The book report should include these elements:

1. Title, author, and publication material for the book being reviewed.

2. What type of book is being reviewed? Is it a text book, an historical narrative, a monograph? What is its target audience? Buffs? The literate public? College Students? Other historians?

3. A statement of the book's purpose:
-is the author studying a subject for the first time?
-is this an update or revision of an older study on the subject?
-does the book propose a new thesis or interpretation of a subject? (A thesis can be defined as the explanation which an historians proposes to explain an event, a phenomena or motivations.)
-is this a survey of current scholarship on the subject

4. What kind of sources are used? primary or secondary or both? describe these sources. what kind of notes are included, maps? charts? is there a bibliography? is it annotated?

5. State the thesis(es) of the book and/or its principal conclusions. List and briefly describe the principal topics discussed by the author.

6. How has this book been received by professional historians? Look up and report on at least three book reviews found in professional historical journals. You may not use newspapers, mass circulation media or library journals. (Choice, for example, is a library journal and thus not to be used.) Your report should include specific examples of what the reviewers praised or criticized about the book. Statements that the book is good or bad are not very informative; we need to know why. Please include complete citations of each review: author, journal, volume, year, pages. Please use a standard form of citation, preferably that contained in Turabian. Note: Book Review Digest, and the indexes to the principal historical periodicals are good places for hunting up book reviews.

N.B. The prudent student will make sure that three book reviews can be located PRIOR to reading the book. Excuses that three academic reviews cannot be located regretfully will not be accepted under any circumstances.