A REVIEW should typically include both summary and evaluation. In this IOUDAIOS Review is no different from its printed counterparts. The summary should give readers an overview of the book's central thesis or contribution and the means by which the thesis is put forward or the contribution made. Critique should assess both strengths and weaknesses; if a negative review seems necessary, criticisms should be offered in a forthright yet civil manner. As always, reviews should discuss the task and argument of the book in hand, not another question or argument proposed by the reviewer.
Reviews would also benefit from a clear statement of the readership for which the work would be most suitable, and an indication of the book's importance.
Benjamin G. Wright, <E>No Small Difference: Sirach's relationship to its Hebrew parent text</E>. Septuagint and Cognate Studies 26; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989. Pp. xx + 354.In the body of the review, the author should be referred to by the initial of the author's surname (in the cases when the author's name begins a paragraph, it should be spelled in full).
The review should end with the reviewer's name, postal address, and e-mail address.
The format of the review presents problems as well as possibilities. Network mail must use only the characters that are able to pass through national boundaries and network gateways unscathed. Further, electronic publication does away with some of the conventions of print, notably means of citation (page numbers), font changes (italics, Greek, Hebrew), and diacritics. IOUDAIOS Review addresses these problems by means of "descriptive markup", that is, introducing "tags" which inform the reader of paragraph numbers, font changes, and diacritical signs. The CCAT (U of Pennsylvania) transliteration system for Greek and Hebrew has been adopted; the tables for fonts and diacritics are given below, along with some guidelines for their use.
Published reviews will have "logically" numbered paragraphs to facilitate citation. These can be added by the style editor, but contributors may wish to include them as they write. The suggested form would have introductory comments as sections 0.1, 0.2,...; summary material as 1.1, 1.2,...; and evaluation and critique as 2.1, 2.2... ;3.1... ; with the concluding paragraphs numbered 00.1 etc. Enter them thus:
<0.1>
Here are my introductory comments....
<1.1>
This is what the book has to say....
<1.2>
It also talks about these things....
<2.1>
This is what I like about it....
<3.1>
But there were several drawbacks....
<3.2>
And further drawbacks....
<00.1>
And I conclude with these remarks.
These conventions - as well as the "tags" for font changes - will make the electronic text a useful and easily searchable "database" in addition to facilitating citability.
FOOTNOTES are not easily read (necessarily being endnotes)
in an electronic review. We request that reviewers keep use
of notes to a minimum or avoid them altogether. If they are
used, the index in the text should appear as<1> (the note
number to follow punctuation marks) and the corresponding
note at the END of the review thus:
<<1>> Here is the note.
Tag: Diacritic: Examples:
<'e> acute ex<'e>g<`e>se
<`e> grave
<^a> circumflex ...la secte de Qumr<^a>n
<"a> umlaut Pal<"a>stina
<,c> cedille
<~n> tilde
<.h> underdot Na<.h>al <.H>ever
Alpha A Mu M
Beta B Nu N
Gamma G Xi C
Delta D Omicron O
Epsilon E Pi P
Zeta Z Rho R
Eta H Sigma S
Theta Q Tau T
Iota I Upsilon U
Iota subscript | Phi F
Kappa K Chi X
Lambda L Psi Y
Omega W
II. DIACRITICALS. Diacritical marks are placed after the
letter. A breathing mark always precedes an accent.
rough breathing (
smooth breathing )
acute accent /
circumflex accent =
grave accent \
Hebrew Coding Hebrew Coding
alef ) patah A
bet B qametz F
gimel G hireq I
dalet D segol E
he H tsere "
waw W holam O
zayin Z qibbuts U
het X shureq W.
tet + schwa :
yod Y holem waw OW
kaf K hateph-pathah :A
lamed L hateph-qametz :F
mem M hateph-segol :E
nun N maqqeph -
samek S dagesh .
ayin ( rape ,
pe P ketiv *
zade C qere **
qof Q
resh R
sin/shin #
sin &
shin $
taw T