[Updated: 5 March 2024]
For general instructions, please review:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/asia340hist379/assessment/#review
About 1,500 words. Due by the end of March 31 (through Turnitin; late policy: 4 points/day late).
Write a joint book review of two scholarly books on a topic relevant to this course. Before you submit your assignment, please do not read any of the reviews of the books you are reviewing.
Further Instructions
- Provide at the top standard citations of the books under review. When in doubt, use the Chicago Style.
- Provide a brief rationale for your choices of texts. Frame your rationale in the form of a question (“I am interested in how. . . .” or “I am interested in why. . . .”) and connect it with a claim or argument found in one of the assigned secondary sources.
- Provide pertinent information on the authors/editor(s). Keep this short (a sentence or two would suffice) and focus on their scholarly interests. A simple way to learn about the authors/editor(s) is to look up their profiles on their institutional websites.
- Provide a brief summary of each book. This is not the most important part, so don’t overdo this.
- Identify the central question(s) of each book.
- Identify the main argument(s) of each book, especially as they are related to your own interest/question.
- Reflect and comment on the primary sources used by the authors in question (feel free to examine the footnotes/endnotes/bibliography found in the texts). As far as you can tell, what kinds of primary sources are used? Discuss in some details at least one example from each book.
- Reflect and comment on how the authors would answer your question.
- Finally, if you have not done so throughout your review, be sure to compare and contrast the two books, especially in relations to your interest/question.
In general, I discourage the use of edited volumes (that is, collections of essays rather than single-author monographs). Please check with me if you must include one.
You should conclude your review with a brief statement on your overall evaluation of the books in question, and you should provide in-text citations for all quotations and examples cited or discussed.
A final note: A good (B-range) review is one that responds competently to the prompts above; an excellent (A-range) review is one that reflects careful reading of the books in question as well as meaningful engagement with the course content.
Draft (5%)
For general instructions, please review:
https://blogs.ubc.ca/asia340hist379/assessment/#review
For the draft (to be submitted through Turnitin) due by the end of March 1, please:
- Provide a list of 5 keywords you have used to help compile your bibliography.
- Create a bibliography of 5 scholarly books (that is, books with scholarly notes and bibliographies) on the subject you are interested in. Please be sure to use one of the standard citation formats (when in doubt, follow the Chicago style), and please indicate which catalog/database/bibliography (e.g., UBC Library) each title comes from. You may include up to two non-English-language books.
- Provide a paragraph (at least 300 words) explaining your research interests (“I am interested in how….” or “I am interested in why….”) and how the five books you have picked are connected with your interests as well as to the parameters of this course. You may look up the publisher’s websites for relevant information, but you must explain in your own words.
Since this draft is meant to help you settle on the two books you will eventually write your review, you are strongly advised to take at least a quick look at each of the titles included in your bibliography.
Finally, I have updated the course policy on the use of AI and similar tools. Students are also reminded that they must check with me before they engage a tutor/helper (human or otherwise) or collaborate with a classmate on an assignment.