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 IN CONTEXT
More than 450,000 biographies on more than 380,000 people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.

OXFORD DICTIONARY OF NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY
An illustrated collection of more than 50,000 specially written biographies of the men and women from around the world who shaped all aspects of Great Britain's past, from the earliest times to the end of the year 2000.

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 GENERAL 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 offers information dating 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

LITERATURE RESOURCE CENTER
Rich in biographical, bibliographical, and critical content, LRC includes book reviews on 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