Chap wrote:What worries me is when I see signs of 'self-interested behavior' in the form of unalloyed praise by early career scholars of books by people in influential positions who are known to be intolerant of criticism. I don't much blame the young and untenured: they often have good reason to fear revenge if they do not build up their elders' egos, and they find if difficult to turn down an invitation to review.
In my opinion, the frequency of such behavior imposes a duty on scholars in secure positions to be prepared to review frankly, and where appropriate negatively - subject always to the primary duty to inform the reader clearly of the purpose and content of the work under review, and to recognising that there are very few books that are entirely without value.
Yes, Chap. And these guidelines are clearly not about abandoning the duty to be a critical (in the analytical sense) reader in order to be a "nice" reviewer. Praise for bad books is a dereliction of the scholar's duty. What these guidelines show is that there is a broad consensus on what it means to be professional in writing a review.
Here are some of the qualities that stand out from my reading of these documents and others:
1. A constructive criticism
2. Avoids sarcasm, snark, insults
3. Does not make it personal
4. Keeps to the point
5. Not written to uphold the interests of a certain ideology or group
6. Written by a qualified reviewer
7. A serious engagement of the book on its own terms
8. One review in the journal is usually all that is warranted for one book
Of course, these stand out in the present context because they are precisely the kinds of things that the FARMS Review falls down on (and on a fairly regular basis).
Note that none of this is a call to be nice, flattering, or uncritical.