Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Thomas Library, Bryn Mawr College
101 N. Merion Avenue
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899
(610) 526-7989. Fax: (610) 526-7475

Content  |  Format

A. Content

We expect that reviews will have:

•   a brief summary of the book's content and purpose, indicating its major sections;
•   an assessment of the argument and the use of evidence;
• a discussion of its place in current scholarship, i.e., aspects of the book which the reviewer thinks are important and innovative or of doubtful success or value;
• notice of factual errors and their gravity (presentation or appearance should generally be ascribed to the press, and content to the author).

We expect that reviews will not have:

• ad hominem arguments;
• longwindedness or excessive detail (you're judging the author's case, not re-making it);
• excessive quotation, either of the book or of primary sources;
• attacks for not being the book you would have written.

The average review is 1500-2500 words. The longer and more detailed the review, the more important it is that the reviewer structures it so as to make the reader's work easier, and the Board may ask the reviewer to revise with that in view. The key idea is to structure the review in accordance with good journalism-the big picture clear as a bell in paragraph one (the contents, purpose and quality of the book, audience, accomplishments, etc., as noted above) followed by the expansive material and/or the details. Always end with a definite conclusion. The quibbling can be tacked on at the end. We ask that the reviewer remember that many readers will be interested only in getting an overview of the book; they should be able to extract what they need without having to work through masses of detail (no matter how important it is to the author and the reviewer).

BMCR accepts reviews in German, French, Italian and Spanish, as well as in English. All reviews are edited to bring them up to the standards of scholarly prose; if the editors judge that the submission requires excessive editorial intervention, the reviewer will be required to submit a revised version.

B. Format-Please do NOT neglect this section

• Separate paragraphs with a line space. DO NOT indent.
• If you wish to indent a long quotation, please use <Q>...</Q>.
• DO NOT use italics. Please tag anything in italics with <i> to start and </i> to stop, with no spaces after the start tag or before the stop tag, e.g., <i>nomen</i>.
• DO NOT use footnotes. Place the notes at the end of the main text, labeled [[1]], [[2]], [[3]], etc. (that is, the number of the note in double square brackets). References in the text must be made manually: type [[1]], [[2]], [[3]], etc., where you would otherwise place the footnote marks, e.g. "in the earlier book,[[1]] ..." Place references after punctuation marks without a space.
• DO NOT use special characters, e.g. §.
• DO NOT use the one-character ellipsis ( … ); use three periods instead.
• DO NOT use en or em dashes. Use -- for em dashes and a single hyphen for en dashes.

For accents use the appropriate symbols following the relevant letter:

For Greek use <G>...</G> and Beta code as follows:

Diacritical marks are represented by:

If the vowel is in lower case, diacritical marks appear after the vowel, breathing first, then accent, then subscript, e.g., <g>a)/|dw</g>, <g>e)kei=nos</g>. If the vowel is capitalized, put an asterisk before it and the diacritical marks after the asterisk, but before the vowel, e.g., <g>*)Axilleu/s</g>.

If you wish to insert a hyperlink, please tag it as follows:

<U N=http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/>Bryn Mawr Classical Review</U>

That is, use the <U>...</U> element to enclose the word or phrase that should be the source of the link (what the reader will see). Within the opening tag, use the N attribute to contain the URL or web address that is the target of the link (where the reader will go after clicking it).

In the heading, please include Author, Title. City: Press, Year. Pp. Price. ISBN. If available, please give the Library of Congress URL for the table of contents. You can search the LC catalogue at http://catalog.loc.gov/ to see whether there is a link to an html or PDF table of contents in the book record, which can then be inserted into the BMCR review below the reviewer's name in the form: <U N=http://www.loc.gov/ etc.>Table of Contents</U>.

Alternatively, you can list each contributor and essay/chapter title at the end of the review and include the following below the ISBN: "[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]" (You may be able to cut and paste the list from the publisher's website.)

Please then give YOUR name, institution and email address.

We use Microsoft Word 2004 on a Mac. Please send your review as an attachment (in Word or RTF) to classrev@brynmawr.edu. Please save Word 2007 documents as Word 97-2003. If you cannot send it as an attachment, cut and paste the text into the e-mail.

Please send the review within three months. If this will be a problem (e.g., the book is not what you expected), let us know and we will re-assign it. Once we've received your review, it should appear electronically within two months; if it does not, ask us why.

Richard Hamilton, classrev@brynmawr.edu (for review submissions) or rhamilto@brynmawr.edu

Camilla MacKay, cmackay@brynmawr.edu