Book Review Policy

TESL-EJ welcomes book reviews and review essays of scholarly works and textbooks dealing with English teaching, applied linguistics, second language acquisition, language assessment, applied socio- and psycholinguistics, literacy, language policy or related disciplines. Anyone interested in reviewing a book for TESL-EJ should take the following steps:

Choose a recent book in the field (published within the past two calendar years). You are encouraged to review previously published TESL-EJ issues to ensure that the book has not been reviewed already (duplicates will not be accepted). After confirmation from the Book Review team, you might be able to directly request a review copy from the publisher.
Contact the Book Review Editors about its suitability. They can be reached at reviews@tesl-ej.org.
If your book is approved, write a review following the Review Style Guidelines below. Explore and read past published reviews for an idea of the content and structure to which you should attend.
Submit your review to the Book Review Editors for its evaluation for publication in TESL-EJ.

In all cases, submitted reviews will be considered for publication on the basis of the quality of the evaluation and description of the book, as well as the relevance and importance of the book to the field and our readership. Simply submitting a review to the Book Review Editors does not alone ensure its publication.

Please see the Review Style Guidelines (below) before submitting a review.

All reviews must be emailed to the editors and submitted as a Word document. Please label your file as follows: Your last name, author’s last name.doc (e.g., Seng_Grosjean.doc).

TESL-EJ reviews are published on a rolling schedule. There are no deadlines. If accepted, reviews will be published in the next available issue.
The Book Review Editors reserve the right to edit for style, length and format, as well as reject unsuitable reviews. Substantive changes will be made only after consultation with the reviewer.

Content and Style Guidelines for TESL-EJ Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Book reviews should be 900-1,200 words long and should provide both a description and a substantive evaluation of the content, with the emphasis on the latter. We particularly welcome reviews of textbooks you have already used with students or have included in a syllabus for an upcoming course. Please make such uses evident in your review. Also, considering our broad international readership and readers’ varying backgrounds, please define or explain all terms only an ESL/EFL subfield specialist would be expected to know.

The typical published review provides an introduction to the book, its purpose, and its intended audience. Then, the structure of the book (e.g., themes, sections, chapters, etc) is usually provided. Descriptions of chapter contents, with illustrative examples and comments, are provided when possible; however, in the case that there are numerous chapters, summaries and/or details of select sections can be considered as part of your assessment. Book reviews typically end with a substantive evaluation of the book’s strengths and areas for improvement.

Include a full citation at the beginning of the review, including title, author/editor, edition, date of publication, place of publication, publisher, pagination (small Roman numerals for introductory pages + Arabic numerals for main text pages), ISBN number ( 13-digits), and price. A sample of the format follows:

Why Is English Like That?
Norbert Schmitt & Richard Marsden (2006)
Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press
Pp. x + 246
ISBN 978-0-472-03134-4 (paper)
$27.50 U.S.

The reviewer’s name, affiliation, and e-mail address should be included at the end of the review, flushed left, and on separate lines, as shown:

Joe Smith
Example University, USA
email@email.com

Review Essays

Review essays may be 1,500-2,000 words in length and should include discussion of two or more related books or one author of several books. Full citations of all books discussed, as well as reviewer’s name and affiliation, should be as described above.

All reviews should conform generally to the American Psychological Association format (7th edition), with the following adjustments made for computer-based dissemination:

Single space the text.
Double space between paragraphs (no indents).
Keep endnotes to a minimum. If used, number them, using square brackets, consecutively within the text. For example: . . . this unusual methodology [1] . .
Use APA 7th edition for citations and references.
For more details, please see the TESL-EJ Style Sheet for Authors