1. Book Review Assignment (Individual Assignment 20%)

For this class, you are required to write a book review of The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (2004) by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (Author), Jeff Cox (Author)

Your book review will not be due until Week 14, the last day of my class PPB 3193.

Your book review should be 20-25 typed pages long (double-spaced, one-inch margins). I expect your book review to be free of grammatical and spelling errors, and otherwise well edited. Please refer to the next section for tips about how to write good book reviews.

Writing Good Book Reviews

A book review does not only tell you what a book is about, but also whether it achieves what it is trying to do. Therefore, a book review is more than a summary of the content (even though this is an important component), but a critical analysis of the book and your reactions to it.

While you are reading the book, take notes about the following issues:

- What is the authors main goal in writing this book? (Convince you of his position on a controversy? Explain the background of an event? Raise awareness of a particular issue?)

- What are the authors main points?

- What kind of evidence does the author provide to make his or her points? How convincing is this evidence?

- Is the book well written? (Easily understandable? Good style?)

- What group of readers would find this book most useful (Lay people? Students? Experts in the area?)

A book review usually has the following components

1) Introduction (5%)

- Bibliographic information (author, title, date of publication, publisher, number of pages, type of book)

- Brief overview of the theme, purpose and your evaluation

2) Summary of the content (5%)

- Brief summary of the key points of each chapter or group of chapters

- Paraphrase the information, but use a short quote when appropriate

3) Evaluation and conclusion (10%)

- Give your opinion about the book. Is the book easy to read or confusing? Is the book interesting, entertaining, instructive? Does the author support his arguments well? What are the books greatest strengths and weaknesses? Who would you recommend the book to?