Basic Requirements:  Each standard book review will be from three to five pages long (c.800 - 1300 words), type-written and doublespaced. A double book review (that is, a review of a book long enough to count for two) will be from five to eight pages long. To avoid problems of accidental loss, two copies of each review must be made (one for the instructor and one to be retained by the student).
 

A typical book review for Van Hall courses will

• identify the book completely: title, author, date
• describe what the book is about
• explain how the book is organized
• evaluate the book, being careful to give reasons for why it is good or bad
• describe the author's qualifications and possible bias
• indicate the author's main sources of information
• include any other information useful to prospective readers
  

BIOGRAPHY RESOURCE CENTER + THE COMPLETE MARQUIS WHO'S WHO
More than 330,000 biographies on more than 220,000 people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas, combined from nearly 80 respected reference sources and with full-text articles from more than 250 periodicals, plus more than 990,000 thumbnail biographies from Who's Who sources.  (Click here for How to Access Databases from Off-Campus.)

DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY
Ref DA 28 .D56
A compendium of famous British figures from earliest times to 1960.

AMERICAN NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY
Ref CT 213 .A68 1999
Biographical information on Americans, or others who made significant contributions while living in America, who died prior to 1996.

LITERATURE RESOURCE CENTER
Rich in biographical, bibliographical, and critical content, LRC includes information on authors and their works on history. LRC sources include Contemporary Authors Online.
 

BOOK REVIEW INDEX ONLINE PLUS
Includes more than 5 million review citations, plus more than 634,000 full-text reviews from InfoTrac OneFile and InfoTrac Expanded Academic.

BOOK REVIEW DIGEST
Ref PN 44 .B66
Identifies where to find book reviews in magazines and journals and often includes excerpts from the reviews. Look in the volume for the year (1905 to the present) in which the book was published, then alphabetically by the author's last name.

INFOTRAC ONEFILE
Identifies where to find book reviews in magazines and journals; may also include the full-text of the reviews. Use only for books published in the last 25 years. Search by using the author's name or the title of the book.

ACADEMIC SEARCH PREMIER
Also identifies where to find book reviews in magazines and journals. Full text for nearly 4,700 publications, including full text for more than 3,600 peer-reviewed journals. Coverage dates as far back as 1975.  Use the Advanced Search screen and in the "Document Type" area, select "Book Review" along with typing in your author's name in the search field.

WILSONWEB OMNIFILE
Indexes book reviews and provides full text from magazines and journals. Search using the author's name or the book title. On the search screen, go to the "Document Type" box and select "book review". Another option is to select "books reviewed" from the "as" drop-down box on the right of the screen after putting in the titles in the search box on the left. See the icon legend at the top of the results list to identify which articles are in full-text or full-image in the database

AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE
Historical coverage of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present, from over 2,000 journals. Includes references to articles and book reviews. Use the Advanced Search screen. Type the author's name or the book title in the KEYWORD field and select "book review" as the document type.

HISTORICAL ABSTRACTS
Historical coverage of the world from 1450 to the present (excluding the United States and Canada), from over 2,000 journals.  Includes references to articles and book reviews. Use the Advanced Search screen. Type the author's name or the book title in the KEYWORD field and select "book review" as the document type.

LITERATURE RESOURCE CENTER
Rich in biographical, bibliographical, and critical content, LRC includes book reviews works of history. Most articles are in full-text. Use the Advanced Search function to search by author. Then, on the author's biographical screen, click on the tab at the top for "Literary Criticism, Articles, and Work Overviews".

See also How to Access Databases from Off-Campus