Hypatia review essays may take a number of different forms, depending on the topic, format, and significance of the books under review. We ask, however, that contributors follow these broad guidelines for the preparation and submission of review essay manuscripts to HRO. Reviewers may be required to revise their review essays to meet Hypatia's guidelines. Review essays that do not conform to these guidelines may be rejected by the Book Review Editor. Review essays will be refereed by a single anonymous referee. Hypatia does not accept unsolicited review essays.
1) COMPONENTS OF A REVIEW
- Review essays should begin with a brief description of the books, to serve as an abstract that gives readers a sense of the topic and content of each book.
- Reviewers should provide an overview of the books as a whole, not just of one of their aspects or sections, whether the books are monographs or anthologies.
- Reviewers should contextualize the books, and offer an evaluation of at least some of their key themes or components, in addition to providing a summary. Reviewers may want to focus on a subset of the essays included in an anthology or a particular aspect of a monograph for detailed discussion. It is important to give reasons for any evaluation of the book under review, particularly if it is negative. Evaluative comments should be specific and constructive; reviewers should avoid making vague and unproductive claims, such as that an argument is “not feminist” or “not philosophical.”
- Review essays must be written in a manner that shows respect to book author(s) or editor(s) and Hypatia Reviewers should evaluate the ideas and arguments presented in the books, avoiding ad hominem criticisms.
- Reviewers are asked to be attuned to and respectful of diverse philosophical methods and voices. Reviewers are encouraged to familiarize themselves with common exclusionary practices that have served to render philosophy in general, and feminist philosophy in particular, less than welcoming to historically marginalized social groups, and to ensure that those practices are not repeated in the review. This is especially important when reviewing works that challenge dominant ways of doing philosophy.
- Hypatia has a long tradition of treating reviews as a context in which to foster excellent scholarship in feminist philosophy. With this in mind, we particularly encourage book reviewers to consider the following questions:
- Do the books you are reviewing make a significant, original contribution to feminist philosophy?
- Do the authors reflect an awareness of the diversity of women’s lives, and of feminist perspectives relevant to the issues they discuss?
2) FORMAT
- Length: Review essays should run from 1500 to 2500 words. Review authors who feel that the books they are reviewing require longer or shorter treatment should consult the Book Review Editor.Bibliographic entry (header): Begin your review essay with a bibliographic entry that includes accurate information about the authors, titles, publishers, places and dates of publication, and ISBN numbers for the books you are reviewing.
Examples:
Linda L. Layne, Sharra L. Vostral, and Kate Boyer (editors)
Feminist Technology
Urbana, Chicago, and Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-252-07720-3
Kathryn T. Gines
Hannah Arendt and the Negro Question Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014 ISBN 978-0-253-01171-8
3) SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND DEADLINES
- Deadlines: To ensure that Hypatia publishes timely reviews of new books in feminist philosophy, we ask that you submit your review essay within six months of receiving the books you have agreed to review.
- Submission: Please submit your review essay through the Manuscript Central submission and review system. The Hypatia submission page can be found at the following URL. When you reach this site, use the “Book Review” tab to submit your review manuscript. https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hypa
- Before submitting your review essay, please ensure that it is fully anonymous. All potentially identifying information must be removed for Hypatia’s anonymous review process.
- Production: If your review essay is accepted by the Book Review Editor, the Hypatia Managing Editor will enter your review essay into the production process. They will provide you with further information and instructions about the production process at that time.
4) MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION GUIDELINES
- File type and format: Manuscripts should be submitted as Word files. They should be double- spaced (including quotations, notes, and references), and the right margin should be justified.
- Spelling: Please use American spellings and punctuation, except when directly quoting a source that has followed British style.
- Commas: Hypatia uses the serial, or Oxford, comma.
- Notes: Please do not use the “insert endnote/footnote” function in Microsoft Word. Instead, place numerals between arrowheads (e.g.,<2>) in the text. List notes in the penultimate section of the paper (just before the references). For example:
Instead of: ...erroneous due to an improper standard of rationality.2 Use:
In text: ...erroneous due to an improper standard of rationality.<2>
In notes: 2. By "standard of rationality," I mean...
References:
In text citations
We use the author/date system of citing references, as described in The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed., University of Chicago Press, 2017). For in-text citations or endnotes, works should be cited as (author year, page number); for example (Card 2003, 65). Multiple citations should be in chronological order, and, if in the same year, alphabetical within year; for example (England 2004; Pierce 2005; Pratt 2005; Jiwani and Young 2006).
References:
A list of all works cited should be included after the notes in a section called “References.” Works that are not actually cited should not be included in the “References” section. In the reference section, titles of articles and books follow sentence capitalization—only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. Quotation marks are not needed for articles. Book and journal titles should be italicized. Journal citations should include both volume and issue numbers.
Examples
Books
Aysha Hidayatullah. 2014. Feminist edges of the Qur’an. New York: Oxford University Press.
Journal Articles
Calhoun, Chesire. 1995. Standing for something. Journal of Philosophy 92 (5): 235–61.
Chapter from a book
Roberts, Dorothy E. 1999. Mothers who fail to protect their children: Accounting for private and public responsibility. In Mother troubles: Rethinking contemporary maternal dilemmas, ed. Julia E. Hanigsberg and Sara Ruddick. Boston: Beacon.
Two or more authors
Pacala, Stephen, and Robert Socolow. 2004. Stabilization wedges: Solving the climate problem for the next 50 years with current technologies. Science 305 (5686): 968–72.
Newspaper Article
Clines, Francis X. 2001. Before and after: Voices in the wind, a new form of grieving evolves over last goodbyes. The New York Times, September 16.
Website
National Down Syndrome Society. 2002. About Down Syndrome. http://www.ndss.org/aboutds/aboutds.html (accessed January 8, 2002).
Legal Document
Education for All Handicapped Children Act. 1975. U.S. Public Law 94–142, U.S. Code. Vol. 20, sec. 1400 et seq.
