Book review submissions

We invite book reviews of recent academic book publications whose content is aligned with the scope of the DCJ journal. The word limit for book reviews is 1,500 words including references.

If you wish to review a book for DCJ, please contact the book review editor directly (email preferred). If you have a specific book in mind please provide publication details (title, authors/editors, publication year, publisher) and we may be able to organise a review copy for you. If you have no specific book in mind, we may be able to offer you a recent publication for review that matches with your areas of interest and/or expertise. Book reviewers may keep the review copy upon submission of their review.

Author guidelines

Book reviews should be between 1,000 and 1,500 words (including title and references), be submitted in OpenOffice or Word format and use APA referencing style (6th edition).

A book review should:

  • be sole-authored
  • state whether the review is undertaken from a specific vantage point (e.g. when a legal scholar reviews a history book)
  • state what the book author is attempting to achieve with the book and whether they achieved what they set out to do
  • provide an overview of the structure and structural elements of the book
  • provide a brief summary of the book content
  • specify the audience the book may be suited for
  • identify strengths and weaknesses of the book
  • state how the book fits into the field and relates to other publications
  • conclude with a summary assessment (buy, borrow or don’t bother)
  • only cite references absolutely essential to support the review.

General layout

A4, portrait, margins 2.5cm left, right, top and bottom.

A book review should not contain subheadings.

A book review should not have a separate title page.

As the book review title, provide details of the reviewed book, for example:

Monish Bhatia, Scott Poynting and Waqas Tufail (eds.) Media, Crime and Racism, Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, Switzerland, 2018; 391 pp. 978-3-319-71775, € 160,49 (hbk), 978-3-319-71776-0, € 118,99 (e-book)

Body Text: Calibri Light 11pt, justified, double-spaced

Reviewer name: Calibri light, 11pt, bold only last name(s); e.g., Anthony Garcia Gonzales

Reviewer affiliation: Calibri light, 11pt, e.g., Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand

Mailing address of corresponding author

Email address of corresponding author

References

Use APA referencing style (6th edition). Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa).

In-text reference example

Moa constrictor first appeared in 1840 (Smith, 2000a, 2000b, 1999; Tuscany & Jones, 1999; Zappa et al., 2010). Zappa et al. (2010) assert that… but according to Tuscany and Jones (1999) the Moa…

The reference list should be arranged alphabetically. Multiple publications by the same author should be arranged chronologically (the earlier one first). More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified by lower case letters placed after the year of publication.

Book, one author

Kakapo, J. (2006). Freedom next time: The Moa and its social construction. London, England: Bantam.

Book, two authors

Morpork, R., & Ruru, C. (2008). Moa policy in New Zealand: Institutions, processes and outcomes. Auckland, New Zealand: Pearson Education.

Book, three authors

Tui, G. J., Fantail, C. T., & Robin, W. E. (2009). The Moa handbook (4th ed.). New York, NY: St Martin’s Press.

Book chapter

Moa, B. (2008). Does constriction affect Moa health? In K. Dew & A. Matheson (Eds.), Understanding health inequalities in Aotearoa New Zealand (pp. 97–106). Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Press.

Journal article

Toucan, E. T. (2014). An overview of cyberbullying in Moa education. Adult Learning, 26(1), 21–27.

Newspaper article with author

Kiwi, E. (2007, November 1). Myth-busting the Moa. New Zealand Herald. Retrieved from http://www.stuff.co.nz/nzh/

Newspaper article, no author

Moa inquiry doubted. (2009, April 23). The Dominion Post, p. 5. Retrieved from http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/

Website

Kea, R. (n.d.). How to speak Moa. Retrieved April 12, 2009, from http://www.tereomoa.ac.nz

Peer review

Book reviews should be pre-approved by the DJC book editor to avoid duplication and to ensure that the content of the reviewed book fits the scope of the journal. Book reviews are not subject to peer-review but quality assurance by the book editor.