discuss its strengths and weaknesses. In addition, please consider that many of our users will also be interested in these items for their educational potential. Typically we expect a minimum of 400 words.

  • Reviewers are responsible for a fair and balanced consideration of the work; please be constructive and courteous to the original author/producer. Reviews may be subject to editing or sent to the author for their response. In either case, the materials and comments will be returned to you by email to give you an opportunity to respond and/or refine your review.

  • Frequently readers of reviews have a few key questions in mind, especially with textbooks:
    • What do the various chapters/articles cover?
    • What supplementary materials are included (index, recommended readings, film guide, glossary, student exercises)?
    • To what level is the book geared (undergrads, graduate students, professionals)?
    • Are there illustrations (tables, graphs, maps, photos, etc.)? Are they useful?
    • With a new edition, is it significantly improved..? Does it cover new material?

  • Where possible, list one or more pertinent reviews of the work. This provides a broader, more diverse field of reference for the work under review -- an important goal of ARD.

  • The Review Editors oversee the review process and may require the reviewer to rewrite some or all of a draft submission. In addition, the Editors retain the right to make minor corrections (e.g. grammar or punctuation) or even to reject a review deemed unacceptable.

  • At the top of the review, please provide:

    • your name, email address, and institutional affiliation/location, all as you wish them listed with the review (please use the same version of your name as in your personal biography -- if you have not yet created one, please see our biography form)
    • full bibliographic information for the item reviewed
    • up to fifty word brief overview ("abstract") of the review

  • Length is at your discretion. Please be concise but cover the subject as required.

  • Please use English and place any non-English words or unusual jargon in italics.

  • Keep your writing style simple. Please use one font throughout (e.g. Times 12 point), and only bold, italics, and sub/superscript. (If you use text/ASCII format, you may indicate these stylistic features using squiggly-bracketed comments in the text; e.g. mana {italics}. In this case, please make sure that we know to look for these notations so that they are correctly converted when the review is published.)

  • Block quotations may be used for more than fifty words. Separate the quotation from the rest of the review in its own paragraph.

  • Single-space the text, but add an extra line between paragraphs.

  • Use left ("normal") justification.

  • Do not add extra spaces, tabs, indent, or section breaks.

  • Do not hyphenate words at the ends of lines.

  • Do not use page numbers.

  • If necessary, use endnotes to refer to related works or to refer to issues peripheral to the main discussion. In the review, mark the endnote with square brackets, such as "developments in theory [2]". Place the endnotes after the body of the review in a section titled Notes.

  • Significant related works may be cited in the body of the text as "(Smith 1990:21)" or "according to Smith's research (1990:21) ...", and then listed after any Notes in a References section.

  • Citations to the actual work reviewed can be made using parentheses, in the following style: (p.1), (pp.11-3), (pp.230-42), (pp.125,132).

  • Any Web site addresses (URL's) will be hyperlinked.

  • For all other questions of style, please follow the specific guidelines of the American Anthropologist, located online at (http://www.aaanet.org/aa/styleguide.htm).

  • If you have any questions, contact your Review Editor! (See our staff list for details.)

Page last modified:: Thursday, 18-May-2006 11:44:48 EDT
© Anthropology Review Database
(available online: http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/)

Return to ARD Home Page