Toward a Definition of Book Review Policy

A part-time book review editor is a sort of conscripted volunteer, and his problems resemble those of the amateur in any organized enterprise. He undergoes an educational experience in the course of which everyone hopes his mistakes will do as little harm as possible. He learns the things he can do something about and those he had better let alone, those things that have to be put in writing—when—and those things that shouldn't. Perhaps the best example of the first category is his decision to go to work; he is well advised to pick an editor-in-chief whose judgment and standards he respects implicitly, and whose idea of supervision is to create circumstances under which the book review editor can do his job better. The second category consists largely of resisting the temptation to rewrite reviews. Apart from grammatical corrections, clarifying phraseology, and deletions based upon considerations of space, the book review editor should content himself with firm, polite reminders to reviewers, whose drafts he finds unsatisfactory, of the purpose of the review within the word limitation specified in the original invitation. This brings us to the two strategic principles upon which the B.R.E. in most cases can secure acceptance of his responsible judgment: (1) space allocation, translated into reasonable word limitations, and (2) time pressure, expressed in lead times to meet editorial deadlines. The same principles also operate to guide the B.R.E. in his correspondence; if he cannot speak his mind in one page there is apt to be something wrong with his thinking, and an administrative decision that cannot be satisfactorily stated in a public letter should probably be reconsidered.