Dec 10 2007
NBCC Posts Its Ethics in Reviewing Survey
National Book Critics Circle posted a summarization of the results of its Ethics in Book Reviewing survey. It’s okay to ignore self published authors and you shouldn’t review a book without reading the whole thing. There’s lots of other stuff, like whether it is more appropriate to eat m&m’s or hershey kisses while reviewing and whether you have to wear pants when you type since no one can see you, so go ahead and read the rest of the summarization.
(Yes, I made the latter two survey results up.)
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Dec 10, 2007 @ 15:17:19
Damn. Does that mean I shouldn’t write anymore DNF reviews? Because most of the books I would otherwise grade a C- or lower I simply don’t finish.
Dec 10, 2007 @ 15:18:40
Nope, Janine, we are peons in the reviewing ladder so I think it is fair to say we get to make up our own rules.
Dec 10, 2007 @ 15:24:23
Double damn. I’m pretty sure I’m mentioned in the acknowledgements for Sherry Thomas’s Private Arrangements.
I do this, too. And here I thought I was an ethical person!
Dec 10, 2007 @ 15:30:21
Yeah, since we’re not on a salary for the reviewing we do here, it does seem stringent to me to ask that we hold ourselves to these standards. I try to be ethical by acknowledging upfront that I haven’t finished the books I give DNFs to, that Sherry Thomas is my friend and I’m acknowledged in her book, and that I’ve sometimes read other reviews of the books I’ve reviewed before reviewing them (I often link to them in the body of the review, too!).
Dec 10, 2007 @ 22:55:27
No! (1) They’re entertaining and (2) they’re honest. I don’t trust sites that only have glowing reviews because they defy the law of averages.