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.

We will expect to receive your review of 1000-2000 words within four months (this limit includes both text and footnotes). Please check with us if your review will be over 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

Reviews should be written using Microsoft Word or other word-processing programs.

• In the heading, please include the information about the book that we published in our monthly Books Received list (search the BMCR website if you no longer have that information: )
• Please give YOUR name, institution, and email address.

• If possible, please include the table of contents, in one of the followign forms:
  1. Search Google Books (books.google.com) to see if there is a Limited Preview or Full View of the book (not a Snippet View). If there is, insert a link in the review in the form:
     <u n=http://books.google.com/books?id=[etc]>Preview</u>
  2. 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>.
  3. Insert the table of contents at the end of your review, noting at the beginning of the review: “[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]” (You may be able to copy the TOC from the publisher’s website.)
• In general, to insert a hyperlink, tag it as follows:

<u n=http://www.brynmawr.edu>Bryn Mawr</u>. Links to BMCR reviews only should be encoded "BMCR <b>2009.01.01</b>". (In our system, <b> is not code for bold text; rather, it automatically generates a link to the BMCR site.)

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) and place the url after “n=” (this is the target of the link, the website the reader will be taken to after clicking the link)

• Separate paragraphs with a line space. DO NOT indent.
• If you wish to indent a long quotation (i.e., more than seven lines) , please use <q>...</q> .
• DO NOT use italics, bold type, or underlining. Please tag anything requiring italics or emphasis with <i>...</i>, e.g., <i>nomen</i>. Encoded words will appear italicized in the web version of the review, but in normal type in the email version.
• Separate lines of verse with <v> before and </v> after each line.
• DO NOT use footnotes.  Both the note and the reference to the note should be numbered [[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]] …”  (i.e., after any punctuation, with no space). The notes themselves should go at the end of the text.
• DO NOT use special characters, e.g., § ĉ « „ .
• 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.

  Here’s how to turn off Word auto-formatting (and so avoid en-dashes, ellipses, curlicue quotation marks, etc.):

  Word 2004 (Mac): go to ToolsAutoCorrect, and under the AutoFormat As You Type tab, uncheck the options listed under Replace as you type.

  Word 97-2003 (PC): go to ToolsAutoCorrect Options, AutoFormat As You Type, and uncheck the “Replace as you type” options.

  Word 2007 (PC): go to the Microsoft Office button (at the top left corner) and go to Word OptionsProofingAutoCorrect Options, and uncheck the Replace as you type options.

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 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>.

Please send your review as an attachment to classrev@brynmawr.edu.

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, rhamilto@brynmawr.edu

Camilla MacKay, cmackay@brynmawr.edu

classrev@brynmawr.edu (for review submissions)