Review Book/Product/Software

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In tagging a book or product review, there are two parts to the material to be captured:

The review content, tagged as an article, complete with journal metadata (<journal-meta>), article metadata (<article-meta>), a body (<body>) containing the text of the review, and, potentially, back matter (<back>); and
Information identifying the book or product being reviewed, tagged using the <product> element within the article metadata (<article-meta>).

All information in <article-meta>, other than within the <product> element, describes the review article itself, not the book (or other product) being reviewed. While the text below primarily describes a book or product review, reviews for software, websites, journal articles, issues of journals, laboratory or electronic equipment, DVDs, or other things can be tagged similarly.

Identifying the Review

On the <article> element, the @article-type attribute should identify the article as a product review, with a value such as “book-review”, “software-review”, etc.

Best Practice: An article that reviews research findings in a particular domain should be tagged @article-type="review-article".

Titles in Reviews

The title of the object being reviewed is tagged inside <product>, typically as a <source> element, but using other elements as appropriate. (See Titles in Citations.)

There are several common styles of article title (<article-title>) for reviews. The title of the article may be:

the book or product title such as Moby Dick, or
a generic phrase such as “Book Reviews”, or
a generic phrase such as “Book Reviews:” followed by the title of the book or product (“Recent Reviews: Moby Dick”), or
a descriptive or catchy title concerning the book or product (“Whale of a Tale”).

Even if the title of the article is the same as the title of the book, that information is recorded in two different places, once as the <article-title> in the article metadata (<article-meta>) and once as the <source> inside <product>.

For some journals, the generic phrase like “Book Reviews” may be an article category or eyebrow title rather than part of the title of the article. Such titles are tagged as <subject>s inside <article-categories>. In these cases, the <subject> does not take the place of an <article-title>.

Author(s) of the Article and Book

The author of the review should be tagged as the author of the article (<contrib>). The authors of the product being reviewed should be included only within <product>, using <name>, <person-group>, or <string-name> as appropriate. For more guidance, see Names and String Names in Citations. Since the <product> element has textual content, it is very like a <mixed-citation>, and the same type of considerations apply.

Metadata for the Reviewed Object

In many book or product reviews, the <product> element commonly includes:

Bibliographic information about the book or product cited, such as the book title (<source>), <edition>, <isbn>, or <elocation-id>;
Its <price>; and
Its <size>.

The attribute @product-type names the type of product being reviewed, for example, “book”, “software”, “article” (journal article), “issue” (journal issue), “website”, or “film”.

Best Practice: Since the metadata specified within the <product> element applies to the book or product being reviewed, information concerning other products (for example, products the author might mention for comparison to the primary product) should not be mentioned within the <product> element, but only in the actual body of the review.

Sample Reviews

<article dtd-version="1.4"  
  article-type="product-review"
  xml:lang="en"
  xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
 <front>
  <journal-meta>
   <journal-id>WRJ-9000</journal-id>
   <journal-title-group>
    <journal-title>Worm-Runner&rsquo;s Journal</journal-title>
   </journal-title-group>
   <issn>123-123-123-998X</issn>
  </journal-meta>
  <article-meta>
   <title-group>
    <article-title>Software package solves everything</article-title>
   </title-group>
   <contrib-group>
    <contrib>
     <name><surname>Piez</surname>
      <given-names>Wendell A.</given-names></name>
    </contrib>
   </contrib-group>
   <pub-date iso-8601-date="2002">
    <year>2002</year>
   </pub-date>
   <product>
    <name><surname>Mxytlpk</surname>
    <given-names>Abelard Q.</given-names></name>
    <source>Conflagration</source>
    <year iso-8601-date="2002">2002</year>
    <publisher-name>Venusian Codewrights, Inc.</publisher-name>
    <price>$3.95</price>
   </product>
   <abstract>
    <p>A software review</p>
   </abstract>
  </article-meta>
 </front>
 <body>
  <p>This program will answer all your genome questions. It
   searches the Web for genetic information of all kinds,
   correlates it with all other information available anywhere,
   and reports all functions of a particular genome segment
   in all known species. And, it&rsquo;s only $3.95.</p>
 </body>
</article>

<article dtd-version="1.4"  
  article-type="book-review"
  xml:lang="en"
  xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" >
 <front>
  <journal-meta>
   <journal-id>WfR-1803</journal-id>
   <journal-title-group>
    <journal-title>Wildflower Reviews</journal-title>
   </journal-title-group>
   <issn>978-999-999-999X</issn>
  </journal-meta>
  <article-meta>
   <title-group>
    <article-title>New book walks you through Washington&rsquo;s
     vegetation</article-title>
   </title-group>
   <contrib-group>
    <contrib>
     <name><surname>Gaylord</surname>
      <given-names>Tonya R.</given-names></name>
    </contrib>
   </contrib-group>
   <pub-date iso-8601-date="2000">
    <year>2000</year>
   </pub-date>
   <volume>318</volume>
   <issue>7187</issue>
   <fpage>837</fpage>
   <lpage>841</lpage>
   <product>
    <name><surname>Lapeyre</surname>
    <given-names>Deborah A.</given-names></name>
    <name><surname>Usdin</surname>
    <given-names>B. Tommie</given-names></name>
    <source>Wildflowers of the Washington Area</source>
    <year iso-8601-date="2002">2002</year>
    <publisher-name>Lippman, Ltd.</publisher-name>
    <publisher-loc>Bethesda, MD</publisher-loc>
    <isbn>0-23-8675-309</isbn>, includes a CD-ROM,
    <price>$19.95</price> (Used 12.50 when available)
   </product>
   <abstract>
    <p>A glowing book review</p>
   </abstract>
  </article-meta>
 </front>
 <body>
  <p>A must read. Far better than
   <mixed-citation>
    <person-group>
    <name><surname>Aristotle</surname></name>
    </person-group>&rsquo;s
    <source>Politics, Poetics, and Wildflowers, Illustrated</source>
   </mixed-citation>.</p>
 </body>
</article>

Reviews in Citations

When a review is cited in a bibliography, the @publication-type attribute on the <element-citation> or <mixed-citation> element should be used to distinguish it: “@publication-type='review'”.

When a brief review is provided as part of a bibliographic citation for a book or article (that is, within an <element-citation> or <mixed-citation>), the reviewing text is not tagged as a review or as a product, but should instead be tagged as an <annotation>.