The Art of the Review

This episode is about the scholarly obituary and presents two different approaches to the enterprise of reviewing a scholar's life. Tasked with "reviewing" the life of historian and his own mentor, Dr. Raymond A. Mohl, Robert interviews H-War editor David Silbey about his review of distinguished military historian John Keegan. Robert and Yelena then talk about some considerations, like what to include and the issue of objectivity. Links to the obituaries and interviews discussed are below.

In this episode, Yelena and Robert discuss the benefits and drawbacks of writing short reviews. Yelena mentions The New Yorker's regular Briefly Noted reviews, which prove without a doubt that writing skill matters in the short review.

In this episode, we return to the topic of peer review, this time discussing the peer review process for editing and publishing scholarly editions. Robert interviews Mark Kamrath, a Professor of English at the University of Central Florida.

In this episode, Robert continues the discussion of reviews we liked with H-Net copyeditors Charlotte Weber and Basia Nowak. The reviews discussed are below.

More reviews we liked:

In this second part of our two-part episode on professionalism, Robert and Yelena discuss how network advisory boards can help review editors vet a review's tone prior to publication.

This episode dispenses some straightforward advice about the use of quotes in reviews. Robert speaks with H-Net copyeditors Charlotte Weber and Basia Nowak about some dos and don'ts of using quotations in reviews.

A review we mentioned in the episode was:

This is the first of a two-part episode about professionalism in academic book reviewing. In this episode, Robert and Yelena look at H-Net's guidelines for professionalism and speak with H-Net copyeditors Basia Nowak and Charlotte Weber about two reviews that constructively critique the books under review. 

This episode, which we are calling The Living Review, takes as its point of departure the idea of looking back to a review after some years or decades. Robert and Yelena discuss an interview Robert did with James Struthers, professor of Canadian Studies at Trent University in Ontario. Prof. Struthers looks back at a review he wrote in 1994 for the now defunct H-State list.