The Ethics of Scholarly Book Reviewing

Abstract

Post-publication scholarly book reviews, as acts of public assessment, draw attention to the contributions of recently published scholarly works. The various actors in the production and consumption of scholarly book reviews—authors, publishers, reviewers, book review editors, readers—bring different expectations to such reviews. As evaluators, reviewers must strive for accurate and appropriate descriptions and assessments that are objective, fair, unbiased, and without conflicts of interest. Questions of ethics can arise in many ways. This article describes the key relationships in the production of scholarly book reviews, emphasizing several ethical dimensions that reviewers should keep in mind at all stages of the reviewing process.