Seven Components of a Successful Review

1. Introduce the subject of your critique--the piece under analysis and the author. Give some preliminary information about both. Then indicate the main point you intend to pursue in your discussion.

2. Review any background facts or issues that must be understood before the point of the article you are critiquing an be appreciated. Additional biographical data? Relation to larger issues or related concepts?

3. Review any information (including the author's key assumptions) that must be understood before the position you plan to take on the article can be appreciated. What are your assumptions? Do they differ or agree with those of the author?

4. Summarize the setting and the central conflict of the book. No editorialization yet. Be as objective as possible.
   NOTE: You may choose to reverse the order of steps 3 and 4.

   Analyze the author's depiction of book's topic, in terms of your own assumptions, as stated above. What can be learned from the book? Where is it flawed by overgeneralization, faulty reasoning, false assumptions, etc.? Is it overall a valuable piece, a useful piece with some minor problems, a brave attempt gone wrong, a totally misguided piece of garbage?

   Summarize and restate your conclusions, reminding the reader of the points you have made and your reasons for making them. You are not making arbitrary judgments but are measuring the validity of a presentation in terms of a carefully defined set of criteria you have provided. What emerges from your analysis?

   At the beginning, give your title for the review, and also give complete information about the book: author, title, place of publication, publisher, date, number of pages. Use this form:

   Marv E. Luss. How to Be Great. New York: Less Press, 1999. 308 pp.