Book Review

Scholarly Book Review – The final component of this course is for you to read one of the assigned books, Out-of-Control Criminal Justice, and write a scholarly book review. For this assignment, you must cite at least five peer-reviewed articles, not books, in your review. The articles students cite should be relevant and timely (e.g. no older than say 2009, unless they are considered to ‘classics’). Your scholarly book review must be between 2,250 to 2,700 words. For this assignment, you need to do more than merely provide merely provide a synopsis of the book. Rather, provide a scholarly analysis of the book and explain what, if anything, it contributes to our understanding of criminal justice policy. Students who do a particularly good job with this assignment will be encouraged to submit their work to a scholarly journal. Scholarly publications are often very helpful in gaining admittance to Ph.D. programs. Doing this assignment might also provide you with an opportunity down the road to demonstrate to your supervisors at work that you have an ability to synthesize information into an interesting, evocative report. Also, scholarly book reviews enhance one’s visibility as a burgeoning scholar, make a contribution to the field of criminal justice, and provide invaluable opportunities for personal growth. The instructor will provide everyone with an example of a scholarly book at the beginning of the course. All scholarly book reviews will be submitted either by the student or the instructor to Safe for originality in order to ensure that there is not any forms of plagiarism, either deliberate or accidental. It must be evident that all papers are original works. If a Safe report reveals any evidence of plagiarism, the paper will not be graded and will be assigned a "zero." Students should visit with the instructor before the assignment is due if they have any questions about this. Also, if a student fails to cite at least five peer-reviewed journal articles and include these in the references at the end of the book review, it will incur an automatic penalty of twenty points.