Thank you for agreeing to review a book for the Journal of Southern Religion. Reviews are a vital part of the Journal. At their best, as historian Steven Stowe has observed, reviews are a "vernacular form of scholarly talk" that assess where we are, where we are going, and how we might best reshape our work.

When you receive your review copy, please send a short confirmation message to the book review editor, Lee Willis. 

Within eight weeks, please submit your review to Dr. Willis for approval and editing. 

Please refer to the guidelines below as you write.

JSR seeks reviews that: 

1. Tell plainly what the book says and for whom it is written. Most readers read reviews to learn the scope and argument of a book. In addition, a careful assessment of the book's intended audience is of particular interest to the readers of an interdisciplinary journal such as the JSR. 

2. Set the author's argument in a broad context of scholarly analysis. Reviewers should bear in mind that scholars from a variety of disciplines will read the review. The perspectives of the reviewer's own discipline will be of great interest, but reviewers should avoid assessments based solely on issues of interest to those in a single field or subfield.

3. Suggest whether the author achieves the book's stated purpose and assesses the significance of that goal. Criticism is welcomed, of course, but it should be made only on courteous and constructive terms. The editors will either ask reviewers to rewrite sections that breach this standard or refuse the submission altogether. 

• Most reviews run between 500 and 1,000 words, but there is no formal limit. 

 
• All reviews should be submitted as an e-mail attachment in Word format to the book review editor. 

 
• Reviews should be single-spaced, flush at the left margin, and 60 to 75 columns wide. 

 

 

• The following information should appear at the top of the review: 


Author. Full Title of the Book. Place of Publishing: Publisher, Date of Publication. Number of Pages. ISBN. Reviewed by [Name of Author], For the Journal of Southern Religion.
 

• Please list your name and affiliation at the end of the essay. 

 
• Reviewers should consult the Chicago Manual of Style (14th edition) on all questions of style. Please supply page numbers for all quoted passages. Use the first name in the initial reference to any person (including the author). With organizations or acts, use the full name in the initial reference; all subsequent references may use initials or acronyms. Please supply publication dates of any books mentioned in the review. 

 
• Please proofread the text of the review carefully. 

 
• Questions should be directed to the book review editor. 

• All reviews commissioned by the Journal of Southern Religion are the exclusive property of the Journal. Reviews are considered a work made-for-hire, and, as such, all copyright rights to the review shall be owned by and be in the name of the Association for the Study of Southern Religion (ASSR). ASSR in turn grants all review authors the right to reprint their reviews in any format that they choose, without the payment of royalties, subject to giving proper credit to the original publication with the Journal of Southern Religion. ASSR also permits its reviews to be copied for non-profit educational use provided proper credit is given to the review author and the Journal. 

 
• All reviews will carry the following copyright statement: 


Copyright © 1997-20__ by the Journal of Southern Religion, all rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the author and the Journal of Southern Religion. For other permission, please contact the book review editor.

STATUS OF ELECTRONIC REVIEWS

Professional ethics dictate that a scholar can publish only one review of a book. Journal of Southern Religion reviews count as that one review. As indicated above, Journal reviewers have permission to republish their reviews provided that proper credit is given to the Journal of Southern Religion, but should not agree to write a separate review of the same work for a print journal.