The Philosophers' Cocoon

Book review of Karen Kelsky's "The Professor is in"

Kelsky, Karen (2015). The Professor is in. The essential guide to turning your PhD into a job. Three Rivers Press. 

This book is aimed at job candidates in academia, graduate students but also more seasoned people looking for their first tenure-track job. The author has a consulting firm, with the same name as the book, which helps people with their dossier materials, negotiating job offers, prepping for interviews and editing grant proposals. Before starting her firm, she was a tenured professor, a position she left to pursue other things. 

Some questions about the book review process

I personally know a few authors who have received negative book reviews that, in their opinion, were not just negative but in some way(s) below an "appropriate scholarly standard." Now, presumably, no one likes to receive a negative review--and in some cases one may simply be upset at receiving one. Some book reviews, however, arguably are below an appropriate scholarly standard--for instance, by simply stating the reviewer's opinions/biases without much, or any, argumentation in support of their negative assertions. I have read reviews like this recently, where a reviewer boldly states, "This book is bad in respect X", but without any further justification for why anyone should actually believe the book is bad at X.

Now, of course, one way to respond to this issue is to simply trust readers--trust them, that is, to tell the difference between conscientious, well-reasoned reviews and less conscientious, poorly reasoned ones. And indeed, I've seen cases of this online--cases where someone shares a poorly reasoned book review on social media, and everyone basically agrees it is a terrible review.

Still, given the stakes involved--given that poor reviews could potentially undermine a person's case for tenure or promotion, not to mention their perception in the discipline--several questions come to my mind: