Book Review Guidelines

Trinity Journal accepts book reviews for publication. Please note the following for submitting book reviews.

Deadlines

It is very important to have your book review done in the time frame requested when you agree to do a review. Generally, this is March 15 for the Spring issue and September 15 for the Fall issue.  Ideally, book reviews should appear as soon as possible after the publication of the book.

Format

Please use the following format for the heading of your review:

Author. Title. Place of publication: Publisher, Date of publication. No. of pages.  Price.

Please type your name as you wish it to appear in the review (no titles or degrees, please), along with your institution (school, church, organization), and its city and state (or country) at the end of the review.  Also, please include the address to which your offprints should be mailed.

Style & Content Guidelines

  1. The review should provide accurate information about the content of the book, which generally means that the contents of individual chapters should be adequately surveyed and summarized.  It may be helpful to provide brief information about the author and the background of the book (e.g., if the book is the result of a conference, the revision of a PhD dissertation, etc.).

  2. The review should evaluate the book’s strengths and weaknesses.

  3. The review should assess the book’s place in its field including comments on how the book fits in with other studies on similar topics, and on the potential value and impact of the book.

  4. The review should be written in concise, clear English, follow the Chicago Manual of Style or the SBL Handbook of Style.

  5. References to individuals (e.g., others in a given field, historical figures, opponents, etc.) should include both the first and last name (e.g., James Dunn, N. T. Wright, Alvin Plantinga, etc.).  It is understood some historical figures are most commonly referred to by one name (e.g., Origen, Augustine, etc.).

Length

Book reviews should have a target word count of 900-1200 words.

Completed Reviews

Electronic copies are preferred and may be sent to Book Review Editor  as attachments, preferably in MS Word with Unicode fonts, with an introductory message explaining what should be found as the attached document.  Note that the book review editor reserves the right to decline unsolicited reviews.