Book Review Guidelines

CodeGuru posts a number of reviews for books of interest to developers. If you would like to write a book review for CodeGuru, there are a few guidelines for writing it. These are contained here.

• Books for review
• Information needed from a Review
• Writing the review
• Submitting the review

If you are wanting to submit a regular article to CodeGuru, then you should read our submission guidelines.

Books to Review

Only reviews for books of interest to CodeGuru's audience will be posted. Multiple reviews for a single book will be considered; however, we would prefer reviews of books that have not yet been reviewed. At times, CodeGuru will offer review copies of books for review. Such copies will be offered via the discussion forums and announcements on the site.

You can have your name added to the list of possible reviewers by sending an e-mail to submit@codeguru.com with the subject of "Book Reviews." You should include a list of topics which you are interested in reviewing. Selection of reviewers is at the whim of the site manager and there is no guarantees implied or expressed. People in the continental United States will be given preference due to the lower shipping cost.

Information needed in a review

When creating a review, you don't need to be fancy and try to write literary prose. You do, however, need to provide some basic information along with your review. This basic information is listed in the table below.

When writing the review, don't just tell us what is in the book. Tell us what you think about the book. Here are a few questions to consider when writing the text portion (<para>'s) for your review:

• Is this book timely? When was it published? Too early? Too late?
• Who is the information aimed at? Is this who the author says is the audience of the book? For example, an intermediate level book is bad if it contains beginner information. Who will get the most value from this book? Who will get the least value?
• Does the book seem accurate?
• Does the book seem too long or too short?
• Does the book seem priced right?
• Do you like the book? Why or why not?
• If there is a CD or Web site, is it valuable? Does it do what the book promises?
• Do you recommend this book to others?
• etc.

The specific information needed within a review is listed below. You should note which listed items are required in order for the review to be posted:

Writing the review

As to specific format, reviews will be converted into an XML file that is used to dynamically generate the review on the CodeGuru site. We therefore request that you use XML. The easiest way to do this is to cut and paste the XML template that follows into a text editor. You can then replace the Green text with your review information. All the Maroon text tags should be a part of your file. This is the XML markup.

The XML You should use:

<review>
   <Title>Title goes here</Title>
   <Subtitle>Subtitle goes here if there 
            is one.</Subtitle>
   <Abstract>One to four sentences describing 
            the content of the book.</Abstract>
   <reviewLink>This will be the name of the XML 
            file containing the review</reviewLink><coverPhoto></coverPhoto>
   <categoryList>
       <cat>This will be one of the following values:
            dotnet (All .NET Topics), 
            cpp (C++ and Visual C++),
            vb (Visual Basic), 
            com (COM, DCOM, and COM+ topics),
            db (database topics),
            design (Design related topics), 
            drv (Drivers), 
            gen (General development topics), 
            opsys (Operating system and networking topics),
            security (Security topics), 
            mgmt (management topics), 
            web (Web topics)
       </cat>

       <cat>Fill this in if second category. Add 
       additional cat tags if needed</cat>
   </categoryList>
   <AuthorList>
      <Author>
         <Name>First Author</Name>
      </Author>
      <Author>
         <Name>Second Author - Copy the author 
         tag for more authors</Name>
      </Author>
   </AuthorList>
   <datePublished Month="11" Year="2001" />
   <publisher>
      <name>Publishing company</name>
       <site>http://www.publisherssite.com/</site>
   </publisher>
   <isbn>#-####-####-#</isbn>
   <features>
      <pages>####</pages>
      <cdrom>y or n</cdrom>
      <site>http://www.books-site-if-stated.com</site>
   </features>
   <price>###.## USD</price>
   <dateReviewed Day="21" Month="11" 
     Year="2001"/>
   <reviewer>
      <name>Your name here</name>
   </reviewer>
   <ratings>
      <readability>0 if not readable or 
                   1 if readable</readability>
      <depth> 0 or 1</depth>
      <organization>0 or 1</organization>
      <accuracy>0 or 1</accuracy>
      <design>0 or 1</design>
      <overallValue>0 or 1</overallValue>
      <total>Value from 1 to 5</total>
   </ratings>

   <body>
      <para> This contains the review 
      itself. Each paragraph of the review should be in para tags.</para>
      <para>This is a second paragraph...</para><para></para>
   </body>
</review>

If you are uncomfortable using XML, you can submit the review as text; however, you will need to include all of the required information in an easy to "cut & paste" format. Because you will require us to do the formatting to XML, your review may be delayed in getting posted to the site.

Submitting the Review

Once you have created the document for the review, you should submit it to CodeGuru. You can do this by e-mailing it to submit@codeguru.com. You should include the review as an attachment to the e-mail. Within the e-mail you should include your name, e-mail address, and the title of the book being reviewed. You should also state that it is a review to be posted on CodeGuru.com.

In Conclusion...

Writing book reviews can be fun. We get books on a regular basis. In some cases we will post the titles, in others we will simply use the names already requesting to do reviews. If you really want to review a book, you don't have to wait for us. Instead you can obtain the book yourself and write the review. Same rules apply (as stated above).

Finally, if you have any questions, let us know at submit@codeguru.com!

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