GUIDELINES FOR BOOK REVIEWERS

Dear Book Reviewers,

The Book Review Section of our journal has been a source of important information for researchers and practitioners for more than 30 years. We take book reviews with a lot of seriousness!

Therefore we would like to ask you to do things a bit differently than a standard review.

Traditional book reviews typically consist of three-quarters summary and one-quarter assessment. This approach aims to inform readers about a book’s content from a scholarly perspective. However, with AI tools now capable of generating instant summaries, such reviews are becoming less valuable.

Therefore, we encourage you to focus on assessment rather than summary. Instead of providing a neutral description followed by your opinion, we ask that you guide the reader through your analysis, weighing strengths, arguments and weaknesses. Of course, we expect the book to be treated fairly, but our readers want to understand your informed perspective on its contribution to the field. In short, we welcome balanced, scholarly criticism that offers a strong, critical reading.

We believe that this will make the review more interesting both for you and for the reader.

Technical information

• Word count: 600-800.
• Provide the full bibliographical information for the book as follows:
  Lawler, Michael G.: Marriage and the Catholic Church: Disputed Questions, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002. – xiii, 226 p.
• After the initial mention of the author’s full name, all subsequent references are to be by initial only, followed by a period, e.g. L. or L.’s.
• Include your name and city at the end of your review.
• Use only italics for emphasis (not bold or underline).
• Be very sparing with quoted material and do not use footnotes; avoid citing your own or other works.
• References to the text of the book should be noted in parentheses, giving the page number (8).
• Your review may be in English, French, German, or Italian. However, if you do not write in your native language, then please have your text revised by a native speaker before submitting it to us.

 Editing

• The editors reserve the right to edit book reviews for length, clarity, style, or tone prior to publication in order to ensure that all reviews meet our editorial expectations and reflect the seriousness with which we take the book reviews.
• Once your review is formally published, it will be available in Open Access from our publisher’s website.
• Permission to post the review on personal or departmental websites is granted.
• Marriage, Families & Spirituality accepts requests to review forthcoming books.

Submit reviews to intamsreview@intams.org.